Shakespeare competitor goes to NYC

Each year since 1983, high school students have explored Shakespeare’s language through the National Shakespeare Competition, sponsored by the English-Speaking Union. Students and teachers from 60 ESU branches compete by performing Shakespeare’s monologues and sonnets at the school, branch, and national levels. This year’s EWS representative is Aaryn ’12, who competed and won at the [...]

Ambassador for American poetry

 
Today’s assembly speaker was Tony Hoagland, author of three volumes of poetry: Sweet Ruin, winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, Donkey Gospel, winner of the James Laughlin Award of The Academy of American Poets, and What Narcissism Means to Me. He has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment on the Arts, [...]

A Story of Numbers

Lei ’09, student leader of the community service group EmmaGreen, explains to students that the cost of an Emma Willard education is far greater than what is covered by tuition. Electricity, heat, food, and water take a big chunk out of the school’s operating budget and have an environmental impact as well. EmmaGreen is sponsoring [...]

Are you on Facebook?

At Monday’s morning reports, Dean of Academics Chris Kimberly talked to students about the pitfalls of Facebook and asks an important question. What do you, the Facebook user, want your friends to believe about you and is what you’re portraying authentic? Here’s the gist of what he said.

A Crime So Monstrous

Author of A Crime so Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern-Day Slavery, Ben Skinner spoke at this morning’s assembly about modern day slavery. Skinner defines slaves as those who are forced to work, under threat of violence, for no pay beyond subsistence. After the assembly, he engaged in discussions with students from a few history [...]

S Words: Silence, Solitude, Stillness

 
Math instructor Alan Berry encourages students to take time from their busy schedules to stop, look, and listen and to practice the art of solitude, so that hurry, noise, and frantic activity won’t have as much of an impact on their everyday lives. Sounds like pretty good advice for all of us, dontcha think? Listen [...]

The highs and lows of the golden child

This morning’s inspirational speech came from Caroline ’09, who spoke about her battle with manic depression. Considered mature and well behaved as a small child, Caroline’s later mood swings were especially puzzling to her family. It took over a year to reach a diagnosis. Caroline hopes we will not pass judgment on those who have [...]

40 Years of Service

 
During today’s assembly, Trudy Hall honored Armand Herald, who came to the facilities department in 1968 and who is retiring next week. Armand was presented with a replica of the Chapel tower with working clock, hand-carved by Ken McGivern, assistant director of facilities, who spent at least 130 hours on the project. Armand has wound [...]

Face Your Fears

 
Houseparent and director of community service Stacey Dodd gave this morning’s inspirational speech. Not a fan of public speaking, Ms. Dodd was working through her own fear even as she encouraged students to explore and reach, not allowing fear to prevent them from growing and experiencing new things. Listen here.

Listen!

 
This morning’s inspirational speaker was math instructor Carmel Schettino, who encouraged everyone to listen when someone speaks. You can learn a great deal about others by listening to their personal stories. As a member of the Conduct Review Committee for the past few years, Ms. Schettino has heard many stories and has learned not to [...]