December 2012 Issue

the harvard-westlake

ChrONICleLos Angeles • Volume XXII • Issue IV • Dec. 19, 2012

OLD SAINT TOM: Director of Student Affairs Jordan Church, left, Senior Alumni Officer Harry Salamandra and Head of Upper School Audrius Barzdukas, right, pose sitting on the lap of Head of School Thomas Hudnut, center, dressed as Santa Claus. Hudnut did not dress up as Santa last year, but returned to the lounge this year as a part of Monday’s Winterfest celebration.

ELIZABETH MADDEN/CHRONICLE

Wangs give $5 millionto renovate Reynolds

Next school year may begin earlyBy DaviD Lim anD michaeL Sugerman

The 2013-2014 school cal-endar, which may push the start date before Labor Day and move midterm exams be-fore winter break, will be an-nounced within the next week.

The Senior Administrative Committee met Monday af-ternoon to reach a decision on schedule changes. Head of Up-per School Audrius Barzdukas said there was a general con-sensus after the meeting, but the administration was “not ready to divulge that informa-tion” as of press time Monday.

“Starting before Labor Day happens every five years or so,” Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said last week. “There is a range and we make sure that every school year the number of days falls within that range because teachers need a dependable number to work with.”

Huybrechts said the timing of Rosh Hashanah in the same week as Labor Day and that both Good Friday and Passover would fall outside of spring break would cut the number of days of school and were rea-sons for the proposed earlier start date.

She added that “plenty of teachers here think [moving exams before break] is worth it to see if it does reduce stress and give teachers more time to teach.”

Top administrators pro-posed this change in an all-faculty meeting Dec. 11, at which Barzdukas said the over-whelming majority of teachers were against pre-break testing.

“There was consensus, not unanimity, that midterms af-ter break, where they are held now, are less stressful for kids,” Barzdukas said. “The culture of Harvard-Westlake is one of continuous improvement. That means asking ourselves tough questions all the time. Every year. There is definitely a cul-ture of constructive dissent in those discussions.”

Santa’s Curtain Call

INSIDESING ALONG: Students showcased their artistic talents at Coffee House.

UP IN SMOKE:Students get hooked on cigarettes, despite the negative effects.

EARLY EXIT: All seven fall teams fell short in their title quests.

Honor Board applies new review procedure

tlak

B9Smooth Jazz:Three big bands performed in the Winter Jazz Concert.

SEASON OF GIVING: Walter and Shirley Wang provided the lead donation for the renovation of Reynolds Hall.

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF CHRISTINE HAZY

By racheL Schwartz

A $5 million donation from Walter and Shirley Wang (Walter ’13, Chantalle ’17, Matthew ’18) will supplement the $1.5 million already raised to completely renovate Reyn-olds Hall.

Chief Advancement Offi-cer Ed Hu said Reynolds Hall has been a fundraising prior-ity since completion of the Bing Performing Arts Center, Munger Library and expanded athletic facilities in 2008.

The Wang family donated the funds in honor of Presi-dent Tom Hudnut and his 26-year tenure.

“I have gotten to know the Wangs quite well over the years,” Hudnut said. “I am very touched that they did this in part to recognize my years

at the school.”Outer walls of the building

will be blown out to expand classroom capacity. Hu called this a “fast track project.” Workers have already begun to hardwire the building to set up wireless accessibility.

“We would like to do this over as short a period as pos-sible,” Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said. It remains undecided as to whether con-struction will be completed “piecemeal,” closing one floor at a time, or whether the school will “bite the bullet,” closing the whole building for a year or more, Hudnut said. The school would resort to temporary bungalows to com-pensate for a loss of classroom space.

The start date of construc-tion has yet to be announced. B6 C6A4

By michaeL rothberg

The Honor Board has re-viewed three cases of Honor Code infractions this year in accordance with the new for-mat of joint deliberation be-tween the Prefect Council and members of the administra-tion.

Under the new format, the cases were first examined by the Honor Board, which decid-ed preliminarily on appropri-ate disciplinary action. After this, Head of the Upper School Audrius Barzdukas joined the discussion until the final deci-sions were reached.

“I feel like Prefect Council, the Honor Board, we have a very productive and substan-tive discussion about the case and then about the subsequent discipline,” Barzdukas said. “And I have to say that the

depth of consideration that the Honor Board gave that case was a credit to them. I mean, they really thought that case through. Our school has a strong Honor Board and a good Honor Board.”

Though he could not dis-cuss the specifics of the case, Barzdukas said that both sides voiced their opinions openly during the deliberations, with the new format.

One case involved a student whom the Honor Board called Gertrude ’15, whose English essay was an 85 percent match to an essay submitted by her older brother, a former Har-vard-Westlake student, indi-cating plagiarism. The Honor Board assigned both names and genders randomly to pre-serve the confidentiality of the

Rough Start:The boys’ soccer team lost four of its first five games.

C2A5Hungry Helpers:Community Council encouraged students to serve with a week of food.

• Continued on page A9

A&E SportS FOR A GOOD CAUSE: Sacha Best ’13 sells baked goods to raise money for victims of Superstorm Sandy.

AN ABSTRACT EXPRESSION: Students in the Advanced Dance I class perform a dance for ARC.

JUST ADD A LITTLE PI-JAZZ: Jazz teacher Shawn Costantino conducts the Jazz Ensemble at the Dec. 8 Winter Jazz Concert.

A TOUGH DEFEAT: Chad Kanoff ’13 takes off his helmet after the varsity football team lost to Camarillo.

The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012

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The ChroniCle is the student newspaper of Harvard-Westlake School. It is published eight times per year. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the seniors on the Editorial Board. Letters to the editor may be submitted to [email protected] or mailed to 3700 Coldwater Canyon Ave., Studio City, CA 91604. Letters must be

signed and may be edited for space and to conform to Chronicle style and format. Advertising questions may be directed to Leslie Dinkin at 310-975-4848. Publication of an advertisement does not imply endorsement of the product or service by the newspaper or the school.

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ONLINE COVERAGE:Check out the high quality video and photo coverage of Harvard-Westlake events including Coffee House and the community service ice cream truck.

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hwchronicle.com/news news A3Dec. 19, 2012

By Lauren Sonnenberg

The Advancement Office will begin to raise $3 million to establish a new scholarship fund, called “Hudnut Schol-ars” in honor of President Tom Hudnut’s 26 years leading Harvard-Westlake.

There will be four events second semester to celebrate Hudnut and honor his last year as headmaster and presi-dent, as he will retire this spring.

Proceeds from these events will go to fund the scholarship, which will be awarded each year to six recipients.

Having six scholarships will ensure that there will be a Hudnut Scholar in each grade in perpetuity. Chief Advance-ment Officer Ed Hu said he hopes to fund a Hudnut Schol-

ar in each class.Hu explained that scholar-

ships are funded from endow-ment income.

By raising $500,000 for each scholarship, an approxi-mately 4.5 percent re-turn on in-vestment per year gener-ates the mon-ey necessary to fund a sin-gle scholar-ship recipient for a year.

An aver-age scholar-ship is around $22,000, the precise scholar-ship amount is determined by the Financial Aid Office.

“We look at each individual situation: the cash flow, what

kind of debts the family has, are they supporting other family members, and figure out based on all that informa-tion how much a family can afford toward their child’s ed-

ucation,” Hu said.

Josh and Beth Fried-man (Spencer ’09, Wesley ’12, Oliver ’17) will chair the campaign.

They are “very in-terested in educ at i ona l causes and

educational institutions and are particularly impassioned about working with people from situations where they don’t have the financial re-

sources to get into places like Harvard-Westlake,” Hu said. The Friedmans will host the annual financial aid dinner in March for families who have supported the financial aid program.

Current seniors on finan-cial aid and alumni will talk about financial aid in high school and how that impacted their lives.

They will also cultivate prospective donors who are interested in financial aid but have never been to the dinner or seen the impact financial aid has on students, Hu said.

Hu defined prospective Hudnut Scholars as students who “possess some kind of leadership qualities.”

This campaign is part of a larger, three to five-year $15 million scholarship campaign.

JOY TO THE WORLD: Members of the Madrigals sing at the annual Christmas Convocation in St. Saviour’s Chapel, led by mid-dle school choir director Nina Burtchaell. The singers performed traditional carols and spirituals for parents and faculty members.

ELIZABETH MADDEN/CHRONICLE

Iñárritu to address Film FestivalBy DaviD WoLDenberg anD eLana ZeLtSer

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Maria Gonzalez ’13) will discuss his career in the movie industry as the keynote speaker at the Harvard-Westlake Film Festi-val on March 15, 2013.

Iñárritu was the first Mexican director to be nomi-nated for the Academy Award for Best Director for his film Babel in 2006.

His films “21 Grams” and “Biutiful” were also nominated by the Academy. Babel also re-ceived a nomination for Best Picture.

“He came to a video art class once before and was great so we’ve been trying to get him to come for years. So, we wrote him a letter,” film festival Co-Director Natalie Markiles ’13 said.

Iñárritu was set to come to the Film Festival last year but had to pull out last minute due to a sudden case of appendici-tis. Director Benicio Del Toro delivered the keynote speech in his place.

Along with other indus-try professionals, Iñárritu will teach students about movie-making at an event called the Day After.All the students involved in the winning films will have a chance to discuss their movies and receive pro-fessional advice.

“He is a self-made man,” film festival Co-Director Re-becca Moretti ’13 said. “He re-lates to these students and can give them advice. He is very charismatic and I think he will be inspiring to the kids at the festival.”

New scholarship will honor Hudnut’s tenure

“[The Friedmans] are very interested in educational causes and educational institutions.”

—Ed HuChief Advancement Officer

Barzdukas, Siegel teach ‘Parenting 101’By eLana ZeLtSer

School psychologist Dr. Sheila Siegel and Head of Up-per School Audrius Barzdukas gave the second presentation in a series entitled HW Par-enting 101 in the lounge on Dec. 6.

Together they answered parents’ questions about so-cial life in high school, drawing from their own experiences raising teenagers.

One parent expressed con-cern about the explicit names of Harvard-Westlake parties as listed on Facebook invita-

tions, saying that they make her hesitant to let her daugh-ter attend.

“As somebody who is ex-tremely reactive, I would react first and then ask questions,” Siegel said. “I would react and then I would ask ‘Why is this ok?’”

Barzdukas stressed the importance of communication in compromising the wants of parents and their children.

“As much respect as you want from them, you have to give more,” Barzdukas said.

When another parent asked how best to open con-

versation with her “mono-syllabic” child, Siegel recom-mended putting them in a car.

“If you drive carpool, it’s great,” Siegel said. “They for-get you are there.”

Prior to this assembly, Sie-gel joined President Thomas Hudnut to discuss the “gift of failure,” focusing on “how to build grit and resilience” on Nov. 29.

Four more seminars will take place surrounding topics such as college, grades, medi-tation, and adulthood. The next meeting will take place on Jan. 10.

SOCIAL CIRCLES: Dr. Sheila Siegel and Head of Upper School Audrius Barzdukas explain the details of high school social life to parents, discussing communication and parent-child relationships.

JACK GOLDFISHER/CHRONICLE

Publications receive national recognition By aLLy White

Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s announced on Monday that the combined print and online edition of the Harvard-Westlake Chronicle was named as a finalist for the 2013 Crown Awards.

A combined total of 1,344 publications including year-books, newspapers, magazines, and digital entered to win in CSPA’s competition, and in the hybrid category 16 publica-tions including the Chronicle and its website were chosen as finalists.

They were judged at Co-lumbia University from Dec. 8 through Dec. 10 as a hybrid, a new category for publications that try to integrate their print and digital publications in CSPA’s competition.

This new category was cre-ated “as a response to publi-cations moving from print to pixels.”

While the publications will be awarded either a Silver or Gold Crown at the CSPA’s 89th Annual Convention in March, the decisions have al-

ready been made.On Nov. 17, student pub-

lications scored a winning sweep in the Best of Show competitions at the National Scholastic Press Association/Journalism Education Asso-ciation fall convention in San Antonio.

Chronicle and Spectrum both took first place, the for-mer in the online category and the latter in the middle school newspapers category.

The November issue of The Chronicle won second best as a big newspaper, and Big Red sports magazine’s homecom-ing issue placed in fourth.

Vox Populi won seventh for yearbooks in its respective size category, and while last year’s Chronicle did not win a Na-tional Pacemaker, it was hon-ored as a finalist.

Twelve students who work on the yearbook, the newspa-per, the website and the sports magazine attended the three-day conference, accompa-nied by Advancement Officer Ed Hu, yearbook adviser Jen Bladen and Spectrum adviser Steve Chae.

By Marcella Park

The English Department will offer two new, non-Ad-vanced Placement courses next year for seniors, Shake-speare as a year-long course and Senior Practicum.

Senior Practicum “will be a literature-centered course that will engage students in questions about issues of rel-evance and interest,” English Department Head Larry We-

ber said. Weber designed the course over the summer on a curriculum grant.

Though the course will include a midterm exam, the year-end final will be a “self-generated, theme-based project, pursuing a question of choice,” according to the course description.

Students will be able to take the Shakespeare course as an elective.

AP Language teachers, led

by Lisa Rado, also worked on a curriculum grant to rede-fine the focus of AP Language, hoping to place the course’s study of rhetoric and nonfic-tion on par with the AP Lit-erature class’s study of fiction.

“We’re excited about of-fering these courses,” Weber said. “The onus will be on us to counsel students well, to coun-sel juniors well to the courses that will fit for them. And we’re ready to do that.”

Kutler Centerto add 3courses

By erina Szeto

The history department will remove the semester-long elective World Politics from the curriculum next year and introduce many of its com-ponents to a new year-long course called AP Geography and International Relations. The original AP Geography course is still being offered in the second semester.

History Teacher Nini Halkett has taught World Pol-itics for more than 20 years.

“It’s always been kind of my baby, and I’m the only one who teaches it,” Halkett said. “Even though it’s small, it ends up being a close knit group, and I get to know the students really well in the smaller set-ting.”

Classes discuss social, eco-nomic and political issues and participate in the Interna-tional Negotiations Projects, an international diplomacy computer simulation where students assume the role of a country and discuss issues from that country’s point of view. Topics include the Euro Zone crisis, human trafficking and nuclear proliferation.

Halkett will bring the com-puter simulation to her new class in addition to taking a new approach.

“I hope it will continue to foster interest in inter-national relations,” History Department Head Katherine Holmes-Chuba said. “We need interested, willing students to be more on the diplomacy gov-ernment side.”

By leily arzy

Fundamentals of Music class, formerly known as Basic Music Theory, will be brought back next year by Perform-ing Arts Teacher Mark Hilt to prepare students for AP Mu-sic Theory.

Basic Music Theory will cover sight singing, ear train-ing and basic melodic dicta-tion, skills for those students who plan to advance to the more rigorous AP class, Hilt said.

“What I have found in the

last four years after getting rid of the Fundamentals class is that we just have to move so fast in AP music theory be-cause there is so much to cov-er,” he said.

The class will also give stu-dents a better understanding of whether or not they want to move on to the AP level.

Although open to all three grade levels, the course is particularly useful for sopho-mores, Hilt said, as the transi-tion from the middle school to the upper school is a challeng-ing process, and not all sopho-

mores are prepared for taking an AP course.

“I was hearing that kids were trying to find a way to get as many APs in their sched-ule as possible, who might not have been on the track to take one in math or science, and were erroneously assuming that an AP in music without a prerequisite other than an interview with Mr. Hilt was going to be easy,” Performing Arts Department Head Rees Pugh said. “They were in for a brutal shock because music theory is complicated stuff.”

“[World Politics] has always been kind of my baby, and I’m the only one who teaches it.”

—Nini Halkett, history teacher

soundbyte

History reconfigures World Politics course

English offers new senior options

Performing Arts reintroduces fundamental music theory class

Dec. 19, 2012A4 News The chroNicle

Students perform at holiday Coffee House in lounge to help Superstorm Sandy victimsBy Julia aizuSS

Prefect Council and Com-munity Council jointly host-ed a holiday-themed Coffee House after school on Mon-day, Dec. 3 to raise money for victims of Superstorm Sandy, which affected the East Coast in late October.

The Coffee House, along with the Community Service Club Fair during Activities Period, marked the beginning of Community Service Week, which Community Council had organized to promote commu-nity service to students.

“Community Council ap-proached [Prefect Council] because they were having a community service week, and they wanted to incorporate a

Coffee House to generate stu-dent hype and participation,” Junior Prefect Henry Hahn ’14 said last week. “The Coffee Houses have always been great school community events, and we have previously considered ways of incorporating a fund-raising element into them, so this just seemed like a good fit.”

Although the ice-blend-ed coffee and refreshments in this year’s second Coffee House were free, students were encouraged to donate at least $10 to go towards victims of the storm, which hit the East Coast in October.

With the exception of Molly Chapman ’14 and Jen-sen McRae ’15, who performed original songs, the majority of

the 18 acts were covers, rang-ing from songs by artists like Joni Mitchell to the education-al program Schoolhouse Rock.

“If you’ve ever felt emo-tions, you can relate to it,” Varun Gadh ’14 said before launching into a rendition of Schoolhouse Rock’s “Constitu-tion Preamble.”

Cory Batchler ’13 was the only performer at Cof-fee House who didn’t sing. Instead, he performed the slam poem “Swag” by George Watsky, delivering lines like “My punchlines are like lost baggage—you’ll get them in a couple days” to the audience.

Batchler also performed slam poetry at the first Cof-fee House of the school year a month ago, though that time

he performed an original piece.He does not perform slam

poetry often, he said, but be-came interested in it this past summer, and decided to per-form when Coffee House gave him the opportunity to do so.

“Everyone always sings songs,” Batchler said. “No one ever does what actually happens at coffee houses, so I thought I’d go and do some poetry.”

Kenneth Kim ’13 closed the Coffee House show with a cover of “Too Close” by Alex Clare. Kim has performed at Coffee House multiple times.

“I really enjoy singing and playing and learning mod-ern songs,” Kim said. “Coffee House is a way for me to show-case that.”

REBECCA KATZ/CHRONICLE

MICHAEL SUGERMAN/CHRONICLEREBECCA KATZ/CHRONICLE

nathanson’s

HOLIDAY SPIRIT: Varun Gadh ’14 sings the “Constitution Preamble” from Schoolhouse Rock while strumming the violin at the Coffee House, left. Daniel Davila ’14 sings while play-ing the guitar, top right. Molly Chapman ’14 sings a piece that she composed while playing the piano, bottom right. The event, hosted by Prefect Council and Community Council, started Community Service Week, and donations from the event will go to victims of Superstorm Sandy.

By Michael rothberg

The Brendan Kutler Cen-ter for Interdisciplinary Stud-ies and Independent Research will offer three new classes next year, department chair Larry Klein said.

“Unconventional Leader-ship,” a course that will be taught by Director of Stu-dent Affairs Jordan Church and Dean Pete Silberman, will focus on the development of leadership skills through sim-ulations and guest speakers as well as improvisational com-edy and public speaking exer-cises. Students in the course will read texts from authors including Malcolm Gladwell, Niccolo Machiavelli, Robert Evans and others. Seniors who serve on Community Council will be required to take this course.

Math teacher Bill Thill will offer a course called “Statistics and Sports,” which will intro-duce the fundamental skills of statistics. Students in the class will choose to study a topic in either sports or sports medicine and will partake in a year-long study, collecting and analyzing data, reading exist-ing studies on their subjects, and presenting their results at the end of the year.

English teacher Arianna Kelly will teach “World Reli-gions,” in which students will examine the nature of religion as well as spirituality and mo-rality as they relate to religion. This semester-long course will cover the practices and his-torical contexts of various re-ligions including Islam, Juda-ism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism.

Students raise $800 in week of serviceBy Lauren Sonnenberg

Community Council raised over $800 during the inaugu-ral Community Service Week, beginning with a Community Service Club Fair on Dec. 3 and ending on Dec. 7 by pack-ing sacked lunches for home-less people of Los Angeles.

Each day, Community Council provided additional opportunities for students to learn about community service opportunities and to become involved.

Community Service Week kicked off with the Community Service Club Fair during break and Coffee House after school, where students were e n c o u r a ge d to donate to Supers torm Sandy relief efforts on Dec. 3.

S tudents built wooden b i r d h o u s e s to donate to Habitat for H u m a n i t y families and bought baked goods to raise money for hy-giene kits for homeless teens.

They also wrote letters to soldiers, part of an Operation Gratitude event, on Tuesday.

“The letter writing for soldiers was amazing,” Com-munity Council member Ni-cole West ’14 said. “Students responded really well and we were able to send lots of letters

to the troops.”Hot-dogs and hamburgers

were available for purchase from the Dog Haus food truck located on the quad on Wednes-day.

Of the $7.50 students paid, $1.50 was donated to Hurricane Sandy relief.

S tudents were also in-vited to do-

nate an additional amount to the relief effort if they so wished.

Around 280 food items were sold, according to Chap-lain J. Young.

Throughout the week, there was a toy drive as well as a hygiene drive and an SAT/ACT/AP supplies drive.

Donations to the Sandy relief effort carried over to

Thursday, as students hosted another bake sale throughout the day. Students also deco-rated paper bags that would be used to pack lunches for the homeless in Los Angeles.

“I think it was really great that Community Council had a lot of different activities going on during the week, because students were forced to pay attention to what was going on and participate in the activi-ties,” Camelia Somers ’14 said.

While some students en-tered the lounge to pack sack lunches for the homeless on Friday, others ventured out-side, where an ice cream truck was waiting to reward those students who had already completed their community service requirement with free ice cream.

In addition to these events throughout the week, Com-munity Council also invited a Special Olympics participant to speak to each grade at class meetings. Marissa Watkins, a 19-year-old participant in Spe-

cial Olympics for the past 7 years, spoke about how Special Olympics helped her become more self-confident and excel in athletics. She encouraged students to get involved.

“From our perspective, the event wasn’t about rais-ing money or selling ham-burgers or even being inspired by a young lady from Special Olympics, Young said. “It was about enabling students here to think about community service, It was time to get the word out and get students to think about helping others.”

Both Young and Direc-tor of Student Affairs Jordan Church expect Community Service Week to become an annual event, following in the footsteps of other yearly events such as Fanatic Fest and Ac-tivities Fair.

“I compare it to Fanatic Fest because Fanatic Fest is a week to get kids excited about school spirit, and this is a week to get kids excited about com-munity service,” Young said.

Five debaters qualify for national championshipBy CLaire goLdSmith

Five members of the debate team have qualified for the Tournament of Champions, which will be held April 27-29 at the University of Kentucky for the top debaters in the country. This is the greatest number of students from any school in the country, Head Coach Mike Bietz said.

Brendan Gallagher ’13, An-

drew Sohn ’13, Julie Engel ’14, Annie Kors ’14 and Michael O’Krent ’14 each received two bids at various debate tourna-ments earlier in the season.To win a bid, a debater must reach a predetermined round at a tournament. Once a de-bater has two bids, he is au-tomatically qualified for the TOC.

“Especially in debate, what’s difficult is to have a

tangible marker of your suc-cess,” said Sohn, who quali-fied for the TOC last year and, since qualifying this year, has also received a third bid. “It’s really abstract and difficult to gauge if your work is paying off. Being qualified or having a bid is the closest you can come to having a stable metric of your proficiency in debate.”

Gallagher, Kors and O’Krent also qualified last

year.“I can’t wait to go to the

TOC again,” Gallagher said. “I’m really happy that our de-bate program has grown since I was a freshman. It was very small but successful then, and now we’ve gotten to expand and be really good.”

The novice team and the middle school team have both been very successful this year, Bietz said.

Whooping Cough, or Pertussis, is a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable violent coughing. Eleven cases have been confirmed at Harvard-Westlake.

>>

>>

Symptoms and Prevention

>>

Steps to avoid Whooping Cough:Get the DTaP vaccination, administered five times from age 2 months to 6 years

SOURCE: CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTIONINFOGRAPHIC BY LAUREN SONNENBERG

Initial symptoms similar to common cold

Take TDap vaccine, given around age 11 and every 10 years thereafter

Severe coughing episodes start 10-12 days later

>>

Symptoms:

>>

Runny nose, slight fever, diarrhea

SERVICE WEEK: Justin Carr ’14 tells students about the community service opportunities offered by BLACC during the Community Service Club Fair, the first event in Community Service Week. All clubs that participated in community service events were invited to showcase their work at the club fair.

JACK GOLDFISHER/CHRONICLE

Students contract Whooping CoughBy david Lim

Eleven students were di-agnosed with pertussis, com-monly referred to as Whoop-ing Cough, during the month of November.

The Los Angeles Depart-ment of Public Health re-ported the last of 11 cases of pertussis on both campuses on Nov. 30. Parents of middle school students were notified of the first case on Nov. 5 and later that month additional letters were sent to all par-ents warning of the possibility of exposure from siblings or teammates.

All reported cases are now resolved and there have been no new cases this month, Community Health Officer Sandee Teruya said. All but

one of the cases were at the Middle School.

Pertussis is a highly con-tagious respiratory infection that can potentially lead to hospitalization or death. The name Whooping Cough refers to a distinctive sound that an infected person makes after severe coughing.

Over 9,000 cases of pertus-sis were reported in California in a 2010 outbreak, the most since 1947. The incidence of the disease has risen since 1980 partly due to reduced vaccination rates, according to the Centers for Disease Con-trol. Students diagnosed with pertussis were not allowed to attend school until they fin-ished five days of treatment with antibiotics and obtained written medical clearance.

In addition, students who shared a class or played on a team with a diagnosed student with pertussis were notified separately. Since July 2011, all students entering seventh grade are required by law to show proof of immunization with the TDap vaccine, which protects against pertussis. The medical forms filled out for all students before the start of every school year fulfill this requirement.

However, the vaccine does not effectively prevent pertus-sis in all cases and the protec-tive effect weakens over time. The CDC estimates that the vaccine is effective in prevent-ing pertussis about 70 percent of the time.

“All these cases had a booster shot,” Teruya said.

“It was about enabling students here to think about community service. It was time to get the word out and get students to think about helping others.”

—Father J. Young Chaplain

By rebeCCa Katz

The Bridge to a Brighter Future completed its first month of tutoring sixth grad-ers at the Valor Academy, rais-ing the student’s math grades by an average of 11 percent.

This is Bridge to a Brighter Future club’s first year, as it was founded last spring.

The club was founded by Andrew Ravan ’15, Alan Yousefzadeh ’15 and Elijah Akhtarzad ’15.

The group of friends came up with the idea in the spring of last year.

“We knew we wanted to have a real impact on whoever we were helping,” Ravan said. “We wanted to serve as role models.”

With the help of Assistant Director of Admission Mela-nie Leon, eighth grade dean Karen Fukushima and Direc-tor of Student Affairs Jordan Church, the students decided to tutor sixth graders in math at Valor Academy using Skype and other forms of technology.

The club meets ev-ery Tuesday after school in Chalmers 308 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The tutoring is one-on-one and uses Wacom Bamboo Pen and touch tablets.

The co-founders held a bake sale last summer in order to provide the tablets for both the tutors and the students at Valor Academy.

“I think it’s important for the kids to get a chance to use technology like we do,” Ravan said. “It’s a unique opportunity for them.”

The club currently has six volunteer tutors.

Beginning in February, the tutoring program will accept applications from students, who must commit to tutor for at least a month. This way, the Bridge to a Brighter Future club can aid as many Valor students as possible.

“We want Harvard-West-lake students to know that it’s an easy and fun thing to do, and a great way to fulfill your community service [require-ment] while also getting the rewarding feeling of improving a young student’s education,” Yousefzadeh said.

New club helps tutor students using Skype

hwchronicle.com/news News A5Dec. 19, 2012

Dec. 19, 2012A6 News The chroNicle

inbriefRobotics constructs wafflebot machine

SAAC announces dodgeball games

SPEAKING IN CODE: Before the field trip, Sam Teller ’04, Managing Director of Launchpad LA, and Chris Gooley, co-founder and developer of LessNeglect, spoke to the Advanced Topics in Comuputer Science class about the need bring code to the business world.

SArAh NOvICOff/chronicle

Computer science class takes field trip to Launchpad LA, invites speakers By Sarah Novicoff

The Advanced Topics in computer Science class visited the headquarters of the busi-ness incuba-tor launch-pad lA Dec. 5.

The field-trip was part of an ongo-ing effort by Theo Davis ’13 to explore the other as-pects of com-puter science besides cod-ing.

“i am try-ing to change how com-puter science is perceived both inside of computer sci-ence and out-side,” Davis said. “inside computer science, the students coding forget about everything else. But out-

side of computer science, there are too many stereotypes. A lot of them are true, but people outside of programming don’t see the other side.”

While at l au n c h p a d lA, three dif-ferent engi-neers spoke to the class about their personal ex-p e r i e n c e s f o u n d i n g c o m pan i e s . Jake Johnson of DivShot ended up at l au n c h p a d after his pro-gram won a crowdstart pitch compe-tition, while Gabe Got-tlieb of Yield Metrics was a Microsoft

alumnus. Yield Metrics in-creases transparency to the advertising business by releas-

ing advertiser information to interested parties. John Jersin got his start atGoogle before leaving to found his company Connectifier with another Google alum.

Prior to the field-trip, launchpad lA Managing Di-rector Sam Teller ’04 visited the class along with chris-topher Gooley. Gooley is the co-founder and developer of lessneglect, a platform that helps companies improve their customer service through con-sumer tracking.

The two spoke from both an engineering and entrepre-neurial perspective regarding computer science, focusing on the need to bridge code with the market. They recommend-ed a multi-step process for de-velopment that begins by find-ing a “pain point” or a service that one believes is lacking in the world. After producing a “quick and dirty prototype,” one should begin to use their coding skills to build the web-site or app.

“My students learned some

direction for specific skills,” Advanced Topics in computer Science teacher Paula evans said. “For example, Amazon Web Services has great tools for new companies that are cost effective. Also, one start-up company at launchPad lA, DivShot, suggested the Twit-ter Bootstrap as a great tool for creating the part of a web-site viewed by the visitor to the site. [The students] seemed to most benefit from meeting people who were creating new tools which help people. They also know that the entrepre-neurs at launchpad lA are al-ways available to our students for guidance.”

Senior Alumni Officer harry Salamandra has also been involved with the project and will offer internships at launchpad lA as part of the new internship and job board, new Works. Davis hopes to arrange more field-trips and speakers throughout the year to further her commitment to changing the face of computer science.

Students to visit Laos over spring breakClub helps build house in Vietnam

The Vietnam initiative club’s fundraising led to the building of a house in the Quang nam province in Viet-nam during the week of nov 26.

The club partnered with the non-government organiza-tion east Meets West, located in Vietnam, to build the house for poor and homeless natives.

The Vietnam initiative conducted numerous bake sales during the summer to raise funds for east Meets West.

—Scott Nussbaum

The annual Student-Ath-lete Advisory council spon-sored Dodgeball tournament will begin during Monday break on Feb. 4. The games will continue for the next sev-en Monday breaks, according to an email sent out by SAAc.

The tournament has been expanded to include 32 teams instead of 16. Teams must consist of seven students that each include at least two peo-ple of each gender.

“like any sports fan, you root for the underdog, and in the rare occasion that under-dog wins, chaos ensues,” SAAc member Davey hartmeier ’14 said.

—Noa Yadidi

By ally White

Video arts teacher cheri Gaulke is partnering with Friendship World Tours to take students on a spring break trip to laos.

The trip labeled an “investigative jour-nalism adventure” will last 11 days, from March 21 through April 1.

Former history teacher and founder of the company, Althea Paradis, will accompany stu-dents on the trip.

“Teaching students about history in desks is a very nine-teenth century way to impart information,” Paradis said.

“experiencing a place and meeting the people, really im-mersing oneself as a tempo-

rary local is what makes history rel-evant.”

Students will be able to attend daily journalism seminars from emmy-Award winning television producer Jeff Ma-cintyre.

These daily jour-nalism seminars will include video-journalism as well

as story-telling workshops to teach students how to create a documentary .

“From a history perspec-tive and from a perspective of using journalism to tell stories

that aren’t getting out, video as a tool is exciting. You can take people places, tell them stories they might not know about, bring that real-ity to them,” Gaulke said.

Students will be able to visit sev-eral cities i n c l u d i n g the capital, Vientiane, to “witness the legacy of war in a context of safety and mu-tual understanding.”

in these cities students

will not only sightsee, but also will do volunteer work

and conduct i n t e r v i e w s with lao-tian natives and those who have been victims of cluster bombs. The trip is cur-rently open for all stu-dents in ninth through 12th grade and costs $3,885 e x c l u d i n g airfare. one

percent of the proceeds will be donated to projects to help lo-cal children in the area.

“Inside computer science, the students coding forget about everything else. But outside of computer science, there are too many stereotypes. A lot of them are true, but people outside of the programming don’t see the other side.”

—Theo Davis ’13

Cheri Gaulkenathanson’s

As a pre-season task, the team decided to create their own “Wafflebot,” which can produce waffles and will be doing so this week on the quad. All waffles are compli-mentary.

The robotics team will be competing in the long Beach regional of the international FirST robotics competition beginning on Jan. 5 and con-tinuing through of March.

The competition requires teams to build robots during a six-week time frame that can complete an assigned objec-tive. last year, the competi-tion required teams to build robots that were able to effec-tively shoot a basketball.

—Jeremy Tepper

The Admission Office will hold an event for prospective female applicants and their parents at the Middle School campus tomorrow, Director of Admission elizabeth Gregory said.

The applicants will deco-rate gingerbread houses to do-nate to charity while parents participate in a panel discus-sion on the value of coeduca-tion, Gregory said.

Dean and performing arts teacher Kate Benton, Para-mount Pictures executive Vice President of Business Affairs rona cosgrove ’85, and UclA Graduate School of education and information Studies pro-fessor linda Sax will lead the panel discussion.

—Elizabeth Madden

Applicants to make gingerbread houses

“Experiencing a place and meeting people, really immersing oneself as a temporary local is what makes history relevant.”

—Althea ParadisFounder of Friendship

World Tours

hwchronicle.com/news news A7Dec. 19, 2012

The Model United Nations delegation attended a tourna-ment where their members won six awards. The Harvard-Westlake team represented Germany on 15 different com-mittees discussing various global issues.

Sara Evall ’15 won best del-egate while serving on the UN environment program. David Woldenberg ’15 received out-standing delegate for his work on the International Maritime Organization, and Jessie Liu’ 14, Michael O’Krent ’14, Jer-emy Bradford ’14 and Jessica Lee ’14 each took home com-mendations for their work in their committees.

—Jacob Goodman

inbrief

The library has reinsti-tuted the “Take a book, leave a book” shelf where students may leave a used book and/or take a book another stu-dent has left. The program was popular two years ago but stopped during the construc-tion of the new Mudd Library.

The shelf currently has about 10 books but head li-brarian Shannon Acedo ex-pects its numbers to grow in the upcoming weeks.

“It’s a good way to clear off shelves at home,” Acedo said.

“Take a book, leave a book” is housed near the entrance to the library in one of the cub-bies.

—Sarah Novicoff

Helping Hands club mem-bers volunteered at a holiday carnival for children from eco-nomically disadvantaged back-grounds, and volunteers orga-nized by the Chinese Cultural Club helped at Alpine Recre-ation Center for children in the Chinatown area.

Children at both events played games, ate food and vis-ited Santa.

“It’s a great opportunity to give back to the children,” event organizer Natalie Lim ’15 said. —Marcella Park

Library reinstitutes book exchange

Clubs volunteer at children’s events

Model UN wins awards at conference

By Michael SugerMan and Keane MuraoKa-robertSon

Writer, director and pro-ducer Nick Stoller credited his breakthrough in comedy directing to a failed show that put him into contact with the right people, in an appearance with four-time Oscar nomi-nated director Jason Reitman ’95 in Ahmanson Lecture Hall on Dec. 11.

The sit-down was con-ducted as part of a five-year running series with Reitman called “Speaking of Movies,” where he questions current figures in the film industry.

The series is hosted by Harvard-Westlake Video Art and the Harvard-Westlake Entertainment Network.

Stoller recently wrote and directed the romantic comedy film “The Five-Year Engage-ment” starring alumnus Jason Segel ’97, in which a couple’s engagement is continually extended and their wedding postponed, straining their re-lationship.

He said he got his start writing for Harvard Univer-sity’s “Lampoon,” the school’s famous comedy publication.

Upon graduating from Harvard, he used his talents to score a job at a New York advertising firm.

“From the minute I got there, everyone who I was working for made fun of me because I was constantly try-ing to figure out how to get out of there,” Stoller said. “I was

trying to break into television writing. That’s hard in New York because there’s ‘Saturday Night Live,’ late night shows and not much else.”

After a year at the firm, Stoller moved to Los Angeles where his agents got him a job on director Judd Apatow’s show, “Undeclared.” Through his friendship with Apatow, Stoller directed 2008 comedy hit “Forgetting Sarah Mar-shall,” jump starting his di-recting career.

Stoller called these experi-ences “collaborative” ones that influenced his style of direct-ing.

Reitman said Stoller’s im-provisational approach to filmmaking makes him unique.

With Stoller’s “Get Him

to the Greek,” Reitman said he saw a form of directing he “had never seen before.”

“[Stoller] was right next to the camera with a notepad full of ideas,” he said. “There were a couple of other guys, and the crazy thing was that [he was] pelting ideas at Puff Daddy and he was just taking them. It was very fast-paced and I had never seen anything like it.”

Stoller told students inter-ested in the art of film-making to write without hesitation, citing his initial failures as necessary for his ultimate suc-cesses.

“Just start writing, because the first three to four screen-plays aren’t going to be good,” Stoller said.

By rachel Schwartz

School radio sta-tion KHWS inspired students at four oth-er schools to start their own school-wide radio stations in recent months. A mix of students and faculty from Oak-wood, Brentwood, Marlborough, and Beverly Hills High School have worked with Sam Wolk ’13, a founding member of KHWS, to figure out how to navigate the technical skills required to broadcast and how to work with a school’s admin-istration to found a station and how to encourage listen-ers to tune in.

“People don’t just listen, and traffic tends to trickle as the months go on,” said Daniel Sunshine ’13, another found-ing member of KHWS.

He said that staying con-fident is key to sustaining a radio project through the long process of approval and as numbers of listeners vary. A few of Wolk’s friends at Oak-wood recently launched their radio station, KO, which Wolk said was entirely modeled after KHWS. He primarily helped them with tech sup-port for the program Live 365,

which both KO and KHWS use. It allows DJ’s from different computers to play songs and pays the musicians to whom songs are attributed.

“The thing they have to realize [is] that if you really want to make this happen and make it success-ful, you are going to have to put a lot of

work and a lot of time into it,” Wolk said. “It has to be some-thing you want to spend your time doing.”

A faculty adviser from Brentwood contacted Direc-tor of Student Affairs Jordan Church to ask about KHWS and how the project started. Church put him into contact with Wolk, who has since met with advisers and students. Wolk said that once they de-termine how involved the ad-ministration will be with their station, he will continue to help with technical support. Though Sunshine said the av-erage number of listeners for KHWS ranges from 10-20, Wolk said he is very happy with the success of the sta-tion considering the website has had 80,000 page views and most college stations average 30 an hour.

By cheriSh Molezion

Five students and three faculty members attended a diversity conference held in Houston, Texas from Dec. 5-8.

This is the second time in five years that Harvard-West-lake students have attended the annual conference.

The three-day intensive program educated students and faculty about the different forms of diversity and seven social identifiers.

Key topics were religion, ethnicity, socioeconomic level, gender, race, age and sexual orientation issues.

The attendees of the con-ference also discussed why so-ciety functions the way it does

as well as “[providing] a safe space for networking for peo-ple, who, by virtue of their race or ethnicity, comprise a form of diversity termed ‘people of color’ in independent schools,” according to their website.

The students also split into affinity groups at the confer-ence, by race, for smaller dis-cussions.

At the conference, the key-note speaker spoke about the little things that matter in life.

“Throughout the confer-ence, I thought about what she said.” Mazelle Etessami ’14 said. “I realized that the little things affect the big things, more than I had taken into ac-count. The little steps, the dai-ly encounters, really matter.”

Senior helps schools form radio stations

Students attend diversity conference

BEHIND THE SCENES: Jason Reitman ’95 interviewed director Nick Stoller in Ahmanson Lecture Hall at the fifth installment of the “Speaking of Movies” series, which is hosted by Harvard-Westlake Video Art program and the Harvard-Westlake Entertainment Network.

KEANE MURAOKA-ROBERTSON/CHRONICLE

Sam Wolk ’13nathanson’s

Director says failures lead to successes

A NEW PERSPECTIVE: The participants who attended the diversity conference posed with their chaperone Tina Cleveland.

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF MAZELLE ETESSAMI

On Friday, Dr. Abeer Alwan will visit the Middle School to speak to Susannah Gordon’s Integrated Science II class about sound engi-neering, with an emphasis on hearing.

Alwan, who is the mother of Nial Alwash ’16, is a physi-cian at UCLA who works primarily with developing hearing aids and will be visit-ing Gordon’s first and second period classes.

The Integrated Science II class, which focuses on chemical reactions, biologi-cal energy, energy transport through waves and mechani-cal energy, will utilize Alwan’s visit to understand more about hearing and how hear-ing aids work.

—Scott Nussbaum

Sound engineer visits science class

DiDax

By Noa Yadidi

The Righteous Conversa-tions Project screened its 2012 public service announcements and donated the PSAs to non-profit organizations Nov. 15 during an event held in Ah-manson Lecture Hall.

The Righteous Conversa-tions Project, an organiza-tion part of Remember Us, is a project that brings together Holocaust survivors and teens to speak up about injustice in the world through new media workshops and community en-gagements.

The project was first launched at Harvard-West-lake in February 2011 as an evening conversation between Holocaust survivors and teens. The program’s PSA workshop was piloted in 2011, directed by Visual Arts Department Head Cheri Gaulke.

During the event, the 2011 PSAs titled “Learn the Differ-ence” and “Love our Families”

were screened, along with five new PSAs that were given to non-profits that will be using them in their work. This year’s PSAs were titled “It’s Not Just One,” “All Animals Mat-ter,” “Seek the Truth,” “Words Can Hurt” and “History Les-son.”

“It was also a ceremony to acknowledge all the stu-dents, survi-vors, teachers and adminis-trators who came togeth-er, in force, to make this workshop hap-pen, to make these PSAs and to speak up, in community, about injustice,” Remember Us executive director Samara Hutman (Rebecca ’12) said.

The event also included featured speaker Robert Beis-ner, who works as a part of Seattle Against Slavery and

F r e e d o m Shabbat.

Beisner was intro-duced by Remember Us Board Pres ident CeCe Feiler (Jackie ’10, Jamie ’12, Jake ’13).

S t u -dents from schools in Los An-geles, San Francisco and Phila-d e l p h i a participat-

ed on the 2012 PSAs. “The Righteous Conversa-

tion Project began with three goals: to facilitate conversa-tions that would inspire young

people to become the stewards of the survivors’ stories, to re-assure the survivor commu-nity that the lessons and sto-ries they want to transmit are received with care and heart-felt commitment [and] last, to inspire young people through these inter-generational col-laborations, in the face of cru-elty and injustice, in their own time, never be silent and to use the tools available to them to speak up and to speak out,” Hutman said.

Another goal of the pro-gram is to support one an-other in community to achieve their goals, she said.

In creating their PSAs, they work within the com-munity to dialogue and create them, but then reach out to give the PSAs to non-profits actively working on the issues addressed.

The workshop will be of-fered again this summer though the Harvard-Westlake Summer Program.

REMEMBER US: Anne Bergman, communications manager of Heal the Bay, left, accepts the PSA “It’s Not Just One” on behalf of the non-profit from Righteous Conversation’s Sarah McAllister ’15 and Kyra Perez, a Carson Senior High School student.

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF SAMARA HUTMAN

Righteous Conversation screens PSAs

Seniors launch Secret Santa

Dec. 19, 2012A8 News The chroNicle

Happiness Club hosts ‘Assassin’ game

Achievement AwardsThe ‘Elite Eight’“Assassins” were given achievement awards for performing certain accomplishments.

By Julia aizuss

About one-third of Upper School students signed up to participate in a school-wide Secret Santa gift exchange initiated by Prefect Council Nov. 14, HW Santa app cre-ator Austin Chan ’13 said.

“We felt like it was a really fun activity that the student body would enjoy,” Head Pre-fect Katie Lim ’13 said. “It just adds to the holiday cheer and festivities.”

The selection process for gift-givers and recipients for HW Santa began Monday, and gifts are due Friday. Students were able to register over the weekend through either an iPhone app or a website, which were created by Austin Chan ’13 and David Lim ’13. After selection, the giver and recipi-ent can anonymously message each other to get to know one another better and discuss gifts.

Lim came up with the idea of a school-wide Secret Santa in late November, when he was thinking of a better way to organize Secret Santa for the Chronicle, of which he is an editor-in-chief. Because of their work together redesign-ing the Chronicle website, Lim came to Chan with the idea, and they further developed it together. They began talking to administrators and Prefect Council after Thanksgiving to gain the school’s approval and get help in promoting the gift exchange to students.

After Lim designed the app’s wireframe, Chan com-pleted the coding in two weeks and created the website in one day. It was Chan’s first iPhone app to make it onto the App Store, Lim said, and Chan also managed to convince the App Store to shorten its app re-view process from one week to eight hours.

By Claire Goldsmith

Only two upper school stu-dents are still “alive” in the schoolwide game of Assassin sponsored by the Happiness Club as of press time.

In the game, which began at 12 a.m. on Dec. 6, 39 seniors, 29 juniors and 11 sophomores each hunted down and “killed” a target by touching his or her back and saying “bang” before the victim could see.

After a successful kill, the assassin assumed his victim’s original target and began the hunt once more, according to the Happiness Club’s official guidelines. The game contin-ues until only one student, the ultimate assassin, is left alive.

Students had a week to sign up for the game before club leader Kenneth Kim ’13 emailed each participant with the name, grade and picture of their target.

Kim updated the players

nightly using a twitter ac-count, @HWAssassin, with the number of deaths that day and any changes to the offi-cial rules. He also gave video game-style Special Achieve-ment awards to particularly creative or speedy assassins.

Mane Williams ’14 was the first to assassinate his target, Taylor Lee ’13, before school began Friday, Dec. 7. Junior prefect Oliver Goodman-Wa-ters ’14 killed his friend and fellow prefect Henry Hahn ’14 in a Prefect Council meeting.

Kim plans to hold another game of Assassin after the January break and estimates that over 150 students will participate.

“Next time we’re going to publicize it more with school-wide emails and more aggres-sive Facebook posts,” Kim said. “Also, because so many died on the first day, we might add safe zones or other tactics to spread out the kills.”

First Kill Award: given to the “assassin” who performs the first kill

Well, You Tried Award: given to the first “assassin” killed

Baby Steps Award: given any time an assassin performed their first kill

Mostly Harmless Award: given when an assassin was killed without killing anyone

Go Down Fighting Award: given when an assassin is killed after killing someone

Pack of Wolves Award: given to the two different “wolf pack” alliances

SOURCE: KENNETH KIM ’13GRAPHIC BY NOA YADIDI AND SARA EVALL

Jack Goldfisher ’14 Caitlin Yee ’13

Taleen Mahseredjian ’14 Oliver Goodman-Waters ’14

Cindy Oh ’13 Katherine Calvert ’15

Rachel Schwartz ’13

Alexis Ladge ’15

The last eight assassins standing, dubbed the “elite eight,” were announced via the assassin twitter account, @HWAssassin. Assassins not crossed out are still in play as of press time.

nathanson’s

nathanson’s

nathanson’s

nathanson’s

nathanson’s

nathanson’s

nathanson’s

Recipient: Mane Williams ’14

Recipient: Taylor Lee ’13

“It was also a ceremony to acknowledge all the students, teachers and administrators who came together, in force, to make this workshop happen, to make these PSAs and to speak up, in community, about injustice.”

—Samara Hutman

hwchronicle.com/news news A9Dec. 19, 2012

Amato visits Qatar to developmodel for new co-ed school By Michael SugerMan

Vice President John Amato made a presentation to a com-mittee planning a new school in Qatar earlier this month, showcasing Harvard-West-lake as an ideal model.

Amato flew to Qatar per the invitation of the RAND Corporation, whose mission is “to focus on the issues that matter most such as health, education, national security, international affairs, law and business, the environment and more,” according to the orga-nization’s website.

“The purpose of the trip was to develop a plan for a school that would look very much like Harvard-Westlake in terms of its academic offer-ings and potentials, but also wrap around a school that has very significant perform-ing and visual arts programs,” Amato said.

The new school will also

work with the Katara Founda-tion, whose purpose is to bring the performing and visual arts community to Qatar.

“Academic excellence and excellent arts programs will go hand in hand,” Amato said. “The plan is for the school to be co-ed, and the main lan-guage would be English.”

Amato gave a PowerPoint presentation to the concept committee, which showed slides of Harvard-Westlake students in and out of the classroom. The lecture includ-ed video of performing arts, including last year’s middle school dance showcase and the 2011-2012 Madrigals and middle school Symphony per-formance in Chicago.

“They were hugely im-pressed by our level of mu-sicianship,” Amato said. “Overall, they received the presentation very well. They liked the way we organize our buildings, the way practice

rooms surround performing areas.”

The new school is going forward with a general con-cept. Now, the committee will deal with size issues including classrooms and staffing. For the rest of the year, Amato said there will be continuous contact culminating in a sum-mer trip where another team will go to Qatar for more plan-ning.

“I just think this is a great opportunity,” Amato said. “I’ve done this a couple of times for RAND. It’s a great expe-rience to see another part of the world. The Persian Gulf is certainly another part of the world. Qatar is still growing as a country. You can see that they are looking West, looking for models, and they want to be world leaders. They want them to grow and develop as thinkers and learners. We can absolutely and without ques-tion help them do so.”

By JenSen Pak

The Paintball Club hosted a student-faculty paintball event on Sunday, Dec. 16 at the California Paintball Park. Both middle school and upper school students attended the event to play paintball.

People new to paintball were welcome to play paintball for the first time, and rental equipment was available.

“This was my first time playing paintball,” William Lee ’14 said. “I was really shaky the first game and got out quickly, but after a few games I really got the hang of it. It almost felt like a video game. There’s a lot of crouching and ducking, keeping your head low and looking for targets.”

Recreational paintball is played outdoors in a field with specifically designed obstacles and terrain. In team death match mode, teams fight un-

til all members of one team have been eliminated. A per-son is eliminated when he has been shot by a paintball pellet. Games last roughly 15 min-utes.

The Paintball Club was created by Walter Wang ’13 two years ago and also partici-pates in serious paintball tour-naments.

“Paintball has always been a passion of mine and I decid-

ed that I wanted to bring my passion to Harvard-Westlake,” Wang said. “After being en-couraged by people such as Mr. Bird and Mr. Levin, I decided to make an official Harvard-Westlake paintball club. It was made purely to have fun.”

Wang said that many fac-ulty members, including per-forming arts teacher Shawn Costantino, science teacher Tara Eitner, science teach-

er Dietrich Schuhl, athletic trainer Milo Sini, Assistant Director of Admission Melanie Leon and Attendance Coor-dinator Gabriel Preciado, also went to play paintball with the students.

“It was a great event. Fac-ulty, staff and students all came together and had a great time,” Eitner said. “Walter did an incredible job pulling to-gether a wonderful event. It

was a great community build-ing activity and was nothing but positive and light.”

The paintballers returned to school, exhausted and wet, but still having enjoyed every moment of it.

“We passed by Six Flags on the way back from paintball,” Peter Kim ’14 said. “I thought to myself, even if there were no lines at Six Flags, I would still go back to paintball.”

THIS MEANS WAR: Four members of faculty keep on the lookout for competitors in a paintball game. They were among a group of faculty and students to participate in a student-faculty paintball tournament sponsored by the Paintball Club Sunday, Dec. 16.

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF JACK COOPER

Paintball Club sponsors games

Honor Board uses modified process• Continued from page A1

persons involved in the cases.“Everybody was question-

ing me, and I answered them to the best of my ability and tried to give as much detail,” Gertrude said. Eventually, it kind of made me feel like they twisted my words.”

Once Gertrude’s case was heard by the Board, she went home. Shortly after arriving home, she received a telephone call from Father J. Young, the faculty adviser of the Honor Board, requesting that she re-turn to school.

Gertrude came back to school and faced the Honor Board a second time.

“The first time that I went [before the Honor Board], it was fine,” Gertrude said. “But the second time I came, I felt like it was a different atmo-sphere, like they were more in interrogation mode than talk-ing to me.

The second time Gertrude went before the Honor Board, she was questioned about an infraction that was unrelated to the plagiarism on her es-say, she said. During these two hearings, Gertrude was caught lying repeatedly to the Board.

As a result of her Honor Code infractions, Gertrude served a one-day suspension, received a zero on the plagia-rized paper and was asked to re-write the paper and attend three meetings with her Eng-lish teacher as well as weekly meetings with Father J. Young and a prefect to discuss her progress.

These consequences were harsher than usual because of Getrude’s dishonesty before the board, Barzdukas said.

“With regard to the Honor Code, few actions are more harmful to the fabric of our community than pledging to tell the truth and then lying,” Barzdukas said.

“Mr. Barzdukas did not

want to be in the position of overturning a case. So far, he has not thrown any curve-balls,” Young said.

The Honor Board sent an email to the student body, outlining the basic context of the case and the subsequent disciplinary action. However, the email did not report the Honor Board’s preliminary recommendation and state whether the administration agreed with that decision, as the emails had in past years.

Gertrude said that she believed the email did not adequately reflect the com-plexities of the case despite the limitations of maintaining confidentiality.

Instead of more detailed emails, the Honor Board opted to hold an “informal meeting,” for each case, in which stu-dents could discuss the details and reasoning behind the case and disciplinary action with prefects in person. Students were informed of these meet-ing in the final sentences of the emails.

The case involving Ger-trude was followed by a meet-ing in the Dean’s Conference Room at break. Besides Young, the prefects involved in the case and a Chronicle report-er, no students attended the meeting.

“We were disappointed that students chose not to at-tend the open forum,” Barzdu-kas said. “In the meantime, if any students have any ques-tions about any case, they should feel free to ask me or Father Young.”

Barzdukas will also en-courage deans to remind stu-dents to attend these meeting during class meeting, he said.

“We feel that our commu-nity is served better by a cul-ture of vibrant and construc-tive discussion and dissent, and so that’s what we want the forums to be. Vibrant and constructive,” Barzdukas said.

LATKES TO EAT: Students help themselves to free latkes, apple sauce and sour cream, pro-vided by Prefect Council and Social Committee Monday, Dec. 10 as a preview for Winterfest.

Hanukkah, Oh HanukkahELIZABETH MADDEN/CHRONICLE

By Julia aizuss

A history professor at Uni-versity of California, Irvine, and contributing editor to the Nation magazine shared his contrasting experiences of on-line and print journalism with the Chronicle staff Nov. 16.

Jon Wiener, who success-fully sued the FBI for the re-lease of its files on John Len-non’s murder, works as a contributing editor for the Na-tion, the United States’ oldest continuously publishing week-ly magazine. He has worked on the Nation since 1984, and has witnessed its expansion into online publication.

While the Nation’s print edition is hard to get published in and rigorously fact-checked, Wiener said, proceedings at the website are more lax due to a constant need for content.

“The website has a vora-cious need for content,” Wie-ner said. “There’s a virtually infinite need for new material on the website every hour.”

Wiener said that this need for content is also evident in other news sites he has writ-ten for such as the Huffington

Post.However, Wiener empha-

sized the importance of fact-checking and accurate report-ing.

“Accuracy is a duty, not a virtue,” Wiener said, reciting what he called a Nation motto.

He praised the magazine’s print edition’s c o n t i n u i n g commitment to accuracy and corrections, re-lating anecdotes of his own ex-periences being f ac t - checked sentence by sentence in his articles for the Nation, and emphasized the significance of corrections to other maga-zines and news-papers as well, like the New York Times.

Besides the necessity of constant new material and less rigorous fact-checking, Wiener discussed the subtler changes writing for online had wrought in journalism, such as

the necessity of headlines easi-ly searchable on Google, which transformed traditional head-line and lead writing, Wiener said.

“We used to like clever witty titles with puns that showed how smart we are,” Wiener said. “Now it’s got to

be something like ‘Romney is a loser.’ No more oppor-tunities to be clever. It’s a great loss.”

With the advent of reader com-menting, on-line journalism also intro-duced the pos-sibility of a dialogue with readers be-yond letters to

the editor.“Am I supposed to read

all these comments?” Wiener said, showing the class an ar-ticle that had over 200 com-ments. “What’s the difference between a stupid comment, an idiotic comment and an unac-

ceptable comment?”Interns at the Nation must

moderate the flood of com-ments and remove offensive ones.

Despite his experiences writing for the Nation online, Wiener recognized its han-dling of online journalism as “archaic” overall, describing their viewpoint as “print is the real magazine, online is every-thing else.”

The best journalism should not be reserved for the maga-zine but published online, he said.

Wiener also discussed in-spiration and the importance of specialized viewpoints in journalism.

“I find good ideas arrive in all kinds of unexpected plac-es,” Wiener said, remember-ing that the idea for one of his favorite recent pieces had come to him while at a dentist appointment. “I don’t think there’s a way to produce good, original ideas. You just have to let them happen.”

At the end of the peri-od, Wiener fielded questions about his experiences at the magazine.

Dec. 19, 2012A10 News The chroNicle

GET THE SCOOP: Jon Wiener discusses the Nation magazine, a publication he has worked on for 28 years. In his conversation with the Chronicle staff, Wiener talked about the embracing journalism’s identity in the digital age, and also about following journalistic traditions.

NOA YADIDI/CHRONICLE

Nation editor emphasizes journalistic integrity in presentation to Chronicle

“I find good ideas ar-rive in all kinds of unexpected places. I don’t think there’s a way to produce good, original ideas. You just have to let them happen.”

—Jon Wiener

Board approves budget for 2013-2014 yearBy Julia aizuss

New additions to campus and new technologi-cal additions to class-rooms played little part in the tuition and salary budget recom-mended by the Fi-nance Committee that the Board of Trustees approved on Dec. 3 for the 2013-2014 school year, Chief Financial Officer Rob Levin said. The tuition in-crease, which is not yet pub-lic, will be published in early February when students are required to reenroll for school next year, Levin said.

Because of the Business Of-fice’s decision nearly 10 years ago to restrain tuition growth and because constraining fac-tors caused by the economic downturn have begun to re-lent, the designing of the bud-get was uneventful, Levin said.

“We were able to propose something to the board that

all of us were comfortable with, and it was not a super-long discussion,” Levin said.

Since both the Kutler Center for In-terdisciplinary Stud-ies and the Copses Family Pool were built using donations, they did not influence the budget, Levin said, although maintaining them does add some extra cost. However, factors like chemicals and electricity for the

new pool had already been built into this year’s budget.

“We kind of knew we were going to have a new pool,” Levin said. “It’s not a raging surprise.”

Instead, much of the dis-cussion at the Board of Trust-ees meeting concerned long-term financial issues, which Levin said “aren’t really purely financial, and aren’t a matter of just budget.” While the bud-get is tactical and concerned with the short-term “imme-

diate how,” it rarely overlaps with the long-term “what” of strategy.

These long-term issues include programs like finan-cial aid, which involves deci-sions made not just by the Fi-nance Committee but also by the planning committee, the Advancement Office and the Board of Trustees, Levin said.

However, the Board of Trustees and the Business Office mainly discussed how technology will figure in the reinvented traditional educa-tion.

“Right now we can say, oh, c’mon, what are you going to do, stay home and watch a whole bunch of videos on Khan Academy?” Levin said.

Although it’s easy to be dis-missive of virtual education, Levin said, in his presentation to the board he used the auto-maker General Motors, tech-nological corporation IBM and photographic company Kodak as examples of companies who didn’t take competition seri-

ously, or never saw it coming, and were peripheralized.

“We have to figure out how to reinvent ourselves so we don’t perish,” Levin said. “And we have to look around at what is the ridiculous alter-native that ends up being the tiger that eats us.”

The Business Office rarely puts money into technology to solve the problem, Levin said, with the possible exception of the school’s experiment with faculty iPads. Because of this, new technology rarely poses a budget problem.

The licensing fee for The Hub is about $20,000 a year, which Levin called “a round-ing error in the context of our budget.”

“It’s not dollars, it’s mind-set,” Levin said. Even though The Hub costs little, its impli-cations for classroom educa-tion mean a lot, he said.

“In the financial planning for this school’s future, the budgeting is way less impor-tant right now,” Levin said.

Rob Levinnathanson’s

Film editor visits video art classes

Janowitzearns distinction

By Jack Goldfisher

Eric Myerson ’98 spoke to a Video Art III class last week about his work editing feature films, documentaries and real-ity television.

Myerson was an all-around talented video student at Har-vard-Westlake, Visual Arts Chair Cheri Gaulke said.

“[He was] a great director, writer, editor and cinematog-rapher,” she said, but Myerson decided to work as an editor.

Myerson showed students clips from his various proj-ects, including a Chinese bank heist movie and a documenta-ry about Diana Nyad, a long-distance open-water swimmer.

Throughout the clips My-erson talked about his work, for which he was nominated for an Emmy award, and an editor’s ability to hone a writ-er or director’s storyline by changing what the audience sees and doesn’t see.

“The director can shoot whatever he wants, but ulti-mately it’s the editor that de-cides what goes on screen, and there’s a lot of creativity in that,” he said.

“To be an editor, you have to be willing to spend a lot of hours sitting in a dark room,” Myerson said, “but it’s a lot of fun.”

By emily seGal

The Senior Advancement Administrator for the Office of Advancement will be com-mended for her hard work at a conference with over 1,000 advancement professionals.

Brenda Janowitz was se-lected by the Council for the Advancement of Support-ive Education in conjunction with the National Associa-tion of Independent Schools to receive the Support Staff Distinguished Service Award. She will receive the award at the 43rd Annual CASE-NAIS School Conference inWashing-ton, DC on Monday, Jan. 14.

Senior Advancement Offi-cer Jim Pattinson, who nomi-nated Janowitz for the award, describes her as “the embodi-ment of what the award is meant to do: honor a profes-sional who has an impact on the institution over a long and distinguished career.”

Janowitz began work at Harvard-Westlake in 1998 as a gift processor and is now in charge of the entire logistical management advancement.

In a letter nominating Janowitz for the award, Presi-dent Thomas C. Hudnut said, “All roads in our Advancement efforts lead to her, through her or from her. She is the indis-pensable link that makes ev-erything else run smoothly.

“In my 26 years as leader of this school, I can think of no one in Harvard-Westlake’s employ who has done a better job or meant more to her col-leagues than Brenda Janow-itz.”

hwchronicle.com/news news A11Dec. 19, 2012

Alum becomes editor of Spectator

By Jake SaferStein

Instructors of the Indepen-dent Theater Workshop vis-ited drama classes on Dec. 12 to present a preview their new 2013 summer program.

The two instructors gave c o n d e n s e d versions of the activities at the sum-mer program.

“[The in-s t r u c t o r s ] came to classes, doing short dem-os of their two week program. It wasn’t just them talking, it was them doing activi-ties with the kids,” per-forming arts teacher Chris Moore said.

The summer program, the Independent Theater Work-shop will be Monday-Friday for two weeks from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The program will be of-fered to rising juniors, seniors, and recent graduates.

The goals of the Indepen-dent Theater Workshop are “to deepen [students’] perfor-mance abilities and to tap into new wells of emotion. To write vibrant, original material that makes an audience sit up and take notice. [And] to col-

laborate successfully within a group,” according to the infor-mation sheet the instructors handed out during classes.

During the workshop, the students will participate in ac-tivities that help them become better actors, writers, and di-

rectors. By the

last class, students will perform a play, which is also written by the stu-dents in the summer pro-gram.

Two in-s t r u c t o r s , Nick Soper and Lau-ren Ludwig, teach the program.

Soper is an actor, writer and teacher who has experience in the film industry.

Ludwig is a director, writer, and educator and has earned a Hollywood Fringe Festival “Best of Comedy” award and “Critic’s Pick” from the Chi-cago Reader with her work.

“The instructors were very easy-going and informed the class about the course of the summer program and what we would be doing. It will be two weeks of intensive scene study, writing, and then creating a play,” drama student Cameron Victor ’15 said.

By enya Huang

Sammy Roth ’10 is the new editor-in-chief of the Colum-bia Daily Spectator. He for-mally started the position on Dec. 10.

“I have the job now, but the hard work really starts next semester,” Roth said.

Roth joined the 200-mem-ber Spectator staff his first semester at Columbia as a writer for the news section. He served as deputy news editor in 2011 and as campus news editor in 2012.

“[It] is a complicated pro-

cess,” Roth said. “The way it works is the Spectator has a managing board of 25 editors, and at the end of the fall se-mester they start the applica-tion process.

“I had to write a 20-page proposal about what I’d do with the job, I had to take a several-thousand-word ethics test and I had an hour-long interview with the turkeyshoot,” a board consisting of editors who are not applying for new positions but instead are evaluating ap-plicants. “I was thrilled,” Roth said. “I had no idea what was going to happen.”

Roth was a managing edi-tor of Chronicle during his se-nior year.

“Chronicle was the main thing I did on campus,” Roth said. “I really liked working with people [and got to] un-derstand how publications works.”

Roth is exploring his post-graduation options. He is con-sidering entering sustainable development and the publica-tion industry for possible ca-reers.

“I’m going to give it more thought before I graduate,” Roth said.

Instructors preview summer workshop

TOP CHEF: Ingrid Hung ’13 and Erin Pindus ’13 work on a dish in their Molecular Gastrono-my class while Eric Dritley ’13 and guest chef Justin Campbell of Wolfgang Puck Catering watch.

Someone’s in the Kitchen

SARAH NOVICOFF/CHRONICLE“The instructors were very easy going and informed the class about the course of the summer program and what we would be doing. ”

—Cameron Victor ‘15

OpiniOnThe ChrOniCle • DeC. 19, 2012ChrOniCle

The harvarD-wesTlake

Los Angeles • Volume XXII • Issue III • Nov. 7, 2012

Editors in ChiEf: David Lim, Elana Zeltser

Managing Editors: Robbie Loeb, Michael

Rothberg, Camille Shooshani

ExECutivE Editor: Rachel Schwartz

PrEsEntations Editors: Jamie Chang, Gabrielle

Franchina

sPorts Editors: Michael Aronson, Luke

Holthouse

ChiEf CoPy Editor: Allana Rivera

nEws Managing Editors: Michael Sugerman, Ally

WhitenEws sECtion hEads:

Julia Aizuss, Jack Goldfisher, Elizabeth Madden, Lauren

Sonnenberg, Noa Yadidi infograPhiCs ManagEr:

Jivani GengatharannEws CoPy Editor:

Jessica LeenEws onlinE ManagErs:

Claire Goldsmith, Jensen Pakassistants:

Leily Arzy, Sara Evall, Haley Finkelstein, Enya Huang, Sophie Kupiec-Weglinski,

Jensen McRae, Nikta Mansouri, Scott Nussbaum, J.J.

Spitz, Jake Saferstein

oPinion Managing Editor: Ana Scuric

sECtion hEads: Beatrice Fingerhut, James

Hur, Kyla Rhynes, Tara Stoneassistants:

Parker Chusid, Lucas Gelfen, Kenneth Schrupp

fEaturEs Managing Editors: Maggie Bunzel, Carrie

DavidsonfEaturEs sECtion hEads:

Eojin Choi, Sydney Foreman, David Gisser, Sarah Novicoff, Morganne Ramsey, Lauren

Siegelassistants:

Carly Berger, Zoe Dutton, Jacob Goodman, Aimee

Misaki, Marcella Park, Nadia Rahman, David Woldenberg

sPorts Managing Editors: Aaron Lyons, Keane Muraoka-Robertson

sECtion hEads: Patrick Ryan, Grant

Nussbaum, Lucy Putnam, Lizzy Thomas

assistants: Elijah Akhtarzad, Mila

Barzdukas, Jordan Garfinkel, Tyler Graham, Miles

Harleston, Erina Szeto, Jeremy Tepper

BusinEss ManagEr: Cherish Molezionads ManagEr:Leslie Dinkin

PhotograPhErs:Mazelle Etessami, Rebecca

Katz, Scott Nussbaum, Emily Segal

MultiMEdia tEaM:Mazelle Etessami, Jack

Goldfisher, Eric Greenberg, Henry Hahn, Luke Holthouse,

Eric Loeb, Sam Sachs

advisEr: Kathleen Neumeyer

The ChroniCle is the student newspaper of Harvard-Westlake School. It is

published eight times per year. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion

of the seniors on the Editorial Board. Letters to the editor may be submitted to [email protected] or mailed to 3700

Coldwater Canyon, Studio City, CA 91604. Letters must be signed and may be edited

for space and to conform to Chronicle style and format. Advertising questions may be directed to Leslie Dinkin at 818-

465-6512. Publication of an advertisement does not imply endorsement of the

product or service by the newspaper or the school.

Deans warn seniors against sharing college ac-ceptances at school. Facebook posts are taboo. College sweatshirts are out of the question. It is true that this time of year many seniors are understandably sensi-tive—perhaps overly sensitive.

The culture of our school seems to frame college ac-ceptances as predominantly hurtful rather than excit-ing. One person’s happiness is another’s bitterness. It is no secret that seniors consider one student’s admit-tance as the primary factor in another student’s rejec-tion. We feel pitted against each other.

The negative atmosphere surrounding the public an-nouncement of college decisions at our school is unpar-alleled.

Students must respect the defined boundary be-tween bragging and sharing a legitimate accomplish-ment. There exists an absolute difference between demeaning displays and short, informative posts.

Come senior year, we all incessantly talk about college. Curiosity about who gets in where, even from those of us who were deferred or rejected, is inevitable. If we actively seek out the information anyway, there is no harm in getting it directly from the credible source.

Assuming that students respects the sensitivity of their peers who were there is nothing wrong with openly sharing acceptances.

Some say any post on Facebook is insensitive, but at the end of the day, a respectfully written announcement is just news.

College news on Facebook is just news

At the end of an emailed Honor Board Recommenda-tion, students were invited to an “informal meeting” in the Deans’ Conference Room the next day. According to a Chronicle poll, 70 percent of the 423 students polled did not know about this meeting. Besides the Chronicle reporter on the event, no students showed up to the meeting on Dec. 5. to discuss the details of the case with five prefects and Father J. Young.

As part of a reformed Honor Board process announced in September, the meeting was intended to open discussion on the Honor Code and provide a meaningful way for stu-dents to have their voice in the Code that they sign on every assignment. This we support overwhelmingly as we have advocated for such an outlet in past editorials.

However, this meeting replaced a comprehensive write-up by members of the Honor Board sent to all students that provided more information for students who wanted it. And with a open forum that was announced up the day before in such a small venue, we must be concerned with the lack of effort in advertising such events that Prefect Council as op-posed to the care they show for social events to get students to attend.

With the new concise Honor Board Recommendations, the majority of students have lost access to more details of the case. Not every student can take time out of their

break when they have clubs to attend or teachers to meet with. Previously, every student at the Upper School had the chance to skim over the facts when they had a few free min-utes and crucially, a chance to see the reasoning behind the Honor Board’s actions.

Not every case needs dozens of pages but if the members of the Honor Board really aspire to increased transparency, each case must have more than a two sentence summary and a list of punishments and include the reasoning behind every punishment. Without this rationale, there is no infor-mation to spark a honest discussion about the Honor Code that would drive students to an open forum. We also have little reason to have faith in opinions of our student leaders when their opinions to the case are not shown at all.

Head of School Audrius Barzdukas said in September of the new process that “there will be no writing until there is an agreement” and although consensus is necessary between the students on the Honor Board and the administrators who must carry out the punishment, students should have the ability to know how this consensus was met and how dif-ferent viewpoints converged to a final decision.

The open forums about the Honor Code are a step in the right direction, but a more thorough recommendation is not only necessary to increase transparency on the Honor Board as was intended by the reforms but also spark to discussion.

Try harder for Honor Board transparencyJACOB GOODMAN/CHRONICLE

Every student should feel safe coming to school. Last Friday, that sense of security was shaken for everyone in the nation.

At Harvard-Westlake, we are lucky enough to have procedures in place to prevent or sub-due any attacks. All students have attended AL-ICE training where they were told not to hide passively under their desks, but instead to resist an armed intruder. Experienced, armed campus security guards could stop a shooter with lethal force if necessary. A campus wide emergency notification system can send out texts and emails to students, teachers and parents at a moment’s notice.

Perhaps more importantly, we have an effec-tive psychological support system that may pre-vent these situations before they pose a threat.

Not every school can afford these precau-tions, and there is no way to implement such safety measures in every part of our lives where gun violence is a concern, something perhaps best exemplified by the recent shooting in the Aurora movie theater.

People say that a time of such grief should not be politicized — that to be respectful we should sit in silence and mourn the tragic lives

of those lost. Without progress though, those lives will have been lost in vain. It is time to move past the political arguments on gun regu-lation that have turned into years of legislative paralysis and to focus on action in the name of the 27 human lives that were senselessly taken last Friday.

This time discussion must be turned into something more. We must establish that we will not accept mass shootings as part of life in America — that we will not allow ourselves to go through the same cycle of grief after another headline proclaiming “massacre” flashes across the screen.

Of course there is no surefire way of pre-venting such tragedies, but there are things we can do to try to severely limit them. No matter what your political affiliations are, we should all agree action in some shape or form must be taken.

Be aware of the facts, and know what you stand for. If you are passionate, email your congressman and sign a petition. Knowledge of such horrible realities will inform your decisions when you are a voter or perhaps even a leader.

The worst thing we can do is nothing.

Turn tragedy into action

We cannot allow history to repeat itself yet again

“The problem, of course, cannot be solved merely through more regulations on firearms. It stems from something deeper than that. In my opinion, what lies at the root of this and many other problems is an unwillingness to really try to fix them.”

—Josh Lappen ’13

soundbyte

hwchronicle.com/opinion opinion A13Dec. 19, 2012

‘When the bad man breaks in to my house, I die’

My father grips my stepmother’s hand at the dinner table. She

lost her niece in the Aurora shooting, and now her voice breaks as she says the word, “children.” While the nation cries gun control, she just cries.

In the safe: rifles, shotguns and handguns. She asks me, what if there was one off-duty cop in that theater? What if one teacher had carried a gun?

She has a point. As much of the country rallies against the Second Amendment, I can’t help but be wary.

Banning something doesn’t make it go away. The prover-bial wolf in sheep’s clothing will get the guns he wants, and we will be left comforted knowing that we live in a “safer society.”

But when I no longer have the right to bear arms, what happens when the big bad man breaks into my house? What happens when he tries to rape me? Beat me? Kill me?

Do I reason with him? Do I attempt to explain the urge to dominate me as a twisted mommy issue? No, I don’t. When the big bad man breaks into my house to kill me, I die.

But what happens when I have the handgun in my house? My relative weakness is compensated by the incred-ibly powerful stopping-force mechanism in my hand, and my knowledge of how to use it.

Now, I understand that a handgun is different from

a semiautomatic weapon. In the context of self-defense, a handgun seems sufficient. But it is important to note that to military families like my own, banning semiautomat-ics feels unjust. Shooting, to them, is not just a skill, but a hobby. Their semiautomatics better perfect their craft. A car enthusiast doesn’t need a car that reaches 200 mph, but wants it, anyways. A semiau-tomatic isn’t necessary, but that does not mean people should be denied the right to own one.

Moreover, I do under-stand that the Sandy Hook Massacre was not the prod-uct of an 18-year-old girl defending herself from an intruder, but a mentally unstable 20-year-old who stole a semiautomatic rifle from his mother to shoot her, six adults, 20 children and himself.

In the light of this tragedy, gun regulation is at the very least logical. A title and tag with each sale, gun training, a written test before purchase and periodic inspections and reviews are necessary in a nation with nearly 315 million people, 200 million privately owned guns and over four major shooting incidents in the past 13 years.

But stricter gun laws alone will not stop massacres like the recent shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School

More money and energy needs to be put into mental health research and treat-ment. Our sensationalized

news needs to be tempered with a clearer understand-ing of how our world works. People die every day, and chil-dren will be murdered. These things will happen. While we cannot stand idly by, neither can we let our sadness about this lead us to unsound con-clusions.

A balanced approach to the issue will yield positive results, but attacking the Sec-ond Amendment as dated and unfounded will not.

I have heard people argue that our founding fathers weren’t thinking about semi-automatic weapons when they wrote the Second Amend-ment. Of course they weren’t, - they didn’t exist. They were thinking about overthrowing a tyrannical government, and the natural right to self-de-fense, among other things. We cannot disillusion ourselves into thinking that our society was founded on mutual love and respect and that the way to preserve these ideals is to limit our freedoms.

We are a nation of gun owners. Out of every 100 citi-zens, 89 own guns. The birth of our nation came about through war, and defense of it through an incredibly ad-vanced military.

This may not be a pleasant image, but it reminds us that securing our freedoms is not always a pleasant business. We can, though, make it the best we can. We can regulate, we can invest and we can balance emotion with prag-matism.

Columbine. Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. 27 people, including

20 children, died last Friday, shot at point blank in their classrooms at Sandy Hook El-ementary School in Newtown, Conn. We will grieve as a nation and take a deep breath before the full horror of the young lives lost hits us.

Cable news networks will flash headlines for the next few weeks declaring the incident a “tragedy” or a “massacre.” With pictures flashing across the screen, an anchor will profile the 20-year old “perpetrator” through his neighbors and high school friends as sometimes troubled loner but not anyone they would suspect.

But when this tragedy fades from the national spotlight and our eyes are no longer glued to TV screens seeking out every lurid detail, I fear that we will be no safer than we were on a Dec 14, 2012.

Wearing combat gear, Adam Lanza pulled the trig-ger on “similar to a weapon used by troops in Afghanistan and Iraq,” according to the New York Times. His mother, who was shot in her home im-mediately prior to the shoot-ing, legally owned the semiau-tomatic weapons used in the shooting.

After the Virginia Tech shooting, the deadliest school shooting yet, state legislators failed to ban concealed hand-guns on public universities and require registration of guns sold privately within the state. The federal government passed a comprehensive

I’ve been particularly irked by calls to hold off on politi-cal action and not turn our outrage into action. Every time a “massacre” happens, we follow a script of sharing in the horror and publically scrutinizing every moment of a shooting, but every shock never ends in any measures to

prevent another mass shoot-ing or examine our attitude to gun violence.

We can not ignore the fact that we are a nation of gun owners. Over 40 percent of Americans own guns and Although I personally would never dream of having a gun in my house, more than a few people you encounter on a daily basis own one of Amer-ica’s 300 million guns. Pro-gun organizations rally behind the “right to bear arms,” when those arms 300 years ago certainly could not shoot dozens of bullets in a minute and with any sort of precision.

It is pragmatic, cautious and prudent to plan for these emer-gencies. But it is also a chilling ac-ceptance that shootings will happen on school cam-puses and that guns will continue to be easily

accessible.No one gun law will defi-

nitely prevent further shoot-ings but the gun registration laws are not enough as last week’s tragedy illustrated. But the reasonable measures that a majority of Americans support such as banning the sale of semiautomatic weap-ons and limiting the size of magazines would reduce the risk of another mass shooting without infringing the right to self-defense.

These incremental chang-es may not change the reality of the situation but a strong reaction to limit gun violence will send a message that we cannot let this happen again. To do nothing would be an acceptance of the status quo: more shootings, more in-truders in military gear on breaking news and more dead children.

It’s a long term project for America to move beyond the Wild West and join the rest of the industrialized world in limiting gun ownership. Now is the time to start.

By Michael SugermanRoad to realization

Last weekend, I was driving east on Sun-set Blvd. in Beverly

Hills. As I passed through an intersection, a car driven by an elderly woman accelerated out of a side street. In an at-tempt to avoid an accident, I looked around, slammed the brakes and swerved out of the way, running over a cone and scratching my car on a nearby pole in the process.

As I got out of my car, the woman — clearly in the wrong — rolled down her win-dow and said with mocking

whimsy, “Nothing happened,” before speeding off

In the aftermath of said accident, I was shaking both out of anxiety and anger. I immediately called my mom, who, upon hearing that I was okay and that my car had sustained only a minimal blemish, told me to be care-ful, forget about it, and in the context of this time of year especially, think of things that I am grateful for.

For seniors, this “joyous holiday season” is complicat-ed. If we get into our colleges

of choice, we rejoice in the things we value. Rejection, however, can act as an acri-monious blindfold, prevent-ing us from appreciating the simple gifts present every day.

Surprisingly, my encoun-ter with the rude, elderly woman and the subsequent conversation with my mother put things in perspective for me. I, along with the mem-bers of the Harvard-Westlake community, have so much to be thankful for.

Over my six years here, I’ve made meaningful friend-

ships with students and teachers alike. I’ve par-ticipated in extracurricular activities that started as “why nots” and became integral parts of my life. I, to a certain extent, have grown up.

Sappiness aside, we really do have it good. Great teach-ers, a comprehensive educa-tion, a talented and intellec-tual peer group, cars to drive (with maybe a scratch or two) and healthy lives (ridden every so often with a fatigue-induced cold) … I can’t ask for much more.

As for the college process, our school has more than ad-equately prepared us over the course of the last few years. In the context of my senior year, this is perhaps the best blessing of all.

Sure, we won’t all get into our first choices. I certainly didn’t. But we can’t let rejec-tion, disappointment and even explosive Facebook drama hinder us from appreciating what we have. We’ll all be sent in the right direction. Each of us can and will find success. Happy holidays.

By AllAnA RiveRA By DAviD lim

nathanson’s

Even though we face obstacles, we all should be appreciative of how fortunate we are.

“I’ve been particularly irked by calls to hold off on political action and not turn our outrage into change.”

Every year, around the beginning of November, our country dives head

first into one of the most im-portant issues in our society. No, I’m not talking about the Presidential election again. This debate is much more important.

When does Christmas season officially start?

Starbucks goes into holi-day mode the day after Hal-loween. On Nov. 1, Starbucks busts out its red holiday-themed coffee cups, not wast-ing a day to capitalize on the festive spirit. I’m more of an iced coffee kind of guy, and Starbucks always serves cold drinks in transparent plastic cups, but I do love an iced gin-gerbread latte, so I don’t mind the early start.

Most radio stations wait until after Thanksgiving be-fore opening up their Christ-mas music library. Some households wait as late as Dec. 1 to put up decorations and purchase a Christmas tree.

Personally, I can’t decide whether it’s more important to get the holiday spirit going

as early as possible or if it’s better to save the excitement for when the holidays are closer. Much like a Harvard-Westlake football game, you don’t want to storm the field every time the team wins, but it feels almost like a rite of passage to do it at least once before you graduate, if not more.

There’s no doubt that we are now totally in the swing of Christmas time. So for ev-eryone stressed about school work, college admissions or in my case, press deadlines, remember that even grumpy people pretend to be happy this time of year

Now’s the best excuse that you’ll have to smile in a while.

For seniors, this message is particularly important around this time. With the stress of college results this week, it’s easy to mope until New Years if you don’t get into your top choice. But keep a smile on your face, count your blessings and remember that if you end up at your “safety school,” it probably throws better parties than your “reaches.”

Once the holiday season ends, everyone should main-tain their happy spirit at school. Don’t get me wrong, nothing makes me happier than hearing Nat King Cole blast “O Come All Ye Faith-ful” in my living room stereo when I come home from school and Winter Break is two of the best weeks of the year. But I feel like our school, or really society as a whole becomes too reliant on the holidays to be happy.

There are plenty of reasons to be happy at this school. In November, I partici-pated in No Shave November, entered into the school wide game of Assassins and started playing pick up football with my friends.

Truth be told, my beard was really unimpressive even after a month of letting it go. In fact, my facial hair was very patchy and just overall gross. But the challenge was a great chance for me and my bearded brothers to laugh at ourselves and rememer to not take everything so seriously.

Though I was knocked out of the Happiness Club spon-

sored Assassins Game before I had a chance to kill anyone, I’ve really enjoyed following the updates from the official Twitter account, and I hope the Happiness Club brings it back in the spring because it’s been another great way for us to do something fun. And because I want to win.

Lastly, the Friday af-ternoon football games are perfect way to start a week-end. I get to do something fun with all the guys I love hanging out with. Simple get togethers like that can turn a boring weekend into a great one, and remind us how much we enjoy going to school with our friends.

So in conclusion, I think I’ve finally decided when we should start Christmas season: every day. Find little things in your life, like games, facial hair and Friday after-noon sunshine, to be excited about. Keep a balanced per-spective on whether or not the challenges in your life are big things or little things. And remember to just relax a little bit around school, because at-titude goes a long way.

I traveled to San Antonio to attend the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School

Journalism Convention from Nov. 15-18, and I can confirm that everything is indeed big-ger in Texas, from the food to the pride.

I was very lucky to be able to go on this trip with a great group of people. Walk-ing around in the conven-tion center, we met several professional journalists who admired the Chronicle, which made me proud to be on the staff. Listening to the stories of diverse students and faculty made me realize the impor-tance of student journalism in a broader context.

At the final awards ceremony, we all waited in anticipation to hear the names called of the Chronicle newspaper and website, Big Red sports magazine, Vox Po-puli yearbook and Spectrum middle school news magazine. When we heard the name of the Chronicle announced as a Pacemaker winner, we all jumped up with excitement, until we realized that the Chronicle was also a news-paper from San Antonio, and that we did not in fact win. Nevertheless, we managed to place “Best of Show” with all of our publications, which is an impressive feat.

One thing that stuck with me was that with every award announced, rousing applause could be heard. Every school cheered for one another when they were honored at the convention. Every school publication did not come to prove that they were better than every other publication. There was no actual competi-tion between newspapers and yearbooks, only a spirit of cooperation and a communal desire to promote journalism.

I had a lot of fun traveling and spending time with my friends on the Chronicle staff. This trip was not just a learn-ing trip for journalism, but a memorable experience.

Dec. 19, 2011A14 OpiniOn The chrOnicle

All is bigger in Texas

Christmas spirit every dayBy Luke Holthouse

Why do I care?” This is a question asked by many as they sit

in classrooms, contemplating when they will ever need to know how to graph a poly-nomial, or wondering who will ever quiz them later in life on the details of the Arab Spring. I’ll admit, I sit and wonder the same things as I study into the late hours of the night, I even excuse my-self from the last bits of my work in favor of a few more minutes of sleep, justifying my choice with the aforemen-tioned rationalization. Be-cause, really, why do I care?

I know I have to do my homework so I don’t fail out, but a significant struggle in a teenager’s life is find-ing a reason to care about the world around them. The same rationale that excuses

students from learning how to, say, graph a polynomial is unfortunately also used as an excuse to not learn about global events. Our school and social lives are high stress and offer little time to relax, so it is understandable that given a moment of respite, one’s moti-vation to read David Brooks’s latest opinion piece in the New York Times wavers.

Why should we care about what’s going on in the world? Why work to understand the world’s economy, politics, social structures and environ-ment? To empathize with the struggles of emerging nations and peoples, or be qualified to voice one’s disapproval with the treatment of the environ-ment, or even comment about the world one must invest in the knowledge to make any such involvement informed

and meaningful. The state-wide and congressional elec-tion is in two years; we will hold the fate of the future in our hands when some of us vote for the first time. These decisions will shape how we interact with others at home and around the world.

Living in our own little cocoons, we tend to focus inwardly. We are focused on our own futures and our own social lives and our own inter-actions. This obsession with personal problems and issues relating to the individual are a part of being adolescent. Adolescence will end.

We don’t just hold only our own fates in our hands. We hold the fate of other nations and peoples whose govern-ments are not capable of fixing their problems. Respon-sibility falls on our shoulders.

Today we care about our personal problems, but one day we will have to care about healthcare for ourselves and our children, our country’s immigration laws, where we spend our money, how we choose to aid the oppressed around the world in this time of transition.

We have to change our mindsets from one of internal reflection and judgment to one of external concern and seeking of knowledge. Though students may not be awarded for their desire to learn, it is that decision to devote free time to bettering oneself and learning about others that al-lows one to excel.

I’ve grown up in a house-hold of constant discussion and debate. My parents turn on “Meet the Press” every Sunday at 7 a.m. so my broth-

ers and I will watch and learn. There is rarely a dinner that doesn’t devolve into debates on politics and religion. Friends who join us joke of participating in the “Son-nenberg debates.” Early on, I felt as though issues were just thrust at me at home. As I grew older, however, I took on a responsibility to take the time out of my day to read the newspaper and formulate my own opinions. I have the same social needs as the next kid, Facebook is the same drug for me that it is for every other teenager, and I’m just as con-cerned with what happened in the newest episode of “30 Rock,” but I try to take the time to open the latest issue of Newsweek instead, if only to substantiate arguments against my father at dinner with evidence.

By Lauren SonnenbergIgnorance isn’t bliss

JACOB GOODMAN/CHRONICLE

In the future, it will be up to us to make important decisions. But in order to do so, we have to better understand our world.

By Jensen Pak

hwchronicle.com/opinion opinion A15Dec. 19, 2012

quadtalkThe Chronicle asked:

“Do you think it is appropriate for students to post about their college acceptances on Facebook?”

“Once is fine. People are going to be happy for you. But don’t do it repeatedly. Maybe I’ll change my school info, but a status isn’t necessary.”

“I think it is appropriate if a student’s really happy about sharing it with their friends; I understand some people find it offensive, but really, it’s Facebook.”

—Taylor Cooper ’13

“I think it’s appropriate to a certain point. If people asked me about my acceptance, then I would tell them, but I wouldn’t openly declare it.”

—Koji Everard ’15

— Quinn Luscinski ’14

420 students weighed in on the monthly Chronicle poll

Yes, it is fine to post on Facebook

No, it isn’t fine topost on Facebook

Comments:

A A- B+ C F

“Were you aware of the Prefect Council’s Dec.10 meeting open to the student body to review the most recent Honor Board case?”

423 students weighed in on the Chronicle poll

Yes No

“Given the choice, would you prefer to have midterms before or after winter break?”

“After, because I like semester break and it’s nice to not worry for the whole week before winter break.”

“Before, because then you don’t have to worry about it before winter break. It would ruin the nice break.”

—Henry Woody ’13

“By having them after break the first semester is longer so you have more time to get your grades up before midterms so that’s a lot nicer.”

—Louly Maya ’14

— Milan Serevino ’15

420 students weighed in on the monthly Chronicle poll

Midterms should be before break

Midterms should be after break

reportcardOnly a week and a half after break before midterms

Wintergrams were cash only

Reynolds Hall receives $5 million for renovation

Holiday decorations in the lounge

Movies playing in lounge throughout the week

“I think people should be allowed to be happy and share their good news with Facebook. We have to remember that Facebook is not only people from our school, but other friends and rela-tives. People do need to be able to post in a tasteful matter as to not hurt people's feelings or make them uncomfortable.”

— Alixx Lucas ’13

“If people want to share, they should tell their friends. I think that it is highly insensitive to post whether or not you got into a school on facebook especially since other students may not have gotten into said college.”

— Henry Copses ’14

258

162

174

246

127

296

Dec. 19, 2012A16 exposure

425

JINGLE BELLS:

1: Prefect Ben Gail ’13 watches the Jazz Singers’ performance with Suzie, a member of the ARC Bell Choir that performed at the Winterfest celebration.

2: The ARC Bell Choir performs “Silent Night” in front of the assembled students and faculty Monday at break.

3: Sarah Shelby ’13, Justin Carr ’14 and Aiyana White ’14 perform with the Jazz Choir.

4: Katie Ehrlich ’14 plays “Pin the Nose on the Reindeer.”

5: Prefects Mikaila Mitchell ’13 and Rachel Persky ’15, at left, pose with President Thomas Hudnut, dressed as Santa, a member of the ARC Bell Choir, and Prefects Morgan Hallock ’13 and Mazelle Etessami ’14, at right.

31 Deck the Halls

PHOTOS BY JACK GOLDFISHER AND NOA YADIDI

By Noa Yadidi

The annual Winterfest celebration began Monday and will continue throughout the week to spread holiday cheer in the lead up to Winter Break. Each day this week will have a different theme, and for the first time this year, a different movie will be played in the lounge every day. The festivities were planned and run by Prefect Coun-cil in conjunction with Social Committee.

On Monday, dubbed “Merry Monday,” students were originally asked to dress up in their most festive holiday clothing, but in light of the recent events, Prefect Council asked students in an email Sunday to wear Sandy Hook Elementary School’s school colors, green and white. During break, the

ARC Bell Choir performed three songs and the Jazz Singers sang two, while students decorated gingerbread cookies, played pin the nose on the reindeer, took pictures with Santa and participat-ed in Hanukkah games. Before the performances started, Head of Upper School Audrius Barzdukas asked for a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims.“I loved watching ARC perform,” ju-nior prefect Ashley Sacks ’14 said. “Their perfor-mances are always so touching and our commu-nity responds so well to them.”

Throughout the week, Wintergrams that were purchased last week will be delivered to class meetings. Additionally, there is a school-wide Se-cret Santa gift exchange for the first time this year.

FeaturesThe ChroniCle • DeC. 19, 2012

By ElizabEth MaddEn

Linda* ’13 snaps a photo on her black iPhone 4S of her new puppy, and immediately sends the photo to her friends, asking, “Is this cute enough to Instagram?”

Instagram, a popular photo-sharing application for iPhones and Android devices, has become an obsession among some stu-dents. To use the application one creates a username and follows peers and celebrities to see the photos that they share and edit.

Facebook recently bought Ins-tagram, tying the two social me-dia networks together so that now, users can immediately share the photos on their Facebook page as well as their Instagram profile.

The application has also creat-ed a frenzy for “likes” on students’ edited photos. There are now eas-ily accesible hacks that students, such as Josephine Kremer ’14, have discovered and use to garner more “likes” on their photos.

“What you do is you follow ac-counts that have a ‘like for like’ policy, meaning that if you like their pictures, they’ll like yours back,” Kremer said. “It’s a great way to get extra likes on your pic-ture.”

Some students have found oth-er ways to get more followers on the popular website, such as fol-lowing “follow for follow” accounts that will follow you back and “like” all of your photos in exchange for you following them first. Another alternative is buying followers, which Jennifer* ’15 said she did with a group of her friends.

“Looking back, it was pretty stupid,” she said. “But it’s pretty cool to go to my profile and see

that I have more than 1,000 fol-lowers, even if they aren’t people I know. People ask me how I have so many all the time, but I never tell them it’s because I spent money for it.”

Jennifer bought the followers through a website, which she de-clined to name. Though would not name the price she paid, she said it was upwards of $50.

Students also focus on their follower to following ratio, mean-ing that they make sure that the number of accounts following them are at least double the amount of accounts they themselves are fol-lowing.

“Sometimes, I have to unfollow people so that I have a good ratio,” Linda said.

Jared* ’13, a photographer, does not participate in the photo-sharing application because he be-lieves it undermines the talents of true photographers, he said.

“It’s just sad, because profes-sional photographers work so hard to create the effects that people are so carelessly using by just using their own camera, not an artificial source,” he said. “Now, everyone thinks they’re a talented photographer just because they can select the effect that makes their picture look best.”

An article on The Guardian supports this view, saying that In-stagram is “debasing” the art of photography and the work that so many people have trained their whole lives to perfect.

“Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with Instagram,” Lin-da said. “Sometimes, I feel like it’s taking over my social life.”

*names have been changed

: Worth 1,000 words

CAPTURING THE MOMENT: To spruce up their photo albums, students put Instagram filters on photographs by choosing from a list of preset effects. Instagram users can choose from 18 different effects. The top left and bottom right photo feature the Amaro effect, and the photo above uses the Lo-Fi filter. Though some students use the application solely to share photos with friends and celebrities, some go as far as to spend money buying followers.

PHOTOS BY THE CHRONICLE STAFF

As an increasing number of colleges use social media websites to evaluate their applicants, seniors change their Facebook names in order to conceal their identities.

By Michael RothbeRg

For many years, colleges and universities have factored grades, teacher recommendations, test

scores and essays into their ad-mission decisions. However, ac-cording to a 2012 poll by Kaplan Test Prep of 350 admissions of-ficers, some colleges even view prospective students’ Facebook profiles and other social media outlets in the admissions pro-cess.

Of the 350 admissions offi-cers polled, 26 percent said they check an applicant’s Facebook wall as part of their review of the student.

However, only 15 percent of colleges currently have rules against consulting an applicant’s Facebook page in the college pro-cess.

According to the Kaplan study, factors that tended to negatively affect an applicant’s acceptance chances include es-say plagiarism, vulgarities in blogs and alcohol consumption in photos.

To avoid the investigation altogether, some seniors have swapped their real names on Facebook with fake ones to evade the watchful eyes of the college admissions officers.

“I changed my Facebook name slightly to avoid being spied on by colleges, but mostly for comedic effect,” Gil Young ’13, who changed his profile name to ‘Moose Triple,’ said. “Probably some of the statuses I’ve posted wouldn’t be the best things to show to colleges due to my some-what ‘out there’ sense of humor, but I detagged myself from any

incriminating pictures.”These monikers, many of

them puns or pop culture refer-ences, have also become an unof-ficial senior tradition.

Instead of changing their names for privacy reasons, many seniors did it to be a part of the trend.

“The reason most people change their names is to hide from colleges, but I did it mainly because it was just fun and ev-erybody else was doing it,” Katya Konkol ‘13 said. “I didn’t have anything I needed to hide.”

In order to avoid the whole privacy ordeal, dean Jim Patter-son advises that students refrain from posting inappropriate ma-terial on Facebook in general.

“[Facebook] is just something you need to be really careful with,” said dean Jim Patterson. “At the end of the day if a student were going to ask me for advice I would say don’t put anything on Facebook that you aren’t willing to share with everybody.”

Bo Lee ’13, on the other hand, was among the students who opted not to change their Face-book names during the college process.

“I don’t know if I wasn’t lis-tening or not, but I don’t recall any dean or college rep ever men-tioning Facebook pages,” he said. “We have never been warned about it, so I don’t think it’s of major concern. I really don’t have much to hide on Facebook. There might be some profanity or inappropriate comments on it, but I personally don’t feel like it’s worth it to hide it. Colleges should understand that we’re in high school and that we can’t al-ways be the ideal student.”

Under theRadar

INFOGRAPHICS BY EMILY SEGAL, MICHAEL ROTHBERG AND LAUREN SIEGELSOURCE: KAPLAN TEST PREP

Online

Kaplan Test Prep asked 350 college admissions officers what they what they look for online

Red Flags

Plagiarismon essays

Vulgarity

AlcoholConsumption

Other “Illegal Activities”

#$%*!@

“Probably some of the statuses I’ve posted wouldn’t be the best things to show to colleges due to my somewhat ‘out there’ sense of humor.”

Dec. 19, 2012B2 Features the chronicle

76% of colleges use Twitter, up from 56% in 2011

87% of colleges use Facebook, up from 56% in 2011

73%of colleges use YouTube, up from 56% in 2011

Gil Young ‘13 By the Numbers

Bo Lee ‘13

By AllAnA RiveRA

His car has three pedals and operating them requires a careful maneuvering process. With his left foot, Ben Gay-lord ’13 gradually releases the clutch, while with his right, he slowly presses down on the ac-celerator. He waits for the feel of first gear clicking into place before he releases the clutch entirely and accelerates into first.

“The way I like to think about it is like a chemical reac-tion: if you don’t have enough activation energy, the car will stall,” Gaylord said.

Gaylord drives a manual transmission, and he describes

this first step on the pedal as a particu-larly delicate shift. When first learning how to drive, he said, it was tough. One must learn how to com-mand the clutch, brake,

accelerator and gear-shift of-ten all at once.

In an automatic gear-shift, the gears change on their own if there is a change in speed, but with a manual transmis-sion each gear change must be done by hand and foot as one must press in the clutch while shifting up or down a gear. All, of course, while driving.

“It’s a lot to think about at once.” Gaylord said. “It intro-duces a lot to do while you’re driving.”

At this point, however, finding his car’s sweet spot is purely muscle memory, and he barely gives the process a sec-ond thought before he drives away.

Gaylord is one of the few

students at the upper-school campus to drive a car with manual transmission.

Gaylord attributes this relative unpopularity to an emphasis on driving purely for necessity.

“Nowadays, people mostly drive just for the purpose of getting to their destination,” Gaylord said. “Driving for the sake of driving is dying out. If your only motive is to get where you’re going, driving automatic is just more prac-tical because it’s easier and you’re expending less energy and focus on your driving.”

Carrie Davidson ’13, an-other stick-shift driver, has similar opinions about the ap-parent aversion to stick-shift.

“Honestly, I think it’s just because it’s harder,” Davidson said. “People are kind of lazy, and if you don’t have to go through these extra steps why bother? In Los Angeles it’s a pain to be in stop-and-go traf-fic, especially on a hill, and to have be driving a manual car.”

Bradley Schlesinger ’13, who drives an automatic transmission, said that despite wanting to learn he isn’t sure of its practicality.

“It’s cost-benefit analysis,” Shlesinger said. “How many times am I going to drive a stick shift?”

Gaylord admits that Los Angeles might prove a hard city to navigate for people wanting to learn stick-shift, as the stop-and-go traffic char-acteristic of the city requires constant changing of gears.

“In LA, where there’s con-stant traffic, it makes more sense to drive automatic,” Gaylord says.

Charlie Nelson ’13 recalls his first lessons of learning to drive stick with a chagrined smile.

“I did it once. wasn’t too

good,” Nelson said. He laughs as he remem-

bers driving down Sunset be-fore completely stalling at a light on Beverly Glen.

“I was stuck at that light for a long time,” Nelson said, remembering that there was a long line of angry drivers be-hind him.

Gracen Eval ’13, however, is eager to learn for the “value of knowledge.” More impor-tantly, she deems it necessary for her future career in reali-ty-television.

“To fulfill my dreams of being on the Amazing Race, I would need to learn to drive a stick-shift,” Evall said.

Aside from this, Evall rec-ognizes the benefits of driving stick for traveling purposes. In Europe and many other parts of the world, manual trans-mission dominates as the main means of automobile trans-portation, so knowing how to drive stick-shift is an invalu-able skill for Evall.

In Europe, about 85 per-cent of cars are sold with stick-shifts while in America, about 95 percent are sold with automatics, according to car-talk.com.

Davidson and Gaylord both cite this as obvious benefits to driving stick-shift.

“My dad has this idea that all his children need to drive stick-shift,” Davidson said. “He says it makes you a more capable human being.”

Davidson and Gaylord both also enjoy the power afforded by driving a manual transmis-sion.

“You are in control of ev-erything your car does,” Gay-lord said. “It feels really good to have that control.”

USA Today cites this among the many reasons for the recent boom in manual transmission sales.

“Many people consider manuals more fun to drive than automatics,” James R. Healy wrote in USA Today. “Even those who don’t often see them as a way to wring the most pep possible from the small-engine, low-power cars that are getting more atten-tion because they use less fuel and cost less to buy.”

Despite the preference for automatics among teens and Los Angeles natives, Ameri-cans have recently shown “a growing crush on manual transmissions,” according to Healy.

Manual cars are cheaper, more fuel-efficient, and with newly improved technology are more user-friendly than they have been ever before. Most importantly, they are far more fun to drive.

“Automatics are boring,” Gaylord said. “With a manual transmission, driving is a more active experience.”

“It’s really fun to have control of the car,” Davidson agreed. “With an automatic, you have a certain amount of control but with a manual I can control my speed and how the car handles much more precisely.”

Now, driving an auto-matic has become a strange experience for Gaylord. His foot twitches and his right hand reaches for the gear-shift when he is driving out of habit, Gaylord said. Davidson describes the experience like having “phantom pain.”

“When I first started hav-ing to control the clutch with my left foot, it was a really strange feeling because I had learned to drive in an auto-matic car,” Davidson said. “Now, however, whenever I drive an automatic I have this urge to use my left foot and it feels really weird not to.”

“Automatics are boring. With a manual transmission driving is a more active experience.”

—Ben Gaylord ’13

Although most cars on campus have automatic transmission, some students prefer operating stick-shifts and find them exhilarating to drive. The growing interest in stick-shifts is reflected by the increase in sales of manual transmission cars in the US since 2007.

Keepin’ it clutch

2.91 percent of cars purchased domestically in 2007 were stick shift vehicles.

6.98 percent of cars purchased domestically in the first five months of 2012 were stick shift vehicles.

Stick shift speeding up Since 2007, sales of manual transmission cars have begun to rise back to 2002 levels of 8.48 percent.

8.48 percent of cars purchased domestically in 2002 were stick shift vehicles.

hwchronicle.com/features features B3Dec. 19, 2011

DAVID LIM/CHRONICLE

INFOGRAPHIC BY JAMIE CHANGSOURCE: EDMUNDS.COM

Dec. 19, 2012B4 Features the chronicle

HAVE A LITTLE

FAITHBy Mazelle etessaMi

After eating her lunch fifth period, Mintis Hankerson ’14 treks

from the lower quad to St. Saviour’s Chapel. The door opens with a creak, and in si-lence she takes a seat in one of the pews. Pulling out her iPhone, Hankerson opens Is-lamic Compass, an application that points her in the direc-tion of Mecca, the holiest city of Islam. She stands and pulls the scarf that loosely wraps around her neck over her head in the fashion of a Muslim hi-jab. She walks to the chapel’s elevated pulpit and kneels. For the next eight minutes, she chants a Muslim prayer in Arabic.

The chapel Hankeron prays in is Episcopalian, al-though Harvard-Westlake is home to a student body whose diverse array of beliefs range from secular to devout.

Hankerson said she was not always this devoted to her religion. Her father has been a committed Muslim since con-verting through the Nation of Islam more than 20 years ago.

Two years ago, she decided to follow in his footsteps and officially converted to Islam.

“I didn’t always have re-ligion,” she said. “I wasn’t al-ways a Muslim, and I wasn’t always serious about it, but praying makes me feel like I’m doing something right — like I’m keeping my mind focused.”

Choosing to follow this path, Hankerson sometimes feels that she has to defend her religion to other students.

“Jihad means struggle, it doesn’t mean to kill people,” Hankerson said. “My jihad is explaining to people what my religion really stands for.”

Liza Wohlberg ’13, is an active member of the Jewish community.

“Everyone at school who knows me knows that I am Jewish,” Wohlberg said. “My religion is such a big part of my life. It finds its way into most of my classes and friend-ships in some way or another.”

Wohlberg, who has spent time studying Hebrew and the principles of Judaism, of-ten finds herself driven by her religious views in the face of challenges.

“Problems sometimes arise when I feel that others dismiss religious ideas as though they are not substantial enough to be the foundation of an argu-ment,” Wohlberg said. “I beg to differ.”

Despite her strong affilia-tion, Wohlberg enjoys engag-ing in conversations with those who have different beliefs than she does to discuss the impli-cations and impact of religion.

“Sometimes it is difficult given that religion is often of a sensitive, personal nature but I think it is crucial to be able to talk to others about some-thing so important, and to be open to different perspec-tives,” Wohlberg said.

History teacher Matthew Cutler, a practicing Christian, believes that engaging in such discussions can make people more universally accepting.

“When I was a teenager, I often struggled express-ing my religious beliefs to my peers fearing that I would be judged,” Cutler said. “This is why I believe it is so important that teachers feel comfort-able expressing their religious views, so as to provide an en-vironment where students feel equally as comfortable ex-pressing their views.”

Cutler, who has engaged in religious discussions with both teachers and students, said that such conversations are “natural among people who are academically inclined.

So long as we are respectful of each other’s opinions, these discussions are rewarding. I have had a religious discussion with students, but again, these are not disputes.”

Father J. Young, who iden-tifies himself as an Episcopa-lian, said that religious con-versations can enlighten the school and the issues students face every day.

“Talking about things that are greater than us can lift up a community in a certain way,” Young said.

Young leads an Episcopal service every Tuesday morn-ing for a congregation of around ten people in St. Sav-iour’s Chapel.

“There are a handful of teachers and administrators who go to chapel with me on Tuesday mornings,” Morgan Hallock ’13 said. “It’s nice to see them at school during the day, knowing them as someone else other than a teacher.”

Although others criti-cized her religious beliefs in ninth grade, Hallock, a devout Christian, said students have become more open-minded and respectful of her choices over time.

“I think that people get too caught up in defending their religious beliefs, when really, the true purpose of religion is to give people hope, love and something to believe in,” Hal-lock said. “I would encourage students to find what they be-lieve in and be confident in it.”

Young agrees that affilia-tion with a religion can pro-vide a true sense of comfort and camaraderie.

“One of the primary bene-fits of being a member of a re-ligious community is the world community,” Young said. “Peo-ple are happy if they are well supported. Being in a commu-nity is a means of being well supported.”

I have my beliefs on issues such as abortion and gay rights, but my beliefs have nothing to do with my religion, and I wish that others thought about things that way.”

-Sarika Pandrangi ‘13

“If people are willing to talk in a civilized manner, I’m willing to talk about anything. I would love to talk to people about religions, but people are tentative.”

-Maya Broder ‘13

“ Since my grandmother is a Holo-caust survivor, I feel it’s my duty to identify myself as Jewish ... [but] I don’t really believe in organized religion.”

-Merissa Mann ‘13

“Being religious isn’t really about going to church every Sunday. It’s more about developing a relationship with God. It comes from the inside.” -Malanna Wheat ‘14

“

By Carrie DaviDson anD MiChael sugerMan

As she pulls up to a stoplight, Miley* ’13 pulls a cigarette from her lips and puffs

smoke rings out her car win-dow. It’s a skill she mastered after weeks of practicing. She smoked her first cigarette at a party out of curiosity, and hasn’t looked back since. Her ex-boyfriend, a heavy smoker, only increased her nicotine us-age.

“He and I would spend a lot of time t o g e t h e r , ” she said. “I adapted.”

Now, Mi-ley smokes two to three times a day: once before school and once after, occasionally leaving cam-pus to smoke during a free period if she craves a ciga-rette.

According to a national study conducted by the Uni-versity of Michigan Institute for Social Research in 2011, Miley is one of roughly 18.7 percent of high school seniors who smoke, 30 percent of whom will likely consume cig-arettes into their adulthood.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control reports that tobacco is responsible for approximately 443,000 deaths per year na-tionwide. Developing adoles-cents younger than 21 years of age are more susceptible to addiction and have more dif-ficulty quitting, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine website.

Information like this does not deter students like Ber-nard* ’13, who is confident that he is not and will not be addicted to cigarettes. He began smoking during 10th grade out of curiosity and “re-bellious urges.”

“I probably smoke one ev-ery few days,” he said. “Usu-ally at home after finishing my homework, or if it’s the weekend at a party. I just feel comfortable with it as a way to relax. I enjoy the way it makes me feel, but in small doses.”

Bernard acknowledges the respiratory and cardiovas-cular repercussions of smok-ing, but he said he’s not wor-ried. One pack of cigarettes lasts him three weeks and he doesn’t plan to continue past college. His father discovered his son’s habit last year and was understanding.

“He used to smoke, but doesn’t anymore,” Bernard said. “He knows I’m being cau-tious about it and, as someone who overcame smoking very easily, he knows that I can kick

the habit whenever I want to.”School psychologist Luba

Bek identified the “rebellious urges” that Bernard spoke of as one of the main reasons adolescents take up smoking.

“Adolescents are search-ing for an identity,” she said. “Ironically right now, smoking cigarettes is a rebellious act not because it’s not an okay thing to do, but because it’s asserting ‘I’m different from everyone else.’ In the previ-ous decade, smoking was more

about grow-ing up. Now, it’s more about stand-ing out, al-though kids aren’t willing to admit it.”

Bek, who smoked as a teenager, said students need to be more serious about the nega-tive effects of smoking.

“ Y o u might think it’s very in-nocent, but

it’s one of the most addictive substances,” she said. “It’s not considered to be as serious as heroin or coke, but it is a serious addiction that is life-threatening.”

Giselle* ’13 said she won’t smoke into her adulthood, and like Bernard, smokes for ciga-rettes’ “relaxing effect.” Her parents don’t know that she smokes, and she plans to keep them in the dark. After taking a smoke, she chews gum and sprays herself with perfume to disguise the cigarette odor.

Giselle sometimes feels the need to smoke during school, but claims that she is not an addict. Although she goes through roughly a pack per week, she’s not alone; she said she shares her smokes with friends, especially on the weekends.

“School is stressful and can get annoying,” she said. “Hav-ing a quick cigarette helps. I know it’s bad for you, but I don’t plan to do it forever.”

However, nicotine’s relax-ing effect is what ultimately gets smokers hooked, accord-ing to a 2010 article on the Livestrong Foundation’s web-site. Nicotine activates feel-ings of pleasure and reward in the brain, and exposure to nicotine results in tolerance for the drug. This can lead to addiction because increasing amounts of nicotine are re-quired to maintain its original effect. In fact, less than one in 10 people who try to quit smoking succeed.

“The risk increases the longer you involve yourself with it,” Cedars-Sinai Medi-cal Group endocrinologist Dr. Eli Ginsburg said. “It’s the amount of smoking you’ve

done over the number of years you’ve done it. None of it is ex-act.”

Ginsburg said in addition to commonly recognized ail-ments, like heart dis-ease and lung cancer, cigarette smoking is associated with bladder cancer and chronic lung dis-eases like bronchitis. Furthermore, smok-ing only aggravates symptoms in people prone to asthma, even stimulating hid-den heart problems to trigger defects like irregu-lar heartbeats.

According to statistics published in a BBC health ar-ticle Nov. 25, “Research has [also] repeatedly linked smok-ing and high blood pressure to a greater risk of cognitive de-cline and dementia.”

Samuel* ’13 recognizes the danger smoking poses to his health and is trying to cut back on what he identifies as a frightening addiction. He started small, smoking twice a week at most. As he found himself swamped by the stress of junior year, he increasingly relied on cigarettes as a source of calm.

“I started getting scared about my habit this summer,” he said. “Once I recognized I had an issue, I tried to be more aware of how much I was smoking and began cutting down because I was doing it way too often. I was smoking one or two [cigarettes] on my way to school, one or two off campus during a free period and three at the end of school. It was bad.”

Now, Samuel limits his smoking during the day. When he goes off campus, he invites friends who don’t smoke with him. That way, he’s not tempt-ed to pull out a cigarette.

Some students, like Meg* ’13, smoke to curb other negative desires.

“When I stopped getting high, I needed a way to relieve stress,” she said. “I met other sober people and they smoked to keep from falling back into old habits, so I joined.”

Meg said her stress level determines how often she smokes.

“When I get stressed and find myself wishing I still had drugs, I’ll go out and smoke a cigarette,” she said. “Just one.”

Beverly Hills pediatrician Dr. Ronald Nagel said this is an example of “one [potential] addiction leading to another.”

“It is a much bigger prob-lem in college,” he said. “People smoke a few ciga-

rettes and tell me, ‘Doc, I can stop any time I want.’ We are creatures of habit. Once you get that taste in your mouth, you’ve opened up the door.”

Meg said she doesn’t crave the nicotine. When her friends smoke, she feels no pressure to join them. Although she feels in control of her cigarette use, she has alternative meth-ods of dealing with potential compulsion.

“I have friends trying to quit who

smoke electronic cigarettes, which are safer, to relieve stress,” she said. “If it got to a point where I was smoking more, I would look into that.”

Nagel said e-cigs provide “the look without the danger,” also citing nicotine patches as outlets through which po-tential addicts can ease off of cigarettes. However, he said, “you have to be motivated.” He added that the few who quit successfully often experience weight problems later in life.

“You’re used to having something in your mouth,” he said. “Eating is a form of ad-diction too. You’re just chang-ing one disease with another.”

His suggestion to avoid the potential ailments and addic-tions caused by smoking: don’t do it in the first place.

“Get high on sports,” Nagel said. “Not drugs.”

*names have been changed

Lighting Up Despite the many serious negative side effects of cigarettes, some students smoke to relieve stress or in social situations, ignoring the harm to their bodies.

hwchronicle.com/features features B5Dec. 19, 2012

“You might think it’s very innocent, but it’s one of the most addictive substances.”

—Luba BekSchool Psychologist

Luba Beknathanson’s

EMILY SEGAL/CHRONICLE

This is your brain on

By Sydney Foreman

Lenny* ‘14 placed the white strip of blotting paper on his tongue and 75 micrograms of ly-sergic acid diethylamide (LSD) began absorbing into his system. Within 30 minutes he relaxed

and noticed the trees beginning to glow and the sun shining brighter than ever. He felt the textures of the cold smooth sidewalks and prickly grass; cotton-candy-like clouds began moving and morphing together in “slanky, lanky, curly shapes.”

This distorting of reality is a trait of hallucinogens such as LSD according to Dr. David Kipper, a

member of the California Society of Addic-tion Medicine and the American Society of Addiction Medicine, explained. This false perception of reality, according to Kipper, can cause the user to engage in dangerous behav-

ior. Unlike many other drugs, hallucinogens are

not physically or psychologically addictive. Kip-per attributes this to the fact that they don’t necessarily stimulate a high, which is why the brain does not crave them.

Most illegal substances Lenny has used, such as nicotine, Adderall and alcohol are physically addictive. When this concern is relevant, Lenny tries to put a limit on his us-age if he notices a particular craving. With physical addiction out of concern, students such as Lenny may have other worries that can cause them to restrict their hallucinogen use.

“My biggest fear with most drugs is them taking over me,” Lenny said.

Lenny recognizes that “there is a danger to every drug,” but he feels that the high he feels from hallucinogens outweigh the dan-gers.

He said the major long-term risk occurs when images from hallucinogen use remain and cause uncomfortable dreams and flash-backs.

“The length of time these drugs stay in the body depends, but these memories can be seared into the brain forever, much like cattle

branding,” Kipper said.Father J. Young is aware of another risk

with hallucinogens, which is their connection to schizophrenia. Young said that if an individual is

predisposed to schizophrenia and he or she uses halluci-nogens they increase their risk of developing the mental disorder.

Due to this, Young is “happy to report” that he sus-pects hallucinogen use is fairly low among students.

“I do not see hallucinogen use as often as I see mari-juana or alcohol,” Young said.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Lenny is just one of 779,000 Americans over the age of 12 who have used LSD within the past year.

Hallucinogen users younger than 25 are at an in-creased risk for negative consequences for two reasons, Kipper explained. First, these individuals have not com-pletely developed their prefrontal cortex, which Kipper describes as “a person’s judgment center.” Hallucinogen use at an adolescent stage can lead to an undeveloped ability to distinguish right from wrong. Second, the ear-lier an individual begins taking a drug the more likely they are to continue using it.

Lenny’s recreational drug use started the summer after seventh grade when he began smoking pot. Since then he has used Xanax, marijuana, alcohol, salvia, LSD, Ambien and codeine. He said he enjoys hallucinogens the most.

“The drugs we are most attracted to choose us,” Lenny said. “Hallucino-gens have chosen me.”

Salvia divinorum (salvia) was the first hallucinogen Lenny used. In the comfort of his cousin’s house this past summer, he smoked salvia for the first time. He inhaled deeply twice, keeping each in his lungs for 20 seconds. Since then Lenny has used salvia on only one other occasion.

“Salvia is one of the least worth-while, least energizing drugs,” Lenny said.

Despite his dissatisfaction with the drug, Lenny took salvia to prepare for “the harder stuff” he intends to take in college, such as dimethyltrypt-amine (DMT).

Around the time Lenny became familiar with LSD, a close friend of his died. After first hearing about LSD he did not intend to take it, but his curiosity about the drug lingered. After two years without his friend Lenny expected his grief would retreat, but it remained and became even more intense. He decided hallucinogens would be an efficient way to recall what his friend looked like.

“I just wanted to see her face before my eyes again,” Lenny said.

Although LSD has not accomplished Lenny’s original goal of revisiting his relative, he believes the drug has restored much of his happiness. At this point, DMT is the only drug that Lenny believes may have the potential of reuniting him and his relative.

Unlike Lenny’s search for pain relief, Casper* ’13 be-gan his hallucinogen use for experimentation purposes.

Hallucinogens are currently “a casual timid interest” for Casper, but he imagines them becoming increasingly important in his future.

“I was really interested in them and the opportunity arose,” Casper said. “It was circumstantial.”

Casper and two friends purchased a three-foot long cactus for $45 that contained mescaline, the active com-pound in the plant peyote. The trio obtained the plant from an online seller and brewed it into a foul tasting tea. Casper said the trip lasted about seven hours al-though it did not feel this long.

A brain under the influence of mind altering substances will appear with heightened brain activity in a brain scan or MRI. This activity is represented by an increased area of bright color, while a healthy brain will appear will with a smaller region of color.

GRAPHIC BY MAGGIE BUNZELSOURCE: ALCOHOLISM.COM

Despite both the physical and psychological risks of taking hard drugs, students experiment with hallucinogens such as LSD, salvia, mescaline, and psilocybin mushrooms.

B6 Features the ChroniCle DeC. 19, 2012

Risky businesshallucinogens

GRAPHIC BY MAGGIE BUNZEL AND SYNEY FOREMAN

What do drugs do to the brain?

Why isn’t LSD physically addictive?

How do drugs change your brain?

LSD does not produce compulsive drug-seeking behavior and therefore is not a physically addictive drug. However one can gain tolerance for LSD, meaning they must take higher dosage to achieve the same state when continuing use.

Drugs affect the pleasure circuit by releasing dopamine. For example, LSD interrupts the interactions between the nerve cells and the neurotransmitter serotonin located in your brain and spinal cord.

How does LSD affect you?

By changing the brain’s natural functions, LSD can distort your visuals, judgement, feelings and moods. Flashbacks are a com-mon after effect of LSD. Flashbacks are known as Hallucino-gen-Induced Persisting Perceptual Disorder (HPPD).

Hallucinogen users younger than 25 are at an in-creased risk for negative consequences for two reasons, Kipper explained. First, these individuals have not com-pletely developed their prefrontal cortex, which Kipper describes as “a person’s judgment center.” Hallucinogen use at an adolescent stage can lead to an undeveloped ability to distinguish right from wrong. Second, the ear-lier an individual begins taking a drug the more likely they are to continue using it.

Lenny’s recreational drug use started the summer after seventh grade when he began smoking pot. Since then he has used Xanax, marijuana, alcohol, salvia, LSD, Ambien and codeine. He said he enjoys hallucinogens the most.

“The drugs we are most attracted to choose us,” Lenny said. “Hallucino-gens have chosen me.”

Salvia divinorum (salvia) was the first hallucinogen Lenny used. In the comfort of his cousin’s house this past summer, he smoked salvia for the first time. He inhaled deeply twice, keeping each in his lungs for 20 seconds. Since then Lenny has used salvia on only one other occasion.

“Salvia is one of the least worth-while, least energizing drugs,” Lenny said.

Despite his dissatisfaction with the drug, Lenny took salvia to prepare for “the harder stuff” he intends to take in college, such as dimethyltrypt-amine (DMT).

Around the time Lenny became familiar with LSD, a close friend of his died. After first hearing about LSD he did not intend to take it, but his curiosity about the drug lingered. After two years without his friend Lenny expected his grief would retreat, but it remained and became even more intense. He decided hallucinogens would be an efficient way to recall what his friend looked like.

“I just wanted to see her face before my eyes again,” Lenny said.

Although LSD has not accomplished Lenny’s original goal of revisiting his relative, he believes the drug has restored much of his happiness. At this point, DMT is the only drug that Lenny believes may have the potential of reuniting him and his relative.

Unlike Lenny’s search for pain relief, Casper* ’13 be-gan his hallucinogen use for experimentation purposes.

Hallucinogens are currently “a casual timid interest” for Casper, but he imagines them becoming increasingly important in his future.

“I was really interested in them and the opportunity arose,” Casper said. “It was circumstantial.”

Casper and two friends purchased a three-foot long cactus for $45 that contained mescaline, the active com-pound in the plant peyote. The trio obtained the plant from an online seller and brewed it into a foul tasting tea. Casper said the trip lasted about seven hours al-though it did not feel this long.

“It felt as if I was stuck in a singular static moment that was constantly getting smaller, as if time was infi-nitely shedding off in either direction,” Casper said.

Though Casper describes this experience as “in-tense”, he plans on using other hallucinogens in the fu-ture.

Zane* ’13, who bought the mescaline with Casper, also anticipates the importance of hallucinogens in years to come.

“Psychedelics are intellectual tools,” he said.So far, Zane has consumed mescaline, LSD and mush-

rooms (psilocybin mushrooms). Authors such as Aldous Huxley, Terence McKenna, Timothy Leary, Hunter S. Thompson and Alex-ander Shulgin sparked his interest in the drugs. With each trip, Zane tried to repress any expectations.

“I feel like if you’re expecting pretty visuals or some spiritual mysti-cal experience you probably won’t get that,” he said.

The visual element of hallucino-gens had a lesser value to Zane than the intellectual experience, which is why he prefers the term “psychedel-ics” to “hallucinogens.”

“There is nothing magic in ‘shrooms, or a cactus or a chemical. Everything’s in you already; psyche-

delics are just a chance to pull back the curtain on that part of your mind,” he said.

Prior to his hallucinogen use, Zane had trouble ex-pressing himself to his friends and family. He claims it is a prevalent issue he is trying to improve. He believes that hallucinogens, particularly mescaline, have given him self-awareness, which helps to correct this flaw.

“It’s not to say the mescaline told me anything; it al-lowed me to internalize,” Zane said.

With mushrooms, Zane had the most “clear-headed” experience. It gave him a “modular” view of the world.

Zane believes that, it is impossible to have a truly bad trip because he believes all psychedelic experiences are learning opportunities. His positive experiences and lack of craving have caused Zane to want to continue his hallucinogen use. He views alcohol as a more dangerous substance than any hallucinogen.

Zane is not fearful of his future with them partly be-cause he researches each drug before consuming it. He also feels that his newfound self-awareness allows him to know his limits.

“I can’t think of a scenario where I would want to stop using them completely,” Zane said.

Despite Casper’s “daunting and scary” family his-tory of drug addiction, he, like Zane, believes getting to a point in which hallucinogens ruin his life is unlikely. This hereditary characteristic provides “an element of fear” that forces Casper to be cautious of his drug use.

*Names have been changed

3

2

1

GRAPHIC BY SYDNEY FOREMAN AND CARRIE DAVIDSONSOURCE: ABOVETHEINFLUENCE.COM AND DRUGABUSE.GOV

ILLUSTRATION BY ELANA ZELTSER

Take a look at some of the dangerous effects of taking hallucinogens and the properties that make some drugs

mentally and physically addictive.

Features B7hwChroniCle.Com/FeaturesDeC. 19, 2012

1.9%

How many teens take LSD?

2.6% 1.2%

12th graders

8th graders10th graders

SOURCE: WWW.DRUGABUSE.GOVGRAPHIC BY SYDNEY FOREMAN AND MAGGIE BUNZEL

“It felt as if I was stuck in a singular static moment

that was constantly getting smaller, as if time was

infinitely shedding off in either direction”

-Casper ‘13*

Dec. 19 2012B8 Features the chronicle

highstakes

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Harvard-Westlake ProudLet us cater your special

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www.ombrala.com

Seniors receive admission decisions Seniors receive their admissions decisions from their early decision and action colleges.

By Rachel SchwaRtz

Phillip*, The Athlete

Phillip received a shock last Wednesday when he was deferred from Harvard.

“It was pretty disappoint-ing but I’m trying to take it in stride,” Phillip said. “I still have a pretty good chance of getting in since I have until January to keep getting better at my sport and to keep talk-ing to the coach.”

Phillip has been on official recruiting visits to both Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania. While he was most impressed with Duke’s athletics he worries that there is not enough academic focus at the school. Rather than commit to Duke, Phillip will

apply regular decision. Though he liked Penn, he

would prefer a college town rather than an urban setting.

“I’m just pretending like I didn’t apply early anywhere,” Phillip said. “Track and field has such a long recruitment season so I don’t have to make a decision right now. I don’t want to lose any opportunities by deciding before I’m ready.”

Doug*, The Brain

Though Doug said he was not frustrated, he was ready to know whether or not he got in to Princeton, which released their early-action decisions yesterday (after press time). While Doug felt confident in the work he submitted, he has not been relaxed about his

work this year.“I feel like I want to feel

senioritis, but I know that there’s a possibility I won’t get in so I prevent myself from feeling it,” Doug said.

Most of all he said he is sick of doing applications. If he got in, Doug said he would plan to significantly cut down on the number of schools he would apply to.

Out of the 10 on his list, he will likely eliminate five if ad-mitted to Princeton.

Francesca*, The All-Around

While Francesca was de-ferred from Brown University, she was admitted to Univer-sity of Michigan and has been focusing on maintaining her grades and finishing the 12 ap-

plications she has left.“It was really tough, don’t

get me wrong, but I know what I have to do and I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t get in,” Francesca said.

She said that she could easily adapt her Brown essays to other prompts. She is left mostly with the essays that ask why she chose to apply to a given school.

As for tension among her peers, Francesca is trying to tune it out.

“Some people don’t know how to act the day after [deci-sions come out,] but it feels re-ally good to have support from my friends,” she said.

Arthur*, The Artist

Arthur was accepted early

decision to Brown University and is finished with his college process. He said he plans not to slack off and needs to focus on keeping his grades up but is relieved.

“It hasn’t registered yet. I can’t even believe it,” Arthur said days after his acceptance.

A supplemental recom-mendation for Arthur from a performing arts teacher was not submitted until less than a week before the day deci-sions came out which made the Upper School Deans an-gry, according to Arthur, yet he could not help but forgive his teacher.

Arthur and his parents are ecstatic. When they heard the good news his parents told him, “our parenting has lead up to this point,” Arthur said.

ILLUSTRATION BY JACOB GOODMAN

Arts&EntErtAinmEntThe ChroniCle • DeC. 19, 2012

HOLIDAY HITS: Upper school choirs performed in their winter concert titled “A Rose in Win-ter” under the direction of Rodger Guerrero at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica.

LUKE HOLTHOUSE/CHRONICLE

Jazz band pays homage to late jazz legend Dave Brubeck in winter concertBy Jensen Pak

Jazz groups performing in “An Evening of Jazz” on Dec. 8 paid homage to recently de-ceased jazz legend Dave Bru-beck and Sir John Lennon on the 32nd anniversary of his death. Before a packed Rugby auditorium, Performing Arts teacher Shawn Costantino conducted the Jazz Ensemble, Studio Jazz Band and Jazz Band in the annual winter show for the jazz program.

The Jazz Ensemble kicked off the concert with “Sister Sadie” by Horace Silver and finished their section of the show with “Just a Closer Walk” in memory of Brubeck, who passed away on Dec. 5, three days prior to the show. Jazz Ensemble trumpeter Charlie Andrews-Jubelt ’13 was fea-tured in “Just a Closer Walk” as a soloist.

“I was really excited to have such an exposed and ex-pressive solo in that piece,” Andrews-Jubelt said. “Our band was especially proud of that particular piece, so it felt

good to lead the New Orleans style finale in honor of a great musician.”

On stage after Jazz Ensem-ble, the Studio Jazz Band per-formed a rendition of “Black-bird,” a Beatles song credited to Lennon.

“Everything in the show went exception-ally well,” Studio Jazz Band tenor saxophone player Zach Saunders ’14 said. “It felt like everyone played better that night than they had the entire year, and everyone played practically per-fectly on charts that we could barely even fin-ish a few days ago. I would say that all in all, it was an outstanding performance by everyone in Studio Jazz band and everyone in the rest of the bands as well.”

The Jazz Band closed the concert with six songs, which

included “Groovin’ High” by Dizzy Gillespie and “Us” by Thad Jones. “Groovin’ High” featured Sinclair Cook ’14 and Bridget Hartman ’15, who play the alto saxophone, as soloists in the piece.

Costantino explained how the two solo parts of “Gro-ovin’ High” play with and against each other, provid-ing intricate melodies and h a r m o n i e s throughout the piece.

C o s t a n -tino also re-counted his f ru s t rat i on when he was

unable to conduct the jazz groups last year due to his health, and his eagerness to return this year.

“I really like the piece ‘Us’ because it showcases us: me working with the group,” Costantino said. “I enjoy work-ing with these kids in class.”

“Everything went exceptionally well. It felt like everyone played better that night than they had the entire year.”—Zach Saunders ’14

JAZZIN’ IT UP: Sinclair Cook ’14 and Bridget Hartman ’15 play saxophone during a duet (top). Charlie Andrews-Jubelt ’13 plays a solo on trumpet (left), and Andrew Jones ’14 plays an electric guitar (right).

JENSEN PAK/CHRONICLE

Choral ensembles sing at Philharmonic party

By noa Yadidi

Chamber Singers, along with the Jazz Singers and the Treble Tones, performed at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Committee’s holiday party at the California Club on Dec. 8.

The singers performed for 45 minutes and their set in-cluded all of their songs from the Winter Choral Concert along with songs from the men’s choir and combined numbers usually performed with other choirs.

“We were very well pre-pared, because our Winter Concert happened to be the next night, and we had been rehearsing all week,” Chamber Singer Greg Lehrhoff ’14 said.

Choral Director Rodger Guerrero introduced each

song and its relation to the theme.

The theme for their set was “A Rose in Winter,” the theme from the winter show.

“There was a ton of excite-ment about this event, because the members of the LA Phil-harmonic Committee that we performed for are some of the greatest advocates of music in the Los Angeles area, so it was clear that they would judge harshly,” Lehrhoff said.

The positive reactions from the crowd and praises af-ter the performance resonated greatly with Lehrhoff, he said.

“I felt like they could really see not only our drive to suc-ceed, but also our coherence as a group and our positive men-tality throughout the whole concert,” he said.

Choirs perform songsin invitational showcaseBy allana RiveRa

On Nov. 27 Bel Canto and Chamber Singers participated in the College of the Canyons’ choir festival.

“These choir festivals give ensembles the opportunity to sing before a well-known conductor who critiques each group on all aspects of their performance,” the College of the Canyons website said.

The showcase is invita-tional and showcases different choirs to an adjudicator, typi-cally a music professor, who critiques the choir on their performance.

“I don’t really get to see a lot of choirs from other school,” Sara Carreras ‘13, a soprano on Chamber Singers said. “It’s cool to see what they’re doing,”

The adjudicator for both groups’ performance was Dr. Rob Istad from Cal State Uni-versity Fullerton.

“Both groups performed very well,” Choral Arts Di-rector Rodger Guerrero said. “The experience gained, the opportunity to hear other high school choirs, and the criti-cism received from the adjudi-cator were extremely valuable. The overall experience greatly contributed to their success at the Winter Choral Concert.”

The Chamber Singers’ repertoire included songs in German, English, French, and Latin.

Bel Canto performed three songs.

“We did well,” said Adam Lange ‘13, a bass for Chamber Singers. “It was super fun.”

By luke HoltHouse

Upper school choirs sang holiday-themed tunes in the annual winter choral con-cert, titled “A Rose in Win-ter,” on Sunday Dec. 9 at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica.

The show featured per-formances from Bel Canto, Wolverine Chorus, Chamber Singers, Jazz Singers and the Treble Tones, a new female a capella addition to the cho-ral program.

“All in all, it was a really good performance,” Cham-ber Singer Landon Fadel ’15 said. “I thought everyone performed really well.”

A combined group of all ensembles opened the per-formance and was followed

by Bel Canto, the interme-diate female choir group. The combined male cho-rus, featuring singers from both Wolverine Chorus and Chamber Singers, proceeded to perform.

The Treble Tones closed the first act of the concert, performing for the first time ever with a set of three a ca-pella songs.

After a brief intermis-sion, Jazz Singers took the stage, performing three jazz a capella pieces.

The Chamber Singers sang a set of seven songs, after which all ensembles reconvened for two closing numbers.

The concert ended with the annual rendition of “Peace, Peace,” where se-

niors sang “Silent Night” in harmony with the rest of the choir.

Marcia Dickstein, a pro-fessional harpist and West-lake alumna, accompanied the choir on several num-bers.

Director of the Cho-ral Music Program Rodger Guerrero said that program has been rehearsing since October for the concert and will not perform again until March.

“It’s a rush,” he said. “It really is an emotional high for two hours that you just don’t come down from. What it is is just a testament to the hard work that they do. Most the campus doesn’t see that, but these kids work very, very hard.”

‘A Rose in Winter’

Dec. 19, 2012 B10 Features the chronicle

By Beatrice Fingerhut

Advanced Dance I will have an encore performance of its yearly outreach showcase tonight for students, teachers and family in the dance studio.

Members of the class also held a showcase for ARC, a nonprofit organization that helps individuals with devel-opmental disabilities on Dec. 12.

The show’s theme, Outer Space, followed a young boy, played by Nick Healy ’13, who built a space ship and took the audience on an adventure though the atmosphere.

The showcase was choreo-graphed solely by the students with minimal involvement from their teacher, Cynthia Winter.

The dancers focused on in-tegrating elements such as the sun, the moon and gravity into their choreography.

“I think we just wanted to

do something that the ARC hadn’t seen before,” Sophia Oman ’15 said. “It is very play-ful and mysterious, so there was a lot of room to create.”

Each year, the Advanced Dance I students hold this showcase specifically for ARC. In return, some members of ARC performed in a bell choir for the dancers.

Throughout the perfor-mance the audience was very involved and vocalized their opinions.

“They would yell out ‘Oh so beautiful’ or ‘Wow’ and that just made me feel really good,” Oman said.

At the end of the show, the dancers invited the audience on stage to dance with them.

“It just makes you realize that many people take what they have for granted, and these people are so amazing despite what they go through.” Mia Ray ’14 “It’s just really re-warding to see.”

Dancers to performencore to ARC show

CSUN annual showexhibits student artBy eojin choi

At the school studio, Mad-eline Lear ’13 clicked away as the bassist “played” a rose as if it were a guitar. After choos-ing from her many photo-graphs and polishing them on Photoshop, she completed her project for Photography III, which was chosen last week to be featured in an exhibit at the California State University Northridge in their main gal-leries.

Along with Lear’s photo-graph, 5 other student works were selected to be featured by visual arts teachers Kev-in O’Malley, Art Tobias and Dylan Palmer, including a glass sculpture by Maya Broder ’13.

“[Working on the piece] was a tedious and meticu-lous process of cutting glass

and placing them one by one, which took such a long time,” Broder ’13 said. “But I was so proud of it when I finished, and it feels rewarding to have it be featured in CSUN.”

Broder’s piece will be part of the 16th Annual High School Art Invitational Exhibition, which features works from 39 schools from Jan. 7 to 26.

Pieces by six students, in-cluding Anne Liu ’13, Jun Lee ’13, Seana Moon-White ’13 and Xenia Viragh ’15, were se-lected to be displayed.

“This is a terrific commu-nity event and we are so grate-ful to CSUN for their generos-ity all these years,” O’Malley said. “As for how I feel, I am very proud of my kids. Har-vard-Westlake students al-ways contribute real standout work to this exhibition.”

FLY ME TO THE MOON: Mia Ray ’14, Isabelle Lesh ’15 and Imani Cook-Gist ’15 perform a dance about the moon.

EMILY SEGAL/CHRONICLE

Outreach Performers act, sing at care homeBy reBecca Katz

Members of the newly-formed club, Harvard-West-lake Outreach Performers, sang and acted at the Vista del Sol care center, a nursing home in Culver City on Dec. 15.

“I’m very excited about the performance and having ev-eryone get to show their tal-ents and entertain the people there,” club founder Tiggy Menkir ’14 said.

The ensemble of 13 danc-ers, actors and singers hold practices on Sundays to pre-pare for shows that give back to the community.

“The people are just so happy to have young people there performing,” faculty ad-visor Chris Moore said, “One of the things that attracted me to this, was bringing all of the talents that the kids have here to a group of people that don’t

get to go out and have that op-portunity.”

Moore found a short play by Thornton Wilder, “The Happy Journey,” that the group per-formed. Four individuals also sang and Covi Brannan ’15 and Morganne Ramsey ’14 show-cased a slam poem.

“I want to have as many different kinds of members with their own various, unique talents, and we can all collab-oratively work to produce a great show,” Menkir said.

HWOP is planning another show before the end of the se-mester and to resume the club next year with a bigger cast and more elaborate plays.

“It’s just to give some of our actors, singers, dancers and performers another ven-ue to express themselves and have fun performing in front of another type of audience, and also just to give back to the community,” Moore said.

SING FOR JOY: Covi Brannan ’15, Delilah Napier ’15, Noah Ben-nett ’15, Autumn Witz ’15, Nick Healy ’13, Teddy Leinbach ’15 Tigist Menkir ’14, Sabrina Batchler ’15 and Marissa Chupack ’13 pose for a group photo after their show at Vista del Sol Care Center.

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF CHRIS MOORE

Banners improve Rugby viewBy jivani gengatharan

To add some color to the blank wall outside the English classrooms, the Visual Arts Department installed nine banners of artwork created by last year’s Senior Art Award recipients on the wall outside of Rugby.

The pieces of art won awards in photography, draw-ing, video and three-dimen-sional art.

One of the banners fea-tures an acrylic painting by Anders Villalta ’12, who won the Excellence in Visual Arts award last spring at the all

school awards assembly. Vil-lata’s painting features the hands of two people reaching out to each other with only a view of the hands and the shoes of the people.

The Visual Arts Depart-ment had been approached previously to do a mural on the blank wall outside Rugby, but the idea of banners, sug-gested by one of last year’s se-nior prefects, David Olodort ’12, was more appealing to the department.

“That was a brilliant sug-gestion,” Department Head Cheri Gaulke said. “We de-cided as a department that it

would be a great way to show-case our senior art award re-cipients.”

The award-winning pieces of art, all in different media, were then photographed and transferred into banners.

“I don’t really find them a distraction,” Cindy Oh ’13 said. “I love seeing any art that my peers make since they are all pretty talented.”

New banners will be made next spring after the new Se-nior Art Award recipients have been announced. Gaulke said that the plan is to update the banners annually with each year’s awards winners.

CHANGE IN SCENERY: Photos of award-winning artwork by last year’s seniors have been made into banners to decorate a blank wall outside Rugby. New banners will be installed each year.

ZOE DUTTON/CHRONICLE

hwchronicle.com/features features B11Dec. 19, 2012

By Sarah Novicoff

A member of the college jazz group Pacific Standard Time taught the Jazz Singers class Dec. 11 about vocal tech-niques.

Rachel St. Marseille, a se-nior at the Bob Hope Conser-vatory at California State Uni-versity Long Beach, began her lesson with vocal exercises for both the Jazz Singers and the Treble Tones. She offered such advice as “listen louder than you sing” and “when you can hear the chords, the audience

can hear the chords too.”After warming up, the Jazz

Singers practiced their song “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” once without cor-rections and a second time as St. Marseille interrupted to teach the class about tech-niques. She taught the class to sing unified vowels with an open mouthed smile and to emphasize beats two and four in a jazz song.

“As a group, we know more about singing classically, so jazz singing, particularly in a choir, is strange territory for

the new members like me,” Jazz Singers member Greg Lehroff ’14 said. “She gave us some great pointers on how to improve our technique and I think the group as a whole re-ally benefited from the experi-ence.”

St. Marseille then tran-sitioned to teaching Treble Tones, a new all female a cap-pella group, on their song “Let it Snow.”

She encouraged students to add buoyancy by emphasiz-ing certain notes over others and by cutting off the end of

a song with a “guillotine cut-off.”

“[Her visit was] definitely enjoyable,” Treble Tones mem-ber Jackie Ridgeley ’14 said. “She taught helpful techniques on how to improve vowels and pulse, and I feel like our group was getting much more out of the song afterwards.”

St. Marseille ended the les-son with advice about singing in general.

“It might be tedious, but it will all pay off,” St. Marseille said. “If you practice perfec-tion, it will be perfect.”

Singer advises ‘listen louder than you sing’

By Tara SToNe

Large sketches created by the Drawing and Painting I class were taken down from the walls of Rugby Hall on Dec. 12, to be replaced by art-work from the Drawing and Painting II class.

Drawing and Painting II students, whose work is now showing, have been studying concepts from the Expres-sionist and Cubist movements. They have studied Picasso and Schiele.

The first assignment was a self-portrait using heavy char-coal and India ink. Students used paints for the first time in the class to create any ex-pressionist image they wanted in the second assignment.

Drawing and Painting I students created sketches which were shown along with their final versions.

Artists used graphite and charcoal to create intricate images that reflected the con-cepts of perspective and depth.

“It was really exciting be-cause we were all creating something huge and I’d never really done art on such a large scale before,” said Jake Raynis ’14.

Art classes display portraits in gallery

By ScoTT NuSSBaum

Tonight, the Community Singers are scheduled to per-form in the Adat Ari El Syn-agogue in North Hollywood for women and children who have been victims of domestic violence from the surrounding area.

From 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., members of the Community Singers club will be perform-ing holiday songs and talking to the children in attendance.

“We will be interacting with the kids, leading a sing—along, and maybe help anyone in the audience who wants to come on stage and sing them-selves,” one of the club manag-ers Megan Ward ’13 said.

The club is also planning to organize a number of addi-tional service projects similar to this in order to benefit the greater community and club members.

This will be the club’s first performance of the year, club member Michael Sugerman ’13 said.

Community Singers perform for children

By DaviD WolDeNBerg

The winter dance showcase last night and tonight features the Art of Dance I and the Art of Dance II.

Some of the dances are tak-en from earlier assignments in the class, like one project cen-tered around impulsive move-ment.

Dancers in the showcase chose their own music and choreographed their dances. There is no set theme — rather groups of students or individ-ual students chose their own inspirations.

For example, Libby Sond-heimer ’15, Drew Mirman ’15 and Courtney O’Brien ’15 will perform a piece choreographed around the themes of pedestri-ans and forgetting about your troubles.

Art of Dance I, II choreograph show

By JeSSica lee

Rebecca Moretti ’13 won first place at the 2012 Youth-PLAYS New Voices One-Act Competi-tion for her play “Platform Nine” and will be awarded $200 as a cash prize.

Moretti wrote “Platform Nine” for the 2011 Harvard-Westlake Playwrights Festival.

The play centers on Ade-lie, a young girl who runs away from her prestigious East Coast boarding school to search for her birth mother in Los Angeles. On her way to California, Adelie meets Sonny, a street smart trouble-maker who has escaped from his broken home in Los Ange-les to pursue a career in New York. Despite their seemingly irreconcilable differences, the two teenagers form a connec-tion that remains with them for the rest of their lives in spite of the brevity of their en-counter.

The play is similar to a se-ries of short stories Moretti had written in middle school that featured a girl and her brothers searching for their mother.

“I think that what I’m most interested in is this search for identity and where we all came from and belong in the world, which I think could be represented by the search for one’s mother,” Moretti said.

“Platform Nine” was also a winner of the 2011 Blank The-ater Company’s Young Play-

wrights festival and was professionally produced at the Stella Adler The-ater.

Ariel Winter from the television series “Modern Family” was cast as Adelie.

“It was awe-some to have my play produced by the Blank Theater,”

Moretti said. “I got to go to all the rehearsals with the direc-tors and actors. It was cool be-cause they asked for my input and opinions, and I really got to have a part in the produc-tion aspect.”

Though Moretti had writ-ten her play in less than a week, she went through a thorough editing process with Performing Arts teacher Chris Moore, English teacher Isaac Laskin and professional dra-maturges.

“It’s important to get other people’s opinion, and I sent it to the people I trusted most,” Moretti said. “With the differ-ent feedback I got I reconsid-ered some parts and decided how to make the play better.”

Moretti said it was re-warding to sit in the theater and watch her play as a mem-ber of the audience.

“The thing I enjoyed most about the producing process was getting to see the play performed but also, more im-portantly. getting to see how the audience reacted,” Moretti said. “It is nice to sit with the audience and feel that your play has touched in some way.”

Senior wins 1st place playwrighting award

By Sara evall

Today is the last chance to see the winter showcase of the seven seniors in Photography III in the Feldman-Horn Gal-lery.

Photography teacher Kev-in O’Malley designed the stu-dents’ assignments. He taught most of the Photography III students in Photography II.

“[O’Malley] gives us a lot of freedom to figure out what we want to do, but is also help-ful and teaches us a lot,” Mad-eline Lear ’13 said, “He really cares about everything that he does.”

The first project he as-signed was the wooden block project.

“I had parents at back to school day play with the blocks during discussions, and at the end of the class they had built structures that the students had to photograph,” O’Malley said.

Then, the students had to build their own composi-tion based on of their parents’ structures and photograph them as well.

As a twist to the assign-ment, O’Malley then had his students choose a “big block”, a street block in any city, to photograph.

The second part of the seniors’ assignment was to choose a musician to photo-graph. O’Malley took the class to the Annenberg Space for Photography to see the exhibit entitled, “Who Shot Rock & Roll” for inspiration.

The senior class’s final showcase will be held toward the end of the school year, and will feature their “greatest hits,” according to O’Malley.

“I love teaching seniors because at this point of their high school careers, they’re really coming into their own, and you can see it on the walls [of the gallery],” he said.

Photo III show closes today in Feldman-Horn

LEARNING FROM A PRO: Rachel St. Marseille, a senior member of the college jazz group Pacific Standard Time, taught the Jazz Singers about vocal techniques on Dec. 11. She advised them to “listen louder than you sing” and cut off chords with a “guillotine cut-off.”

SARAH NOVICOFF/CHRONICLE

Rebecca Moretti ’13nathanson’s

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS: Teachers and students view the work of the Photography III class during the opening.

SARA EVALL/CHRONICLE

By Elana ZEltsEr

Adam Zucker ’13 was tak-ing a physics test when he was confronted with a problem in-volving the variable A.

After a quick twirl of his pen, he reproduced the ques-tion on a scrap piece of paper and Zucker’s “A” began to look much more like a four. Con-tinuing the problem, Zucker misinterpreted his own writ-ing and his answer was scat-tered with numbers when the problem had none at all.

“Unsurprisingly I lost a lot of points on that question,” Zucker said. “My handwriting confuses my teachers and even fools me on occasion.”

This was not the only time Zucker has gotten points off on an assignment because of the quality of his handwriting. However, a study from ABC News reports that 41 states have diminished their empha-sis on handwriting and elimi-nated cursive from the curric-ulum altogether, so legibility of penmanship is far less empha-sized in school systems today.

In fact, many states will begin to adopt a national cur-riculum guide in 2014 that re-quires proficiency in typing by the end of elementary school, but not in handwriting.

“The only time I actually use cursive is when I sign my signature,” Nick Healy ’13 said. “It’s only good for certain things.”

While California maintains it as a standard in schools, students often take advan-tage of techn-lology over longform.

With most t a k e - h o m e assignments completed on the computer, many students value speed-typing over penmanship.

“Working on my com-puter is faster, much neater, and I will al-ways have it saved,” Theo Davis ’13 said.

Cursive seems like an even more irrelevant skill to some students who find writing block letters much more effi-cient.

“They taught cursive to us like it was going to be faster, but it’s really not,” Bo Lee ’13 said.

Still, cursive is required during the SAT as test takers

are required to write in cur-sive a pledge saying that they did not cheat on the exam.

“I was in the SAT one time and a student raised their hand and said they didn’t know how to write the words

we were given in cursive,” Davis said. “The proctor had to write some of the more difficult letters on the board and we ended up get-ting out later.”

Still, in-class essays often are done by hand and many students find that time c o n s t r a i n t s further hinder the legibility

of their writing, whether it be cursive or print.

“This is how I’ve been writ-ing for 15 years,” Hannah Li-chtenstein ’13 said. “It’s not going to change now. If I know the material just as well as someone else, I shouldn’t be marked down for my hand-writing.”

English teacher Jeremy Michaelson said that while he

will not mark down for legibil-ity, he occasionally has called on students to read him what they wrote if he is unable to decipher it. Michaelson said that it is most important that students can print legibly as cursive is a more outdated skill.

“Language is always evolv-ing,” Michaelson said. “Why shouldn’t penmanship as well?”

Math teacher William Thill, on the other hand, said that he is constantly having is-sues with students over illeg-ible answers.

“I deal with it every day of every week,” Thill said. “I won’t mark down purely for messiness but if the informa-tion can’t be conveyed to the reader then I can’t give credit.”

Thill said that after he marks students down they of-ten take more care to make their next test legible.

He said that he finds dif-ferences in penmanship reflec-tive of personal style and that some simply value neatness more than others.

“I care most that thoughts, sentences and words are rel-evant and clear,” Thill said. “But neat handwriting with no substance has no use for me either.”

“I use cursive so little that I can only remember half of the letters. If I need to write in cursive I just make my regular print letters a little more connected.”

—Cassandra Martinez ’13

soundbyte

nathanson’s

Dec. 19, 2012B12 Features the chronicle

418 students responded to the Chronicle poll: “Do you use cursive writing regularly?”

No

Yes355

63

As technology becomes more commonplace, cursive is being phased out in many schools, while some teachers deduct points for poor handwriting.

MICHAEL SUGERMAN/CHRONICLE

This year’s top 10 moments in Wolverine sports C4-5

’Tis the Season

Offensive lineman to compete in All-American football gameBy Michael aronson

Offensive lineman Thomas Oser ’13 will play in the sec-ond annual Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl on Jan. 4, a nationally-televised high school football game broad-cast by the NFL Network at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.

Oser will be one of 100 high school players on the gridiron in a traditional east versus west matchup.

“We believe this game is different for many great rea-sons, but being able to identify college ready student athletes is a key ingredient for what makes this game so special,” Bowl founder Shaon Berry said. “Players across the na-tion have an opportunity to have standout senior seasons and earn their way onto the playing field beyond media hype and internet analysis. These guys are immediate im-pact guys — they are the real deal.”

Notable players who played in last year’s game in-

clude University of California Berkeley wide receiver Bryce Treggs, University of Wash-ington wide receiver Jaydon Mickens, Oklahoma State quarterback Wes Lunt and University of Georgia running back Todd Gurley.

The U.S. Marine Corps hosts the game to promote “honor, courage and commit-ment,” according to the bowl’s website.

“The commitment these players have demonstrated to their education, the leader-ship they have shown in their school and community and the courage they have displayed in choos-ing a positive life path makes them an inspiration and wor-thy to be seen on a national stage,” Marine Commanding General Joseph Osterman said. “There are thousands of skilled football players in the country we could select to play in our Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl, but we

are only offering this oppor-tunity to the best players with high moral character who demonstrate leadership in all aspects of their lives.”

Oser will report to the Home Depot Center on Dec. 30 to meet his teammates. Each team will practice for a week before the Friday night game.

“I’m looking for-ward to competing with kids that I’m probably going to be competing with at the next level,” Oser said. “It’s going to be a good test for me.”

Oser has yet to commit to a Division I pro-gram, but he has narrowed his choices to Oregon, Stanford and Vanderbilt. He will take official visits to Stanford and Vanderbilt in January before making his commitment.

“College is going to be a whole other animal to tackle, and this is the first step to see what I have against some oth-er guys,” Oser said.

SportSthe ChroniCle • DeC. 19, 2012

TO THE RACK: Guard Alex Copeland ’15 shoots over a Mira Costa defender in the Wolverines’ 80-77 victory over the Mustangs in the Palos Verdes Tournament final.

JACK GOLDFISHER/CHRONICLE

By Grant nussbauM

Four straight wins clinched the Palos Verdes Tournament title and with it, momentum for the boys’ varsity basketball team as it approaches league play. The Wolverines earned double-digit victories over Compton Centen-nial, South Torrance and Lawn-dale before winning an overtime thriller against Mira Costa 80-77 in the championship game on Dec. 15.

“It was big,” guard Mike Sheng ’14 said. “Just winning games gives us a lot of confidence after losing some big games against Loyola and Fairfax, who we should have beaten.”

Prior to the Palos Verdes Tournament, the team lost two straight games to Loyola and Fairfax in the Torrance Tourna-ment, where they finished fourth.

“I don’t know that things went wrong, but [the losses] indicated to us where we were,” Head Coach Greg Hilliard said. “In the first two games, we played teams that we probably should beat and we did quite convincingly. We played well, and got very excited about how things were going. Then we played two very highly ranked teams who are much further along than we are, and showed us exactly what we need to get bet-ter at by the time the games re-ally matter in league, and as we get prepared for the playoffs. Not all of these early season losses are a bad thing, sometimes they’re a

good indicator of how far we have to go.”

Sheng believes improvement on the defensive end made the difference in the Palos Verdes tournament.

“We pressured the ball a lot better on defense,” Sheng said.

Forward Derick Newton ’14 and Sheng lead the team in scor-ing with 21.4 and 13.1 points per game this season respectively. The duo rose to the occasion in the tournament finals, as Newton scored 30 and Sheng dropped 18 and added five assists.

“They’re two guys that have been there before, and we rely on and they’re consistent,” Hilliard said. “Most every game they’re going to get points for us. The nice thing about it is it seems like there’s a different third, fourth or fifth option every game, which in-dicates we have really good depth, but at the same time we would like some pattern to consistently develop as to who’s going to step up and be that third option night in and night out.”

Newton finds spreading the floor on offense to be the reason for his consistent play.

“We can be very competi-tive,” Newton said. “I don’t see anything blocking the top two in league this year.”

The boys will look to improve over last year’s 7-5 record in league. The Desert Heat Classic, starting on Dec. 26, is the team’s final tournament before starting league play at Crespi on Jan. 4.

NATION’S FINEST: Offensive lineman Thomas Oser ’13 warms up before the Wolverines’ football game against rival Loyola. Oser will play in a nationally-televised All-American game on Jan. 4.

PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF KEVIN CARDEN

Thomas Oser ’13

nathanson’s

Christmas came early for the boys’ basketball team who captured an overtime win to win the Palos Verdes Tournament.

By Lizzy Thomas

While after school dual meets are over within a few hours, wrestling tournaments like last weekend’s Rosemead High School tournament can last all day.

“Last year we had guys wrestling into the a.m.,” Jake Bracken ’14 said. “This same tournament started at 2 [p.m.] and we had guys wrestling at 12:45 a.m.”

Bracken and his team-mates compete for at most 30 minutes in these tournaments, wrestling up to five, six minute matches in a day.

“There is a lot of down-time,” he said.

Individual wrestlers find their own way to pass the hours that can separate one match from the next. For Bracken, the time when he is not actually on the mat is spent on the sidelines.

“At a tournament you’ll generally find me watching whoever’s wrestling,” Bracken said. “I’ll be on the mat, giving advice and cheering them on

next to our coach.”For the team’s two heavy-

weights, it’s a social time. Charlie Nelson ’13 and Henry Schlossberg ’13 talk to their competition, the heavyweights from other teams.

“Charlie Nelson and Henry Schlossberg are very jolly guys so they’ll talk to the heavy-weights and socialize with the other wrestlers,” Bracken said. “Throughout all these teams that go to these tournaments, it’s kind of known that the 220 pounders are all nice guys, but once you get down to the 130 pounders, they’re kind of mean guys who want to win.”

For others, the time when they’re not attempting to take opponents down is time to

hit the books. In order to fin-ish their homework, wrestlers will take their books to meets and study throughout the day, Bracken said.

During the relatively short time the team actually wrestles at the weekend tournaments, the goal is to put up a num-ber of undefeated individual performances. At the season-opening Thanksgiving week-end Chaminade tournament, Bracken, Patrick Halkett ’14, and Schlossberg did not lose a single match. Bracken and James Wauer ’13 led the team as they both went 5-0 in the Camarillo Dual Meets, while Bracken, Halkett, Schlossberg and Nelson all advanced to the second day of the Rosemead

tournament. The Wolverines however

remain stuck in a dual meet drought, as they have not won a dual meet since a 2010-2011 season victory against Ale-many. In its two dual meets so far this year, the team has lost by margins of 45 points and 17 points to Bishop Amat and Chaminade, respectively.

Bracken attributes the two losses in part to the lack of wrestlers in a number of weight classes, a problem he thinks can be righted in time for the team’s Jan. 16 dual meet against Alemany.

“That’s closer to the end of the year, so hopefully we’ll have our weight under control and can do well,” Bracken said.

By aaron Lyons

Field hockey Head Coach Erin Creznic was nominated for the Coach of the Year Award for leading the team to a successful campaign in the regu-lar season and playoffs.

This is Creznic’s first time being nomi-nated for the award. Creznic coached the team throughout her entire preg-nancy.

Creznic does not know

when she will find out the results of the award voting.

Creznic attrib-uted the achieve-ment to the years of preparation that the players go through that culminates in their senior years.

“I think it starts in middle school,” Creznic said. “Es-

pecially at our school because no one comes in knowing how to play field hockey. We really have to teach them the basics

starting in seventh grade.” Katie Lim ’13 said that

the team’s extremely success-ful season contributed signifi-cantly to Creznic’s nomina-tion.

The field hockey team fin-ished its season with an overall record of 16-2-2 and made it to the final round of the playoffs, but lost to Huntington Beach in overtime.

“She’s probably one of the most compassionate coaches I’ve ever had,” Annie Wasser-man ’13 said. “She really cares about all of the girls on the

team. The fact that she never missed a game or practice and led us to the championship game even during such a criti-cal point in her pregnancy was really impressive.”

However, Creznic believes that she should not receive all of the credit.

“I think we have just a won-derful team of coaches with the field hockey program and because of that, we’ve had sev-eral years of success,” Creznic said. “We’ve just had a great year, us coaches, for [each of] the past six years.”

Facts &Figures

Game to watchBOYS’ BASKETBALL

Jan. 16at Loyola

The second meeting between the Mission League rivals will be held at a neutral site for the second year in a row. The Wolverines will be looking for payback after the Cubs won the first matchup of the season in the semifinals of the Torrance Tournament. The Wolverines have lost to Loyola the last three times the schools met.

The junior point guard has started three years for the Cubs. He is ranked 26th nationally in the Class of 2014 by ESPN. He has averaged 15 points and 8.9 assists so far this season for the undefeated Cubs, and was named MVP of the Torrance Tournament.

Junior Varsity

Last Game:W (41-39) vs. Brentwood

Girls’ Basketball (2-4)

Points scored by forward Derick Newton ‘14 in the Palos Verdes tournament final.

51

Cross country girls that ran

under 19 minutes at CIF

Finals, a school record.

75

Girls’ Soccer (4-3)

Last Game:L (2-1) vs. Long Beach Poly

Boys’ Soccer (6-0-1)

Last Game:W (4-2) vs. Calabasas

Wrestling (0-2)

Last Game:

L at Rosemead Tournament

Parker Jackson-Cartwright

Opponent player to watch

Boys’ Basketball (0-2)

Last Game:L (64-54) vs. Simi Valley

Dec. 19, 2012C2 SportS the chronicle

By Luke hoLThouse

At this point in the season, the boys’ varsity soccer team is still adjusting to the new coaching styles and forma-tions of first-year Head Coach Lucas Bongarra. With a vari-ety of formations and person-nel taking the field each game for the Wolverines, the team is trying to find its ideal style be-fore entering Mission League play. According to Nick Knight ’14 and Beau McGinley ’13, the boys will be able to go much further with a healthy start-ing forward in Ty Gilhuly ’13.

“It’s really nice having a target up top which has speed and quickness,” Knight said. “He can take people on in the box, which is great, and if he doesn’t have an option, he usu-ally dishes it off and we get a shot and that usually results in a corner kick or some sort of set play, so it’s really nice having him back. He gives us a really good offensive threat.”

When Gilhuly missed last weekend’s Junipero Serra

Tournament due to an injury, the Wolverines scored only one goal in three games. How-ever, in the three games he has played in since returning from his injury, he has led the team to two wins and a a loss. The Wolverines scored seven goals in the three games since Gil-huly returned.

“Ty is probably the most important piece of our team,” Beau McGinley ’13 said. “He’s able to hold the ball up and take people on. When we didn’t have him, we didn’t have anyone up top so we weren’t scoring goals. Now that we have him, he can hold the ball, take people on, and score him-self. We really need him to make our offense flow.”

The Wolverines opened their season with a 2-1 win over Bell Gardens, but then scored one goal over the course of a four-game losing streak. The team fell to West Ranch 2-0, St. Margaret 4-0, Alta Loma 1-0 and Corona Del Mar 4-1. However, the Wolver-ines ended their losing streak

with a 2-0 win over Calabasas then beat Campbell Hall 4-1. However, the Wolverines fell to Santa Margarita in penal-ty kicks in their most recent game, leaving the team with an overall record of 3-5.

Bongarra said the team will continue to experiment with different formations throughout the year. Bongar-ra has used a 4-5-1 formation as well as a 4-4-2 formation. Before the Calabasas game, forward Henry Quilici ’15 was called up from the junior varsity team to play as the second forward alongside Gil-huly when the team goes into a 4-4-2 formation. Quilici had the team’s lone goal during the loss to Santa Margarita.

“The chemistry is getting better,” Bongarra said. “We’re still trying to find what’s not only the best formation but the players and who fits better with what we are trying to do.”

The team plays Cathedral today in their last game before winter break, and will open league play at Crespi on Jan. 4.

ATTACK: Ty Gilhuly ’13 dribbles down the field in the soccer team’s 4-1 victory over Campbell Hall on Dec. 14.

LUKE HOLTHOUSE/CHRONICLE

Creznic receives Coach of the Year nomination

Erin Creznicnathanson’s

Boys’ soccer adjusts to coaching style, experiments with formations

Previous Matchups

TAKE DOWN: Jake Bracken ’14 takes down a Chaminade wrestler in the Wolverines’ 44-27 loss to the Eagles on Dec. 12. The Wolverines are 0-2 on the season, with their other loss to Bishop Amat on Dec. 5.

LUKE HOLTHOUSE/CHRONICLE

Wrestling defeated in lengthy dual meets

Feb. 3: L 77-74

Nov. 30: L 80-61

Straight wrestling matches won by James Wauer ‘13 and Jake Bracken ‘14 at the Camarillo Dual Meets.

Goals netted by the girls’ water polo

team through five games this

season.

30

Left-handed pitcher Nik Turley ’08 was named to the New York Yankees’ 40-man roster on Nov. 20.

Turley had a 1.88 ERA in his senior year for the Wol-verines before he was drafted 50th overall by the Yankees in the 2008 MLB Draft. He pitched for the Yankees’ AA squad Trenton Thunder in 2012.

—Grant Nussbaum

Alumnus makes Yankees’ 40-man roster

First-year Head Coach Lucas Bongarra implemented fitness tests to examine the conditioning skills of his boys’ soccer players on Dec. 11.

The tests measured four components of the players’ physical game: vertical jump, speed, flexibility and accelera-tion.

“The idea is to use this to determine progress and to see where the players need to im-prove,” Bongarra said.

The next fitness test will be in late January after the team begins league play.

—Lucy Putnam

Boys’ soccer endures conditioning tests

C3 SportSDeC. 19, 2012 hwChroniCle.Com/SportS

By Patrick ryan

The girls’ water polo team had mixed results from its first action of the year in the Mistletoe Tourna-ment, finishing second to Crescenta Valley.

The Wolverines moved up to Division III this year following back-to-back Division IV CIF championships. The team’s record stands 4-1 on the season.

“It’s early in the season, so it was a good opportunity to see where we stand at this point. Head Coach Brian Flacks ’06 said. “It shows we have a lot to work on. I’m excited for the opportunity to really get to work in December.”

Freshman Hannah Eliot ’16 performed well in the tour-nament, scoring a goal in sud-den death overtime to outlast

Newbury Park 7-6 and in the semifi-nal. The team fell to Crescenta Valley 7-3 in the final.

“We need some of the younger players to step in and fill big roles,” Flacks said. “Hopefully they can do that.”

Center Mor-gan Hallock ’13, the

reigning CIF Player of the Year, has often been the focal point of the opponent’s de-fense, creating opportunities for her teammates to score goals.

“It’s a little frustrating sometimes, but I think the big-gest part of that is that teams do drop back in zones more or double team me,” Hallock said. “It is just encouraging my teammates to really step up for it. Water polo is not a sport where you can have one

great player making all the plays.”

“I think everyone’s going to have Morgan’s number, but it’s our job to find ways to still get her the ball, and for her teammates to make plays and for oth-er players to step up,” Flacks said.

Hallock, a Princ-eton commit, said the team showed spurts of strong play on both offense and de-fense, but also stressed that the team is still adjusting to playing together.

“There is a lot of athleti-cism, a lot of potential water polo talent for the underclass-men,” Hallock said. “I see them improving every day.”

Set guard Sydney Cheong ’14 believes the team can im-prove on defense, which is usually a strength of the team.

“We pride ourselves on

playing good defense, and that’s why we were able to go so far in the playoffs last year because we had great team de-fense and really good team communica-tion,” Cheong said. “That is obviously something we can improve upon this year to get back to

that point.” Other veterans on the

team include Kassie Shannon ’13 and Rebecca Armstrong ’14 who bring experience to the new team.

The Wolverines played their first home game at the Copses Family Pool yesterday against Mater Dei in a Mission League matchup.

Results were not available as of press time, but will be provided on the Chronicle’s website.

Girls’ water polo begins title-defending season

Water polo player named All-CIF

CIF named water polo’s Warren Snyder ’14 to its All-CIF Divison I first team in his first year as a starting center guard. He was the only repre-sentative from Harvard-West-lake to be named to the team.

“I feel like all my hard work has really paid off,” Snyder said. “It’s just an honor to be named to the first-team CIF.”

Snyder was a reserve at the start of the season, but eventually took over the start-ing role for the Wolverines’ squad. The team lost to Ma-ter Dei, which ended up win-ning the CIF championship for the fifth consecutive year. The team will return all its start-ers heading into next season.

—Patrick Ryan

Girls’ basketball goes 2-2 in opening tournament at Redondo By Sam SachS

The girls’ basketball team has won three of its last four games including a 30-point blowout. Most recently, the team defeated El Camino Real 52-50 on Friday, Dec. 14 in a non-league away game.

The team owns victories over Oaks Christian, Carson, Long Beach Wilson and El Camino Real.

The team’s losses came against JSerra, West Torrance and Sierra Canyon.

The team next plays in the Santa Barbara High School Tournament of Champions, which starts today. The Wol-verines will then play in the West Coast Holiday Festival, before opening their league season with an away game at Notre Dame on Jan. 8. The team will play its first league home game against Chami-

nade on Jan. 15.Natalie Florescu ’13 leads

the team in scoring with 15 points per game, and posted a 24-point, five-rebound, five-assist stat line in the team’s victory over Carson in the Re-dondo Tournament. Florescu is coming off a self-described tough shooting performance in the two point win over El Camino Real.

“We’ve been on a roller coaster, where we’ve won one game and lost the next one,” Florescu said. “Right now, what we’re struggling with is always coming out with the same intensity. When you look at each game we’ve lost, it’s always been the first quarter where we haven’t played well.”

Injuries have been preva-lent early in the year. Flo-rescu has been dealing with a finger and a hamstring injury and there have been plenty

of ankle injuries on the team, including the one forward Glenne Carter ’14 suffered that has forced her to miss time in the early season.

With Carter out, the team has been even more guard-heavy than expected, but Kathi Bolten-Ford ’13 has stepped up and played a big role in the frontcourt.

Bolten-Ford has averaged eight rebounds a game and posted two double-doubles on the year.

The Wolverines will con-tinue to rely on production from a thin frontline that could be sparked by the return of Carter.

Florescu also stressed the importance of consistency on a team that features only three seniors, and the contin-ued success of the pressure de-fense to create turnovers and deflections.

Private party wishes to sell two side-by-side interment spaces

Lot #1678, location Abiding Trust $4500 for one or $8000 for twoEndowment Care Fund included

Address: Forest lawn Memorial Road21300 Via Verde Drive

Covina Hills, CAFor more information, contact Lan Ky:

(626)-392-1692; (626)-675 1556

BALL MOVEMENT: Lind-sey Tse ’16 shoots in a 48-44 win against Long Beach Wilson.

LUKE HOLTHOUSE/CHRONICLE

Morgan Hallock ’13

nathanson’s

Sydney Cheong ’14

nathanson’s

Rock climber Charlie Andrews-Jubelt ’13 won the Southern California Regional Championships on Dec. 8.

The event was the qualify-ing round for the invitational post-season rock climbing competitions. Andrews-Jublet qualified for the event by com-peting in two other local com-petitions in the fall.

“Winning felt really good, and I thought I competed very well on some of the challeng-ing routes, but the important thing is that I qualified for Di-visionals, and I’m moving on to bigger and more competitive events,” Andews-Jublet said.

—Ally White

Rock climber wins regional tournament

DISHIN’ AND SWISHIN’: Westmont commit and team captain Natalie Florescu ’13 dribbles up the court in the Wolverines’ 48-44 victory over Long Beach Wilson. Florescu had 14 points, five rebounds and a steal in the four-point victory on Dec. 8.

LUKE HOLTHOUSE/CHRONICLE

1Max Fried ’12 and Lucas Giolito ’12 sign multi-mil-lion dollar MLB contracts in June

Though they only wore the same uniform for one season, this past June Max Fried ’12 and Lucas Giolito ’12 became the first set of high school teammates ever to be picked in the first round of the MLB draft the same year.

Fried, a southpaw, pictured above, who transferred to Harvard-Westlake for his senior season, was selected sev-enth overall by the San Diego Padres. Giolito, who was pro-jected by some analysts to go first overall before he injured his pitching elbow, went to the Washington Nationals with the 16th overall pick. Fried and Giolito, both signed for about $3 million signing bonuses and passed up scholarship offers from UCLA to play professionally.

Girls’ water polo wins CIF championship against Los OsosLos Osos seemed as though it had snatched

the title of best Division IV girls water polo team away from Harvard-Westlake.

After losing to the Wolverines in the CIF championship game the year before, Los Osos upset the Wolverines in the regular season with a 14-13 win in January.

However, when given a second shot at Los Osos, this time with their entire season on the

line in the CIF championship game, the Wol-verines rose to the occasion.

In dominating fashion, the Wolverines, beat Los Osos 9-2 on Feb. 25 to claim their second straight CIF championship and prove that they still had the upper-hand in the ri-valry against Los Osos. First-year Head Coach Brian Flacks ’06 joined his team in the pool to celebrate the victory.

34Amy Weissenbach ’12 three peats in the 800, Cami Chapus ’12 wins second straight Dream Mile

With seven state championships between them, it was only fitting that Amy Weissenbach ’12 and Cami Chapus ’12 ended their high school careers in record setting fashion.

With a time of 2:05.70, Weissenbach, pictured above, cap-tured her third straight state championship in the 800-me-ter dash.

Chapus won her second straight Adidas Dream Mile, a competition that invites the most elite high school mil-ers across the country, with a time of 4:39.64. Chapus’s ca-reer hardware also includes a state championship in the 1600-meter dash and two individual state championships in cross country.

With a team state championship won together in cross country as well, the duo left Harvard-Westlake as the most decorated Wolverine runners of all-time.

5Football qualifies for CIF playoffs for the first time since joining Mission League three years ago

This was finally going to be the year. A star studded se-nior class led by new Head Coach Scot Ruggles gave the program its best chance in years to make the playoffs. Be-hind Division I college football bound linemen Thomas Oser ’13 and Henry Schlossberg ‘13, quarterback Chad Kanoff ’13, pictured above, led a high-powered no-huddle spread offense attack that averaged about five touchdowns a game. In league play, the biggest determinant of which teams re-ceive playoff bids, the Wolverines did just enough in a league widely regarded as the toughest in the Western Division of CIF. With a blowout 44-11 win at St. Paul and a nerve racking 41-36 win over St. Francis, the team earned an at- large bid to its first postseason run since joining the Mission League three seasons ago.

Top 10 of 2012

Field hockey places second in LAFHA championship after nail-biter in overtime

As the entire football team eagerly jumped up and down on the sideline in anticipation, the referees of the Los Angeles Field Hockey Association championship semifinal had to tell team not to make any noise as the Wol-verines prepared for strokes. Scoreless af-ter regulation and scoreless after overtime, Bonita and Harvard-Westlake resorted to a penalty kick-like shoot out. Glenne Carter ’14, pictured above, converted her stroke into a goal in the team’s game.

Goalie Daniela Grande ’15 stuffed four of five attempts made by Bonita players, sending the field hockey team to the playoff champi-onship as well as the football team onto the field in celebration. The Wolverines ultimate-ly fell to Huntington Beach in the final, but the playoff run represented a very successful season for Head Coach Erin Creznic.

The $6.5 million investment that started in Italy, crossed the Panama Canal and finally found its destination in what used to be part of the Taper parking lot at Har-vard-Westlake’s upper school campus in North Hollywood finally came to fruition as the boys water polo team took the pool for the first time in 2012.

After playing the entirety of their last season without a pool, the Wolverines finally had home pool advantage on their side during home games. The massive body of wa-

ter contains hundreds of thousands of gallons and is big enough to host a game while a club swim team practices on a walled off section of the swimming facility at the other end.

The boys water polo team christened the pool with a 16-4 win over Ventura in September, setting the tone that the new facility would help grow both the water polo and swimming programs at Harvard-Westlake into powerhous-es big enough to fill the pool itself.

Wolverine Fanatics witnessed CIF championships and Olympic gold medals in 2012. Sports editor Luke Holthouse recalls the top 10 moments in Wolverine athletics from the past year.

Fans storm the court after girls’ volleyball shuts out Mission League foe Notre Dame on Homecoming

The girls’ volleyball team fell to Notre Dame on the road earlier in the team’s season, but a victory in straight sets over the Knights on Homecoming prompted Wolverine fa-natics to storm the court in jubilation.

8

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10

Both boys’ and girls’ cross country teams make State Finals Meet

9

Baseball places second at National High School Invitational Tournament in North Carolina

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2

Track coach Felix Sanchez wins Olympic gold medal alongside three Wolverine alumni in London

When track and field assistant coach Felix Sanchez, pictured above, returns to Harvard-Westlake this spring to coach hurdles, he will have plenty of inspirational stories to share with the Wolverines he coaches. Sanchez won his second career Olympic gold medal at the London Olympics this summer representing the Dominican Republic in the 400-meter hurdles.

Three other Wolverine athletes competed at the Olym-pics with Sanchez. Ali Riley ’06 competed for the New Zea-land women’s national soccer team, Peter Hudnut ’99 played on the US men’s water polo team and Alex Osbourne ’06 rowed for US men’s national crew team.

pRinted with peRmission of getty images

6Boys water polo beats Ventura 16-4 in first ever athletic competition in Copses Family Pool

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michaeL aRonson/CHRONICLE

“Coming into the season no one expected us to do anything – they pretty much expected us to drop out after League Finals. But we showed them. We went to CIF Finals and we went to State de-spite everyone’s expecta-tions and you can’t ask for more than that. I’m proud of my teammates.”

—David Manahan ’14, pictured right.

“North Carolina was an unbe-lievable experience. Our team really went out and played well. We came up against some tough competition and showed what we can do. It also brought our team together for the rest of the season. We proved to ourselves that we could play against everyone.”

—Pitcher and infielder Jack Flaherty ’14, pictured left.

7

SportS C5C4 SportS the ChroniCle ChroniCle.hw.ComDeC. 19, 2012

By Grant nussBaum

All seven fall teams made it to the playoffs, but zero received a CIF ring.

In its first season under Head Coach Scot Ruggles, the varsity football team made CIF playoffs for the first time since 2009. The team went 6-5 overall with a 2-3 record in league play, but was knocked out in the first round of play-offs after losing to Camarillo 48-21.

“We grew as a program, without question,” defensive tackle Henry Schlossberg ’13 said. “We like to think we set a precedent for making playoffs in this league for other classes to come.”

In Mission League finals, the girls’ varsity tennis teams swept singles and doubles titles. After league finals, the girls defeated Viewpoint 16-2 in the first round of the CIF playoffs, but lost 11-7 to Tesoro in the second round.

The tennis team concluded its season with a record of 17-2, and an undefeated league record of 10-0.

Following the girls’ fifth-straight Mission League championship, both the boys’ and the girls’ varsity cross country teams survived two elimination rounds in CIF preliminaries and CIF Finals to make it to State Finals.

The girls team placed fifth at State with Trishta Dordi ’15 finishing 13th in the girls’ race. The boys placed 12th overall with David Manahan ’14 fin-ishing 27th in the boys’ race.

The boys’ varsity water polo team defeated Beckman 16-3 in a wild card round to reach the CIF playoffs. The Wolverines then defeated El Toro 15-11 in the first round, but fell to number one ranked Mater Dei 15-6 in the CIF quarterfinals, ending their season with an overall record of 20-10. The Wolverines re-turn all of their starters head-ing into next season.

“This offseason, we are all going to play with each other in this club, we are going to be practicing year-round,” center guard Warren Snyder ’14 said. “We are going to be so close and we are going to have a lot

of momentum heading into next season.”

With the 2-1 strokes victory over Edison in league semifinals, the varsity field hockey team advanced to league finals, where it was defeated by Huntington Beach 1-0 in a golden goal overtime period.

The team’s season ended with an overall record of 16-2-2, with a 7-1-1 record in league.

After winning the Mission League title, the girls’ varsity volleyball team defeated Calvary Chapel 3-0 in the first round of CIF Playoffs.

However, the Wolverines’ season was brought to an end in a 3-2 defeat to San Juan Hills in the second round. The girls’ volleyball team had a final record of 24-11 in 2012.

Girls’ golf went 6-1 in the regular season before taking second in Mission League finals. At team CIF Finals, the Wolverines just missed winning the CIF title, placing second to Notre Dame.

Additional reporting by Luke Holthouse and Patrick Ryan.

Fall teams finish playoff competition without CIF titles

COMING UP SHORT: Davey Hartmeier ’14 and Thomas Oser ’13 embrace after the football team’s season-ending loss to Camaril-lo, top. Warren Snyder ’14 passes to a teammate in the water polo team’s playoff loss to Mater Dei in the CIF Division I quarterfinals.

ROBBIE LOEB/CHRONICLE

Girls soccer switches offensive formation

TOUCH: Tiffany Guerra ’15 dribbles down the sideline.

JACK GOLDFISHER/CHRONICLE

By aaron Lyons

Since changing formations at the start of the season, players say the varsity girls’ soccer team has been very successful and will be testing its skill in the Canyon in Mater Dei Invitational.

The major change that the team made this season was changing its formation from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2. Head Coach Richard Simms made the switch because the team was struggling in the 4-3-3 formation.

With four defenders, four midfielders and two fowards, the 4-4-2 formation is one of the most common formations in soccer throughout the world.

“Switching from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 was huge for our team,” Gores said. “After the switch we started to really connect and form a rhythm to our game. It wasn’t very difficult to adjust because we played a 4-4-2 last year and we’re already pretty comfortable with the formation.”

The team’s first game was against Calabasas, in which the Wolverines powered past their opponents with an 8-0 shutout. The team has recorded its only loss against Mira Costa, 2-1. However, the Wolverines were able to turn it around with consecutive wins against Hart and Oaks Christian.

Hannah Lichtenstein ’13 and Rina Gores ’15 have been

at the front of the attack this season with seven goals apiece.

“We get better and more experienced every game,” Lichtenstein said. “Talent- wise, I think we are superior to most of the teams we will be playing in both Mission League and CIF. Our main issue will be our size and the ability to stay focused and mentally tough. However, I have a great amount of faith in this team especially after the El Camino performance.”

The team will soon play in the Canyon in Mater Dei Invitational. The first game will be against Mater Dei.

“The Mater Dei tournament is a rough wake-up call,” Lichtenstein said. “All the teams down there play a

very direct, aggressive style that we really don’t see around our area, but will be our biggest competition come CIF. The tournament is a great way to see where the team is at right now and where we’re going to need to be in February.”

The team competed in the competition last year, but was knocked out by Aliso Niguel in the quarterfinals. Last year, the team only recorded two losses, both to teams that will also be competing in this years’ tournament.

The team’s first league game will be on Jan. 4 against Louisville.

“I can tell you that the highest goal for everyone on this team is to get a ring,” Lichtenstein said.

ROBBIE LOEB/CHRONICLE

Dec. 19, 2012C6 SportS the chronicle

By Jordan Garfinkel and Tyler Graham

The varsity boys’ basket-ball, boys’ soccer, and girls’ water polo teams will be com-peting in matches against Chaminade High School in the second installment of the Games of the Trimester on Wednesday, Jan. 9.

The Games of the Trimester features several home sports games on a particu-lar day in each tri-mester of the school year.

This will be the second event of the 2012-2013 sports season, following the Games that took place on Oct. 4.

“I thought the last one went really well. I thought there was enough variety for people to see with the aquat-ics event, the volleyball game, and the field hockey,” Assis-tant Athletic Director Vince Orlando said. “That’s what we kind of wanted to do, was give a perspective of being able to see different sports, at least two or three different sports in one particular day.”

The boys’ soccer team has a record of 3-5 under new Head Coach Lucas Bongarra, and is looking forward to showcasing its team to a larger crowd.

“When we play in front of a big crowd, the team gets pumped up,” varsity forward

Matthew Gooden ’15 said. “We want to play well so people will come back to see us.”

The boys’ basketball team is 5-2 this season and will be looking for strong crowd sup-port against Chaminade.

“I’m very excited to play in front of all of the fans. I always look forward to play-

ing in front of fans. I hope all of the fans and the fanatics show up. We really like having their support; it helps us a lot on the court,” forward Bryan Polan ’14 said. “I think we’re looking very good. The team is sharing the ball, and the team chemistry is very high.

I love battling with my team-mates and going to war with them.”

The girls’ water polo team will also be seeking a victory to add a win to its 4-1 record and continue its mission to a third straight CIF title.

“From a variety standpoint and from a competitive stand-point, we thought it would be a good day to choose. Obviously, we want as many Harvard-Westlake students to get out and support them,” Orlando said.

The varsity field hockey team beat Glendale, and the freshman, junior varsity and varsity volleyball teams de-feated Chaminade and boys water polo beat Damien last Games of the Trimester.

Athletics promotes Games of Trimester

15% Discount for Harvard Westlake Students Pick-ups and Dine-ins from the regular menu

ATTRACTING FANS: Forward Matthew Gooden ’15 protects the ball from a Campbell Hall defend-er, bottom. Forward Ty Gilhuly ’13 dribbles towards the goal, top left. Guard Mike Sheng ’14 advances the ball up the court, top right. The Games of the Trimester will be on Jan. 4, featuring three winter teams.

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Vince OrlandoDIDAX LUKE HOLTHOUSE/CHRONICLE

LUKE HOLTHOUSE/CHRONICLE

hwchronicle.com/SportS SportS C7Dec. 19, 2012

Why do you think the new 4-4-2 system is more successful?

Lichtenstein:

Up front withHannah Lichtenstein ’13

By Lucy Putnam

How do you feel the new players complement your style of play?

Lichtenstein:

As captain do you feel you have a greater pressure to play well?

Lichtenstein:

AQ

AQ

AQ

I completely understand why we played a 4-3-3, having incredibly talented midfielders like Courtney Corrin ’16, Chloe Castaneda ’15 and Courtney O’Brien ’15, but in the outside areas, we didn’t really know what to do. In ad-dition, Catherina Gores ’15 and I have a similar style of play, so it is easier for us to both play in the center, mov-ing across their defensive line as opposed to one playing on outside and the other playing inside like we did in the 4-3-3.

We have really fast outside mids this year, like Mackenzie Howe ’14 and Quinn Frankel, which helps because they can get to the line and cross the ball, putting the forwards into great positions to score. Our midfielders are really young and creative — they have the potential to be like Danielle Duhl ’12, but are just not at that maturity yet. So it’s a little bit of an adjustment.

I do, not only being a senior, but also one of the oldest on the team and having played soccer for so long. But every-one else on the team takes a lot of the pressure off. Other people are scoring goals, creating chances and playing well, so I don’t feel that I have to do everything. We have a talented team that can perform well no matter what.

Dec. 19, 2012C8 SportS the chronicle

What was your most memorable goal of the season?Lichtenstein:AQ The second goal in the game against El Camino. We were down 3-1 and I felt the momentum shift. I had to run and get the ball from the net and bring it back up to midfield. Obviously, Quinn Frankel ’16 tied it up for us in the last two minutes, which was really exciting.

FULL CONTROL: Center forward Hannah Lichtenstein ’13, left, advances the ball up the field in the girls’ playoff loss to San Clemente last year. She is one of the team’s leading scorers.

ROBBIE LOEB/CHRONICLE

nathanson’s

AQ Lichtenstein:Honestly, I am not over that loss, as creepy as that sounds. I hate them and I hate the Orange County style of play. I think it is extremely frustrating and unskilled. It’s just power over finesse. We are going to have to play their game and beat them at their game, meaning we cannot possess the ball as much as we tried to do last year against them. This year, we are going to have to launch the ball from defense and muscle them up front, which Mackenzie Howe and Brianna Gazmarian ’15 are really good at. So it’s going to be a rough and ugly game.

AQLichtenstein:Soccer’s been a huge part of my life for a while and I knew that I wanted to play in college. I got looks from a lot of Division I schools, but honestly the type of environment I wanted was a small liberal arts school. The idea of going to a large school and sitting on the bench for two years before getting a look from the coach really frustrated me. I felt at a Division III school I would get to play more and showcase my abilities ... I fell in love with Swarthmore immediately, I love the coach and they needed a forward, so it all fell into place.

What made you choose Swarthmore?

How will you beat San Clemente since they knocked you out of CIF last year?

Forward Hannah Lichtenstein ’13 is the captain of the girls’ soccer team. She is the team’s leading scorer along with Rina Gores ’15. The Swarthmore commit is the team’s only starting senior.