 By Alice Tao ’24I sat down with our Head Prefect Kade Smith and chat about his experience here at Westminster. He shared personal stories, such as his freshman year formal date, and some words of wisdom for younger students. I am excited to share his insights with the Westminster community.
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By Jillian Mihailovich ’25With the new school year come new faces. In addition to getting to know our new students, we should also prioritize getting to know our new faculty members. I met with Ms. Dale and Ms. Caputi this week to ask them a few questions about their past experiences before coming to Westminster and their current experiences here.
 By Alice Tao ’24On Oct. 1 2022, I was honored to have attended the Perry Initiative outreach program at UConn hospital in Farmington, Conn. The Perry Initiative is committed to inspiring young women to become leaders in STEM fields such as orthopedic surgery and engineering. Women are drastically under-represented in both fields, and the Perry Initiative guides young women to explore them. I was shocked when our lecturer announced women make up only 20% of engineering graduates. Engineering is a field dominated by men in today’s society and when people think about engineering, an image of men wearing glasses comes into mind. There have been several studies that showed no proof that women cannot possess the skills needed to be successful in this field. Women have all the capability to become good engineers if they receive the proper education, training and employment as men do. Therefore, the Perry Initiative is determined to break that stereotype and encourage young women to be a part of the future of medical engineering.
By Margee Mahoney ’24All upperclassmen are familiar with the infamous AP® European History course. One of the most dreaded classes at the school, countless students chose it year after year to challenge themselves, ready to walk in and face C. Griff head-on. It was an excellent opportunity to challenge oneself, but class-takers soon found out The AP Euro course had a reputation for a reason. Faced with page after page of grueling reading about distant lands and entry quizzes to put the nail in the coffin, the fall term in AP Euro certainly felt like drowning. However, if you stuck with it, dealt with the AP-format tests, and at least 15 pages of reading a night, you certainly picked up a few valuable skills.
By Sophie Grace Stevenson ’25This year, on Sept. 28, grandparents came to campus to visit their grandchildren’s classes and see their progress in school thus far. Some students brought one grandparent while others brought three or four. It was a perfect fall day on campus: bright and beautiful — the perfect weather for longtime Westminster alums as well as first-time Westminster goers to see the renovations made around campus. After our first two classes for the day, everyone headed over to Andrews Memorial Chapel to hear a lovely Chapel Talk by Catherine Rodrigues ’23, a Sixth Form boarder. Then, some students gave their families a tour of the school, while others headed over to Armstrong Dining Hall for lunch before their last class.
 By Sunshine Li ’26I sent out a Google Forms survey and an Instagram story for my fellow Third Formers to answer one crucial question: Where is the best study hall location? The main contenders were Sejong and dorm rooms, but other beloved places were named as well. Follow along with this fun article to see if you have a similar taste in study hall locations.
By Chip Genung ’25 and Hannah Small ’25Food is an amazing thing. It brings people together, everyone needs it, and meals are a good time to slow down and talk to those around us. What makes food even better is when it is our favorite food. When you have had a long day of classes, sports and homework and you are tired, you just want to eat a nice meal. Then as you walk into the dining hall, there it is, your favorite meal as if it has been waiting for you. We all know this feeling, and what makes it special is that the “favorite meal” is different for everyone. So this leads to the question: What is the most popular dining hall option?
By Kelly Youngman ’24In September, Westminster students began the school year with enthusiasm, excited to tackle the school year and resume playing sports. Westy has been an exuberant and cheerful experience for all students, new and returning. Students this year have shown great school spirit and determination in their studies as well as in their afternoon activities. Showing both grit and grace as they glide through their first month of school, and while bringing joy to campus.
By Beck Hanypsiak ’23Maeve had ceased waiting by the phone. She had resigned herself to the fact that Ivy might never call again. She might never hear the sweet, soothing voice which had once lulled her to sleep. Ivy, her one truest love. Forever isn’t really forever. It fades, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Whoever said it was unbreakable was a liar. A liar who had tricked countless foolish girls just like her. She frowned.
By Asia Daniela ‘24The baker bakes me into hemlock. The singer sings me into wedlock. The writer writes me into myself, soft rock. In the years that I have walked this earth — countable on your fingers and toes — I have heard one question an uncountable number of times. It haunts me, follows me into the dark alleyways of my mind and the lonely roads of my school experience. This question-mark punctuated-phrase crowds the crevices of my life that permit questioning. “How did you become a writer?” they ask. I suppose they think it’s some mystical story painted on the backdrop of Nina Simone’s rainbow-colored skies: something painfully beautiful. They must presume it is a magical story they could draft into a coup de foudre indie film. My origin story is silver. It certainly is not magical or lemony-squeezy, but it is not dreary and cold either.
By Johnathan Li ’24It was a night at the Baxter Gallery; one finds themself walking into a room of compacted vacancies. Carefully placed beforehand, each creation — be it a craft, a clip of music or a painting — presents to you what they have to offer. It doesn’t take much reflection to discover the peculiarity of galleries, for it’s not a space of any purpose. One does not walk into a gallery to obtain any kind of substantial benefit, nor does one enter into such spaces for the sole purpose of leaving it; galleries are neither so transient as passages nor so stable as destinations, they contain art and art alone. When the agent enters this space, they have decided to venture into this odd junction between the self and the alien and in doing so, whether subconsciously or not, have made commentaries to the merits of the art before them.
By Tarapi Pyo ’24Schools are a place for students to learn, gaining wisdom from the teachers they hail as their role models. From an early age, children are plunged into school. A young child is first exposed to their over-the-top bubbly first-grade art teacher, then their tyrannical fifth-grade math teacher and finally their boring freshman-year English teacher. So, inevitably, teachers are crucial in the development of students navigating their social lives, steering their academic life, and forming their beliefs and values. Depending on their grade levels, different teachers have different approaches in their classrooms and varying degrees of willingness to get involved with students.
By James O’Connell ’25Westminster prides itself in how its students work and how in terms of academics, athletics and engagement with the community, they never rest. This is exemplified by the martlet, a mythical bird with roots going back to Old England. It is common knowledge to Westminster students that martlets do not rest because they have no feet to land, and neither should they. However, as inspirational as it is to strive toward being a mythical creature, it is ultimately impossible to be as hardworking as a martlet. The word martlet comes from the word Merle in French, meaning “small blackbird.” Therefore, by comparing a martlet to small birds in our world today, we can estimate how much energy it would take to power a martlet through its day-to-day life.
By Grace Yuan ’23While the U.S. maintains that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is criminal and unwarranted, the U.S. is clear about pursuing non-combative actions for influencing the end of the conflict. Since Russia attacked Ukraine, the U.S. has upheld that Russia violated and continues to violate international laws, including the transatlantic Alliance’s provisions. The U.S. reiterates that Russia’s attempt to control Ukraine, via military attack, is criminal because it is internationally unlawful to forcefully alter Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and democracy. The U.S. has been intervening diplomatically, offering the most humanitarian, economic, and military aid to Ukraine while ensuring that U.S. military forces do not directly attack Russians in Ukraine’s favor (United States Department of State, 2022). President Joe Biden, clarified that “[d]irect confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War Three, something we [the U.S.] must strive to prevent” (Nast, 2022).
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