Julianne Dlones ’14: While I find the complaints of everyday life at the academy to be excessive and ubiquitous, it has come to my and my fellow classmates’ attention and alarm that more than a few burdens have fallen upon the class of 2014. Ever since our freshman year, the class of 2014 has been hit with multiple changes, some minor, and others major. Changes are essential because of the dynamic nature of education, but here at EA, has it been too much, and too soon?
Regardless, it is not my intention to complain, but to merely point out these occurrences so that others may be mindful of the impact such changes have on the community and on a particular class.
It started off simply when, in sophomore year, we found out that we would not be continuing the tradition of changing floors. Previously, it had been that freshmen occupied the third floor, sophomores the second, and juniors the first. Instead, following our freshman year, they changed it such that each year would be assigned a certain floor for all three years until senior year.
We, therefore, ended up with the dreaded third floor. At the time, we had felt defenseless, like no one had stood up for us against whoever proposed a change to a system that was fine in the first place. Being on the third floor is a rite of passage, and we wanted the satisfaction of moving down a level as we had rightfully earned, and as the freshmen had to earn as well. We felt and still feel that our seniority was taken from us. Symbolically, the precedent had been set: things would change on our grade.
A flurry of departmental changes was the next to come. Sophomore year was the year that the Science Department changed their policy regarding freshman science classes—eliminating Earth and Life and universalizing Biology. This great change enables everyone to be eligible to take an AP science without doubling up on science classes, but this change occurred the year after us. Soon after, three other department changes came that all fell similarly on our class.
At the end of our sophomore year, the Modern Language Department added an intermediary honors class between Honors Spanish/French 3 and AP Spanish/French. Thus, they pushed AP Modern Language to what would be for most their senior year. However, this prohibits freshmen that began in a first level modern language from ever enrolling in an AP course during their high school career.
For the coming year, the Art Department changed their credit requirements such that you can now either have one credit distributed in two areas of the arts, or two credits in one area. This shift allows the development of dedicated artists, but again has occurred too late for our class to benefit from it. Numerous juniors already received their credit in two arts disciplines, which is now unnecessary.
As inconvenient as this change seems to these disgruntled artists, Dean of the Class of 2014, Jackson Collins noted, “The change was in fact a reaction to the artistic leadership of our class. Our class dominates the arts, in music, visual arts, and theatre and dance.”
AP math courses also abandoned the twelve-day drop-system, and College Guidance will now begin in sophomore, not junior, year. A significantly difficult change for us to deal with is the elimination of the English electives. Because of the imminent J-term, senior English will now be a full, yearlong course, eliminating the seminar electives.
Along with these departmental changes have come changes to Episcopal’s traditions and systems. As mentioned before, the tradition of changing floors was broken with our class. Additionally, the lounge decorating for spirit week has been significantly restricted. This limits our ability to express our school spirit to boring themed exhibitions confined to our lounges. The elimination of Arts Fest is being blamed on the irresponsible actions of past-students and a lack of supervision. Our class vehemently the possibility of a mandatory post-prom for next year’s senior prom.
Lastly, perhaps the stigma for much of the junior concern of all the changes upon us, are the significant changes within the faculty. In addition to the multitude of teachers leaving Episcopal after this year, the Class of 2014 will be met with a new Gresville Haslam Head of School, Head of Upper School, and a new Form Dean. These shifts of leadership scare the rising senior class.
Collins, who has been with the junior class since the beginning, will not be here for our final, and hopefully greatest, year. His replacement, Sarah Baker ’01, surely will be fantastic, but still, the relationship we have formed with Collins cannot be matched. Furthermore, a new Head of Upper School, a new Head of School, and the experimental J-term feeds into the angst of all the changes on our most important year yet.
Clearly, all of these changes have unintentionally fallen upon the Class of 2014. Collins added, “It’s purely coincidence. Is it ideal? No. But we’ll have to make do the best we can.” In this respect, I agree with Collins: many of these changes, like those to our traditions, credit requirements, and new faculty members, are all a result of unrelated stimuli that have unfortunately landed in 2014’s hands. The Class of 2014 has and will endure countless changes at Episcopal, but it is nothing we cannot handle. We ask, however, that future administrators and leaders of Episcopal be aware of how much falls on each class. May the petty grievances of the class of 2014 be a lesson for the future on being considerate on the extent of change one class may experience over the course of their Episcopal years.