Gavin Schmidt ‘24 Jack Crowley ‘24 Although the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is a global push for equality, on a local level, it has also impacted EA through reinforcing the role that diversity and equality plays in the community. T.J. Locke, Head of School comments on these protests saying, “Sometimes the world needs to understand a perspective, and I think we have seen the need for that more and more in our society.” Chaplain John Daniels adds,“People want to be heard, people want to be respected, and I think the more you provide opportunities for dialogue, that it is…
Author: TECHALERT
Josephine Buccini ’21
Staff Editorial EA should return to the online schedule for the virtual week of January 4th. After going virtual following Thanksgiving, EA resumed the specially-designed virtual schedule from 8:45 to 2:25 with 45-minute blocks. However, when the school announced that the Middle and Lower School would return to campus for the weeks of December 7th and December 14th while the Upper School remains virtual, they also announced that the Upper School would adopt the in-person schedule to stay in sync with the Middle School and to accommodate the crossover teachers. Though this decision does have valid reasoning while the Middle…
Aaron Tang ‘24 The class of 2024 is tentatively scheduled to take the Outward Bound trip in May 2022 as sophomores. The class of 2025, currently eight graders, is scheduled to go on the trip in the summer of 2021, as previously scheduled. Outward Bound is looking to adopt several additional safety precautions in response to the pandemic for potential upcoming trips as well. The Class of 2024 was unable to experience EA’s signature five-day freshmen orientation trip for themselves this fall. There have been extensive discussions with Outward Bound to reschedule. Tanuja Murray, Dean for the Class of 2024…
Rohith Tsundupalli ‘24 The new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) Committee, composed of Student Council representatives, is responsible for representing the Form and communicating Form issues around diversity, equity, and inclusion. The committee was formed in response to several events over the past summer, including letters from students and alumni, racial protests across the country, and the “strategic plan that took place to make diversity, equity, and inclusion at Episcopal a priority,” as stated by Michael Letts, Head of Upper School. The DEI Committee, effective since the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, consists of one member from each of the…
Abby Gallo ‘22 | Maggie Lo ‘23 Over the years, the EA community has continued to engage in service during the holiday season with the ACLAMO Angels program. EA presents gifts to the underprivileged students at ACLAMO, whose parents may not have the means to do so. Despite the difficult and unprecedented circumstances regarding COVID-19, this charitable program will continue; however, it will look different than in previous years. Instead of individual classes or advisories “adopting” two students as EA has done in the past, individual families will now sign up for an ACLAMO student. In the past, the Angels…
Jack Crowley ‘24 | Gavin Schmidt ‘24 | Brendan Schlitt ‘24 As the holiday season approaches, EA is striving to continue its regular Christmas traditions, including the Lessons and Carols chapel, Scrooge chapel, and the Christmas tree lighting. Due to the recent decision to keep the Upper School students virtual through winter break, plans for the Christmas traditions are again being revised. Michael Letts, Head of Upper School, shares, “I do not think that any of these events will be cancelled or postponed, but they certainly will look a little bit different.” Lessons and Carols has consistently been an event…
Rachel Lederman ’24 | Bella Notaro ’24 Masks have become a daily necessity in the lives of everyone in the EA community. Throughout the school day, masks are always required, except at lunch or in a socially-distanced circle outside. As a result of these regulations, many students have developed mask preferences to achieve both comfort and style. The two main types of masks that EA’s community members wear are cloth and medical. It is relatively split on which is most prefered. Elizabeth Boruff ’23 says that she favors “cloth masks because they’re more durable and frankly just fit [her] face…
Isabel Rozes ‘24 May Term will not happen this year; instead, EA will hold an extra week of classes with final exams during the last week of the 2020-2021 academic year. Mr. Michael Letts, the Head of Upper School, states that offering May Term would be “logistically too hard.” May Term, originally held during January as J-Term, was introduced during the 2013-2014 academic year for the community to come together in the spirit of learning. The event is a two-week span during which students travel internationally, domestically, or remain on campus to participate in an intensive, interdisciplinary course to gain…
Nayan Shankaran ‘24 In response to rising COVID-19 cases in southeastern Pennsylvania and the large percentage of people gathering or traveling for the holidays, The Episcopal Academy has readapted to virtual learning after being in-person for two months. After Thanksgiving break, Dr. T.J. Locke, the Greville Haslam Head of School, announced that EA would be primarily virtual until January 8th, and as a result, winter sports have been delayed. When asked about his decision, Locke responds, “We weren’t technically forced to close, but we knew that [the holidays] are going to be a problem moment with people traveling and gathering.…
Kathryn Barber ‘23 | Gianna Trala ‘23 The Alumni Office launched the Engage Episcopal series as a way for students, alumni, and members of the Episcopal community to listen and learn from alumni and their experiences. These zoom webinars occur on Wednesdays from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. There are four installments of Engage Episcopal, each centered around a professional field or theme: CEOs/entrepreneurs, journalists, exonerations, and EA’s first graduates of color. The first webinar, on November 19, discussed companies, current events, and careers; it also included a question and answer session at the end, where each speaker offered advice…
Aryav Dhar ’24 The new Upper School science curriculum has given freshman students a glimpse into many different branches of science while still teaching in-depth material and providing a path for the future. In previous years, freshmen would take biology, chemistry, and then physics consecutively, each for a full year. Now, students take each of these three disciplines in a non-honors, semester-long format before advancing to either level two or AP courses. The curriculum also includes a semester-long environmental science course. The main objective of this new system is to allow students to become acquainted with different sciences so that…
Mahliat Tamrat ‘23 The Spanish Flu, caused by the H1N1 virus, was a deadly pandemic in 1918, inflicting a high mortality rate in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The CDC reports that “the high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic.” Alternatively, the COVID-19 pandemic identifies older people and those with weakened immune systems as the high risk populations. Like COVID-19, initially, the 1918 virus was not well understood and non-pharmaceutical approaches were implemented due to the lack of…
Clare Collins ’23 | Alex Gobran ‘23 Universities all over the world are learning to cope with COVID-19 in order to maintain the health of their students and prevent the spread of the virus. EA alumni who are attending foreign universities provide insight into how various schools around the globe are dealing with COVID and offer thoughts surrounding how this has impacted their school year. Tommy Lorenson ‘20 and Izzy Handal ‘20 attend the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Handal summarizes a confusion felt by both of them, saying, “the entire experience is new and we don’t know anything…
Michelle Jiang ‘24 | Sophia Hu ‘24 | Anjali Ramakrishnan ‘24 After the recent election, the EA community has discussed the concerns about potential voter fraud and mail-in ballots in classrooms, hallways, and more. Voter fraud is often speculated about when the losing party believes they lost because of mishaps in the election process. This can be through illegal interference in the election itself or in the process of counting ballots. Suspicion of rigged elections has been brought up in past presidential elections, although very little evidence has been supportive of these claims. In the 2004 presidential election, there were…
Fiona Riley ‘22 Sona Bardakjian ‘21, a passionate participant in all aspects of EA’s performing arts program, is December’s Artist of the Month. Bardakjian is a choir co-president, Vocal Ensemble member, Dance Team captain, and participant in a variety of performing arts clubs. Additionally, she performs in EA plays and musicals and, in non-COVID years, sings in a choir outside of school at her church. When asked about her development as an enthusiast for the performing arts, Bardakjian notes that “ever since I was a kid, my sisters and I would put on ‘shows’ for my parents, relatives, and really…
Ava Hendrickson ‘22 | Mia Cabral ‘22 With COVID-19 restrictions in place, Episcopal’s fall play had to be reimagined, forcing Daniel Clay, Chair of the Theater Department and the Domino Board, to be extremely creative. Initially, there was anxiety among students that the fall play wouldn’t be possible at all, as explained by Grace Frazier ‘21, “Quite honestly, there’s nothing like getting up onto stage in front of a live audience. So as COVID continued to knock down the plans of my high school experience and the experiences of my classmates, my main concern was how the fall play would…
Lily Rosenberg ’22 As the Biden administration transitions into power, many hope to see changes in arts funding. Under President Obama, there was an increase in funding for the art industry, indicating that the Biden administration will be a strong advocate in this endeavor as well. Despite this potential increase in spending, the COVID-19 pandemic has created many challenges. Inevitably, the funding of the art industry will appear quite different from years past. Most public art museums are closed, resulting in a substantial loss in revenue. As a result, artistic organizations and institutions like these are in jeopardy and are more…
Eshika Tangri ‘23 Doug Parsons, Upper School English Teacher, recently added the Songwriting Club to an existing variety of music clubs at EA. The club started as an enrichment summer course offered by EA for a small group of Upper School students who wanted to strengthen their base for songwriting and music. Over the span of the three-week course, students explored what songwriting really is and how to start thinking about writing one’s own music. Current club leaders, Lex Ventresca ‘23 and Logan Schlitt ‘23, reflect on their time in the summer course, mentioning how it spoke to their “passion…
Pro Rick Chen ‘23 As schools across the country reevaluate their COVID-19 protocols for in-person learning, many consider implementing random testing. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, stated during a panel with doctors from Harvard Medical School “we need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter because it’s not going to be easy.” As Fauci said, keeping the EA community safe is not an easy task. With outdoor activities, social distancing, and contact tracing become increasingly difficult, random testing becomes a more logical measure. The integration of random testing will not…