Primed for Leadership: Women of Lawrenceville

I will turn it over to you at ten 98765432 smiles. Everyone in this room will open and flood with 30 some odd participants.

There we go.

Good evening everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. We are slowly waiting for everyone to come into the room and as you see all these women prime for leadership. Women of Lawrenceville. Our session tonight is designed to give you a little further insight on those things that you may sort of overlook as you are considering different tools and tonight's panel will be led by our Student Council President, Andy Katz. But as we continue to.

Allow some of our participants to flood into the room. I just want to give you a few updates as we get closer to the admissions deadline. First and foremost, my name is Dana Brown, director of admissions here, and thank you again for being part of our Discover Belleville series. For the last about a month or so, we've had over 15 different information sessions for you to view from how Harkness in harvest in the classroom all the way to athletics to arts as well as service to others.

And we have a few more that will happen towards the end of next week. As you are preparing to hit submit on your application, we do encourage you to take time to proofread all of your essays as well as to make sure you get your letters recommendation requests into your teachers. But for some of you have been eager and patiently awaiting additional tour times, as well as interviews. Please note that in the month of January we will.

I'll pick up again with interviews, but they will be online interviews only and then we will also have tours on select dates and so you can go online to our web portal and eventually to the portal that you have for managing your application to Lawrenceville and be able to select a tour time as well as an online interview time. So hopefully that will be that is now available to all of you as we are moving.

Into the month of January, the other key piece is this. We have interview times that are going to be from about 9:00 to 3:00 PM because our readers need to move into focusing on applications. And so while those of you that might be a little bit inconvenient, we ask that you find the time to taking their out of school. Take time out of school, or maybe before you go to school to have your interview as well. International families. Those of you from Hong Kong, China as well as Brazil, January.

Two appointments are going to be scheduled through very can't that information is online too, and then you will also receive details from our office on how to book an interview through. Very can't. If you are an applicant who attends school in China, Hong Kong or Brazil, we are asking that you use very can't. More on that later, but tonight we're going to now begin by turning it over to miss any cats. Thank you.

Hello hello hello it is so nice to not see all of you all but thank you for joining us tonight. Some of you may have met me at these two car stucco webinar a few weeks back because you weren't able to make it. I will redo my intro gladly so many cats like she said I'm this year student council president and I made a student who hails from Yardley, PA. So about 15 minutes over the river there and this is my 4th year at Lawrenceville meaning I came as a freshman.

And I'm incredibly excited to to do this webinar tonight, so we're here today. Kind of because Storwick Lee, independent schools, as many of you know, have a tradition of educating boys from a certain class and region of the United States. Fast forward to today, the turning point where women and women of color are leading a majority of the major officers at once fell from Dean of faculty to Dean of admissions. Sodium academics, department chairs, women do it all here. And frankly, these women were always here. But in the last 10 to 15 years, and even in the last two years.

Women at Lawrenceville are driving the discussion and making connections that prepare students for the future. Tonight. I am incredibly proud to present these extraordinary women, some of whom are my coaches, heads of houses and or teachers from the science department, the Math Department, admissions and college counseling. They each have their own path to Lawrenceville and night session will address how they got there and how they build. Rock solid confidence for for students at Lawrenceville. So, with that being said.

To start off, we're going to go with the question what excites you most about Lawrenceville and I'm going to ask Miss Roach to take this one to start.

Thank you Annie. Hi everyone, welcome to this session. My name is Courtney Roche. I am an associate director of college counseling here at Lawrenceville. This is actually my first year at Lawrenceville. I was previously in higher education and wanted to work more closely with students specific on the secondary school side.

So I'm really excited to be here and on campus, as you'll kind of get to see. We all hold many, many roles and responsibilities and duties. One of my particularly favorite duties is that I am part of the duty and advising team in the girls lower Second Form dorm, so I get to advise six wonderful first year students and help them on their journey and transition to Lawrenceville in terms of Annie's amazing question, what excites me about Lawrenceville as I just shared? I am brand new to this community and when I was.

On my professional journey looking for a new professional role. I really approached my search as looking for a new community that was most important to me beyond the actual position and the job responsibilities I was looking for a place where I would feel welcome where I felt supported and I felt that the institution was doing well, not only by faculty, of course, but also by their students and I really found that Lawrenceville really stood out to me in that search a certain, probably many of you are also undergoing right now.

Where we really approached this experience incredibly, holistically. We're really encouraging and educating our students, not just inside of the classroom, but focusing on their mental well being. We're talking about socially. We're talking about just building community, and I find that it's so important, particularly in these really formative years in high school to figure out who you are, not just as a person, but who you are as a Community member and as a leader. And I find that Lawrenceville experience what really excites me about here is, I think we're really preparing.

Our students for the future to leave very well rounded lives to make sure that they're ready and prepared to interact and engage with people from all over the world. So I'm really excited to be part of this community, and I'm really excited to work with so many amazing students who are coming again from all over this globe.

Amazing, yeah, it's incredibly true. Faculty probably spend a little too much time with us, Miss Hall and Miss Sax or my head spouses would know that all right Miss Brown? Would you also like to speak on this?

Sure, you know. In general I think with Miss Roach just mentioned in terms of the fact if you get a chance to work with them all over the world, I'm thoroughly impressed by lawrenceville's composition of class, having worked at several peer schools in in New England area, just taking a look at our stats from this year, their entire school right now is 55% students of color, where 45% is.

Caucasian or or white and then within that 55% of students of color we've got 19% Asian 12 multiracial, 10% black, 8% other and 6% Hispanic and Latino. And I think what's interesting for a school hours size. This is pretty much a a the composition of the globe and students who get a chance to come here and engage with students from all over the world. Similar to the participants of a 41 of you who are logged in all the way from New Jersey to Thailand way down to New York City in California.

We do have we try our very best to bring you all together from all different points of the globe. And so as director of admission, I'm excited to shape a lot of that diversity and pass it on to my colleagues who get a chance to work with you day today.

Absolutely. I'm on another note. How do you respond to students and they're changing our sorry the the changing expectations of students Miss Hall. Do you wanna start with this?

I'm sure. Hi, I'm Cherise hall. I'm in the mathematics department. I'm also in my 14th year here at Lawrenceville, 26 years in education. Go figure. Love it here. I think with the changing expectations, we have to really consider what happened during the pandemic, right? And so if you look at those students that was in 7th and 8th grade when the pandemic started. How do we transition them into where we?

Need them to be right here at Lawrenceville and so within our departments we've been discussing what that looks like. I'm also the director and academic Dean of the Rising Scholars program, so this was the first summer that we actually took 42 students to transition into Lawrenceville. Usually we capped at 28, but we felt as an institution that it was super important to help these students learn how to reduce school and what does that look like after 18 months of chaos. And so I think here we.

Are having the conversations as the adults to help implement the expectations and bring the students along to where we need them to be and what we expected them as Laurentians?

Amazing miss new. Would you mind that adding anything Miss Hall didn't hit on?

Sure hi everyone, I'm Noelle Neil. A quick introduction about me. I teach in the math department. Actually, I've started teaching in the language department get and that's been really fun.

I get to coach swimming and rowing and with Miss Roach I work with the second form girls and girls lower actually had the chance to live there for three years, which is really fun. A great chance to get to know everybody, but I love working with Miss Hall. I feel like so many times we're on the same page and to go along with what she was saying. It's not just no conversations with the adults. Also, conversations with the students, figuring out like where you are, what do you need and those open lines of communication? I think one thing that's really special.

Well, one thing that I really enjoy is how I get to know that my students in so many different ways, and so it makes it really easy to have these conversations and a bunch of different places. Whether it's on, you know, your sports team or in class, just walking around the dining hall or in study hall at night. So just keeping those lines of communication open and figuring out where people are and what they need has has been a big difference I think.

Thank you I'm gonna I'm gonna throw it back to Miss Hall for this one because I know you know being in any kind of professional setting. Sometimes it can be hard to balance gender roles. You know in tables of conversation so I'm sure you probably sit in faculty member meetings and you could probably count the number of times you know a male colleague has spoke out, maybe over you and interrupted you or just any female colleagues. How do you find time to make your voice heard in the department? Or just generally in the faculty things?

It's a fine line.

To walk like being professional and at the same time getting my opinion out there and so I take a step back and I pause and I think about what just happened and I say hey, you cut me off or sorry and we as females tend to raise our hand whereas males are kind of parked, just blurt out. So I've learned to strategically blurt out. And because I run a House of sophomore and junior girls. So that's our third and 4th forms. I encourage them.

I also coach on the basketball team I've been part of the program for 14 years and I had the pleasure to coach Andy for a few years right? And so I'm involved in club so the female voice.

I try to help them and encourage them to speak out like don't be silenced and it's not in a negative way. It's in an empowering way and so part of the reason why I'm here at Lawrenceville and I crossed my fingers when I interviewed, I interviewed. Yes, we have Saturday classes on a Saturday morning and I saw so many females because this was historically for many, many years, hundreds of years, right at all male school and the mere fact that I saw females here.

On Saturday morning and females of color on Saturday morning going to class. Happily, I was like Oh my gosh, if offered the position I'm going to help empower them because my experience. My previous experience I had worked 10 years at all girls Catholic High School in New York. Yes, I'm a New Yorker. And then at a Coed school day school before I came here and I was like Oh my gosh, what impact can I make here? So I am constantly constantly encouraging, especially the females to find their voice. And I always tell my girls.

Here in the house that it's not about what you say, it's how you say it and don't ever, ever ever let your voice be silenced, right by no one you could interject, you could interject respectfully like I'm sorry, but I was saying and so so those are the kind of little things that I try to do too.

Move this needle ahead.

Yeah, it's honestly you know, coming where hardness cool, right? So everyone I talked to stable and this is from a student's perspective, but everyone at the Harkness table it doesn't. No one raises their hands right? And so it's a skill you had to really get used to. You know? Coming from a public school, for me, it was something that I really had to get used to. But you know, there's no one's voice is preferenced over one another. All sitting together, level in a circle and you know no one is their hands. So it's definitely a skill that we are. I'm still working on, but I was been taught and ingrained in my mind very early on My Lawrenceville career, so.

I definitely could see it being useful in the professional setting. Is this whole has so greatly talked about shifting gears a little bit. This one goes to Miss Brown, so you've worked at several peer schools. How would you say Lawrenceville's front office of women in pairs to other places?

You know what I've noticed right away about Lawrenceville and and trying to.

Compare with compare, but actually admired the most upon even interviews and just watching it as it grow growing, watching this place grow overtime is that even in the last year we have women in the Dean of Students Office leading that space. We have a Dean of faculty, female Dean of faculty as well as women who are on this panel. And what I've seen over time is that even during the pandemic that those those women have taken a real.

A lead in making sure that not only is our campus safe, but they were thinking about things differently. And I know that that is something that I probably didn't see as much when I was in New England and kind of stuck with the, you know, being led by little blue Blazers and khaki pants. And that's alright too, but I I think where we are now, and I think our location lends itself to having more women being in these patients to it right in New Jersey is a great place not only to grow up having.

In the exit 12, grow in my life, but coming back to a place where you get to see so many women from a variety of different backgrounds and their tenure here over time. Take a step forward is is what I have been most impressed with in comparison to other places that I've been and thrilled to see that grow year after year.

Amazing thank you for this next question. Will will start with Miss New as you worked as head of House in girls lower for a long time. Started kind of starting at the bottom with the younger girls. Why would you say it's important to turn potential into power and how do you model this behavior for students you know as you advise them in the classroom you know or college counseling or in athletics.

Yeah, I think I'll take the second part of that question, 'cause that? That seems like one that makes a little more sense to me or is more easily answerable for me. Uhm, I think that like I said before, it's about communicating with the students, figuring out what they like, what they can do, what they're interested in, and you know, putting putting the opportunities in front of them, letting them know about everything that's available to them. Lawrenceville has a whole bunch of clubs, a whole bunch of Co curriculars memes.

Really classy.

Really interesting classes and walk devs that, UM, that give everyone the chance to pursue their interests. So just making sure that everyone knows what's available to them and making sure that they know it's not just you know it's there for people take, but encouraging them, letting them know that you belong here. This is something for you working in girls lower. Actually my all my ears. This is my sixth year here. I'm always trying to get people girls specifically to join the robotics club just because I think it's such a cool opportunity.

It's a really competitive and active club and I just think that you know it's got great facilities and people really enjoy it. So I'm like, hey, let's get some of our second form girls in there too. Just because you guys can really excel this, you just have to give it a try and you know, get over the idea that oh, this isn't for me or this isn't for me for whatever reason, so yeah.

Awesome missax. Would you like to do admin?

Thank you Andy for that question. My name is Ilana Sally and this is my 10th year at Lawrenceville. My 17th year in boarding school, I had the pleasure of living in Kirby House where Andy Katz hails from and and I've coached rowing with Noel and JV softball and volleyball. I've LED international trips. I've been an assistant chair of the Science Department before being the chair of the department and a whole bunch of different committees. And before I was here I was in Switzerland.

And I had an interview with this place called The Lawrenceville School and I looked at this teacher who had worked here and he's like.

It's like I don't know Charlie, it's New Jersey like law and because I grew up in New England and I was so wrong and he looked at me with that knowing Dad look, which is like, I know you think you know what you're talking about. You have no idea and so this is an incredible place to be. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. And so when you talk about how you turn potential into power, I think language plays a really big role on that.

Right, and so one thing I constantly see on women do is apologize so I'm I'm. I'm sorry I have a question or sorry, sorry, sorry and like why are you sorry like did you take something from me like why are you sorry? And so instead changing that language to be hey thank you for explaining that or thank you rather than sorry right? And the other thing I really work with students on is changing that the thought of I failed to. I've learned right, it just makes you feel so much better if you tank a test.

Happen here like that, just might happen.

And instead of I failed and this is horrible and I can't do this and I'm not a science person. You're like, oh.

Uhm, yes, numerically. Yes, that is a thing. You failed. Put that over here and then. What did you learn? Did you learn that you need to study differently? Did you learn that you ask questions? Did you learn that you need to work with your peers like?

You know, feeling whatever right? I would so much rather get you to think I didn't fail. I learned how to do something differently. I learned that what I do it was doing wasn't working, and so I find with a lot of kids, I now do duty and second form boys slower. So across the bowl from Noel and Courtney and helping them to understand that all of this is a lot of learning opportunities, you know. And and helping kids see that you've been the best of the best at your school. That's why we want you and we can't wait to have you when we.

Really hope you'll apply, and when you get here there's going to be a lot of other amazing people.

There are so many amazing teachers in the science department. I regularly go to them and I say doctor Dom. What is this evolution thing? Doctor Clark plants? What are these right? And so all of these people are not there at all. pH D's I don't have a PhD, but.

We learn and we model for them. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. Asking for help shows that you respect your peers and that you respect yourself and so that's why. I would say that.

Didn't get on the side, thank you. Yeah you touched on so many points from my parents. Also used to say when I was a child because I'm right for right from PA. 15 minutes over and they see you say, you know we worked very hard to make sure you were not born in New Jersey. And here I am. You know a bunch of years later going to school New Jersey and I have to say I do love it. I I'll drive my drive to school or enjoyable and beautiful and New Jersey is a great state. I can see. Yeah, thank you so much for that. Miss Sax Miss Roach, how would you say this applies in college counseling?

I really appreciate what miss new and Missax have shared. I think they really encompassed really well about how we turn potential into power.

I think some of what miss acts really resonate with me about really approaching and modeling the right behavior for our students, particularly our female students. It's all about a growth mindset. You know now that I'm working with girls lower and working with second formers, I really admit that I don't know everything and I think that can sometimes be really empowering for this students to know that. I'm new to Lawrenceville two and we are figuring out this experience together. And even if I might not have the answers, how can we empower one another to work to find these answers and giving them the skills and the tools to figure out?

How to navigate this place? Not by holding their hands but really giving them the opportunity to take advantage of all of the resources and support that exist here to kind of pull themselves up and to figure out their way without the handholding. Which I think is really important in terms of the college counseling piece and a little bit of background. We don't start our college counseling process until the second semester of junior year, which can be a little bit different from some other independent schools that might start earlier, but that's really intentional for us because if someone said earlier, the Lawrence will experience.

If you're taking full advantage of that, if you're part of the Co curricular is. If you're getting involved in the community by the time you're assigned to college counselor, you're ready like the college process is going to be so easy, and it's about really acknowledging the fact that our students are academically prepared. They're socially prepared to take on all that college might throw at them and just reaffirming that and giving them the confidence that by making it through this place like you are so ready to tackle those next four years. So college counseling is a lot like coaching and being.

Like your personal go person and just kind of cheering people on to know that they're ready for that next step, and really making sure that we're just kind of facilitating the process, but not again. Necessarily trying to handhold them through the process.

Awesome Mr you so much miss Sacks. You kind of you kind of touched on a little bit of the science stuff, so I'm going to hone in on that for a second. 'cause I think we used to think of science.

I jump through a lot of hurdles in the classroom to finally get to the point where you're ready to do research and ask authentic questions that really matter. So what are you, and you know, the science department in general doing to broaden the reach?

Thank you any yeah I am amazed at the sheer number of classes that we offer here for students and their opportunities to dive into research right from the get go. So we start with the core curriculum with all of our sophomores and junior. Excuse me. Freshmen and juniors, second and third formers, taking our baseline courses. Introduction to kind of biology, chemistry, physics but from there we have students who are taking research in molecular genetics. They're working with professors.

At Stanford, Harvard wants to adopt the course that we teach here for their summer program and is using us as a model. These kids are generating research that scientists can actually use, like like actual scientists. They're getting their names published on papers. That's incredible, that's amazing. And so whether they're taking research and applied chemistry, or they're looking at plant genetics with Doctor Clark, there are so many ways just in your actual academic daily life, not paying extra to go to a summer.

Program right 'cause we can't all necessarily afford that, but having access to research grade materials on campus really opens the doors and is a great equalizer for students.

Yeah, I went to the poster session and understood only like 30% of what was on there. It was incredible. The things that my peers are doing. I was incredibly impressed. The Science department is incredible. Thank you. Miss 6 UM so you know you got a little bit also on the core curriculum, so I'll ask the question first to Miss Saxon. Then we can pass it on to a few other in the math department, but it's experiences. Would students have actually in that core? Curriculum classes you know that gets them excited about pursuing something like math or science?

Yeah, so our second formers. Our curriculum is based on 3 central questions what lives where and why and the fall term where they take on the roles of climate negotiators to look at the effects of climate change and they get to step in the shoes of somebody else in the winter term. We do this differential diagnosis and we say any cats your patient presents with lethargy and dips. Neah good luck.

And we teach them. How do you ask questions? How do you do this differential diagnosis and kids love it, right? Because you're getting this experience of, oh, I don't. I don't know what the answer is and there's actually not necessarily a right answer. Just like in medicine, right? Somebody might have a false diagnosis, so there's a lot of different options. And then we try to keep things open ended there and then in the spring we asked them is biology destiny? Do your genes control who you are is in your environment is a mix of the bowl and so getting kids exposed to the idea that there's not always one right?

Answer which can be really unsettling sometimes, right? But if I just memorize this, everything will be great.

Yes, that is a great place to start and now you can apply that to another part of science. The sophomore class. Inquiries in chemical and physical sciences. They're learning about momentum by shooting off bottle rockets by going out to the ropes course where our lovely auntie is ahead. Ropes course. Instructor and.

Going up onto this giant human pendulum and taking data and saying like, Oh my gosh, I I am the physics like this isn't just some dusty paper thing like I, I am the physics and whether there's going down the hall and a half, they're doing a design lab where they have to figure out.

Something right about the properties of a certain element or chemical, and so the idea that so many of opportunity our opportunities are open-ended, really helps foster the idea that, oh, science isn't just doing something to realize the mass of this object is whatever, right? So really trying to make it authentic in that way.

Yeah, and I I still do remember almost every project missax reference here and I did something special. You know, it's kind of an unintended value of the core curriculum. Is that you know these these projects? And obviously there are new ones every year, but these, you know, core elements of vibes is what we call our freshman year biology requirement. And I caps, which is our software requirement is that they're kind of these core Lawrenceville memories that, you know, allow the upperclassmen to really support the underclassmen when they're going through them. And it's a little thing need to laugh about like.

Remember, we went to the ropes course and you know, they're like, oh, we go well, remember that I know so it's a it's a it's a fun little thing about the core curriculum with these repeated projects that are, you know, really special and memorable.

Great. Does someone want in the math department? Maybe install want to start by touching on the same concept in that department.

Now, I love teaching the core curriculum because that's where I get to meet most of our students right before they move on to the advancement, and a lot of people don't know that I actually have the double major in biology and math, so I was a scientist first.

Minor in chemistry and my masters in mathematics, right? And so I think it's super helpful to see someone like me.

In front of the classroom to kind of encourage the girls to be like hey, I can do this if she can stand up here and do this. I know I can do it and I probably could do it better when I get to her age you know. So I think it's it's just talking about background. Being able to to build up confidence and so that's part of the reason why like I could teach advanced courses, but I choose not to because I want to get you when you're a little bit younger to help you build up that confidence and encourage you to go on to the advanced studies and help you understand that.

This is something that you can do is not just a mindset of who or what you look like or what's not typical or traditional. It's a thing that everyone could do this, but especially us. And so I like teaching in the core curriculum to help empower our students right and encourage them to move beyond our core curriculum to our electives who are advanced courses like you don't have to get to calculus before you graduate. High school math, teacher math, major math master.

And I didn't take calculus until I got to college. I mean, it placed into a different thing, but it's not super important. It's a matter of.

Learning it's a matter of finding your passion, a matter of finding what is interesting to you, as opposed to just getting through the subject just to have it on your resume, right. But once you learn it, it sticks with you forever, and I think that's more important and impactful and powerful than just checking a box to say. I did this course so helping them understand that in the core curriculum before they move beyond me is super important for me.

Awesome thanks all. Miss new to you.

Oh

Uh, well I think Miss Hall has touched on a whole bunch of good things in the math department. I I really like working with Miss Hallward were next door neighbors, so I feel like we're on the same wavelength a lot of times, but I think you know it's exactly what Miss Hall said there and what I like to do in math classroom with a lot of people will come into the class. You know, it doesn't matter what what your your gender is. They'll say I'm not a math person and I like to, you know, help them find something.

They're good at and kind of expand that and give that. Or expand that and help them. You know, let that touch all the different parts of math. Help them to relate that to their problem solving, and they're written communication and and all that kind of stuff and just show them that you know you like Miss Hall said you can grow into this and you can change your mindset and and really, you can become a math person there's. I mean, there's no such thing is in that person, it's just a person who does that. And so I like you know, I'm teaching the core curriculum.

Yeah.

Also, for all the same reasons that this hole is talking about but also teaching calculus, it's really fun too, so I'm happy to do that.

Awesome yeah I will say this. This actually next question kind of relates to to what you're talking about, so I'll start with you Mr. And see if you have anything to add, but you know building confidence in each of your disciplines takes a lot of time. Can you just provide you know people who are attending this webinar? Creative ways to gain confidence in in your perspective disciplines.

Yeah, well, I think it goes. I mean it could be in any discipline at all, whether it's you know I'm teaching calculus or algebra or Latin and Miss Access touched on this and mishol touched on this a bit. It's it's kind of just come.

You know, like figuring out and and learned just, I guess, learning from everything. I'm thinking about one of my good at how can I expand that? Maybe I didn't do so well there, but you know how can I improve? What can I change here? And I think that's just how you are going to build confidence and things, you know just each day making little tweaks until like the machine is running a little bit better. It's never going to be perfect. And I mean, I don't think perfection is the goal or it isn't for me anyway. So just trying to get a little bit better each day. And and.

Yeah, figuring out what works for you.

Absolutely thank you Mr. Miss Roach. Do you want to add on?

Yeah I would like to share the college counseling processes. As many know the college search process. It's a little stressful. It can be just a little bit anxiety producing and as our role is college counselors, it's really to help mitigate that stress as much as possible. And I find that one of the best ways to do that while also building confidence, is to have students really focus on fit. I think sometimes we sensationalize name brand schools and selectivity, and while that's great, we also want our students to think about where they're going to be best served. Where are they going to?

Learn the best where they're going to be cared for the most, and when students start to find the institutions, whether big or small, near or far, that really fit their style and really fit who they are as a person and as a community member, I think they start to feel abit more excited and they get much more confident about the process knowing that, wow, I just found this place with like 7000 knees, right? This is a place that I feel really confident about where I can see myself there and that really does make the process, although much less stressful so.

We do really try to work with our students one on one and realize that every student is different. Every student has different needs in the college search process and meeting them where they're at to make sure that we are supporting them. The best way that we can.

Awesome thank you. Miss Roach UM so you know missile? I honestly everyone here is touched on this a little bit. You know, kind of stereotypical traits in young girls is that we often hear them say or we say, but they can't do math and science. So what would you say is your response to that and will start in the sex?

Favorite people because I'm like, challenge accepted and so my next question is Oh my gosh, wow, that's really upsetting to hear or they'll say I don't mean to offend you, but I'm not a person like it's gonna take way more than that to offend me come. And so like wow can you tell me about your previous experience in science like what happened to make you hate science. I had this teacher in 7th grade and they made me feel like really horrible 'cause I didn't know stuff and I was like Oh my gosh.

That is horrible like so let's talk about how science for you is going to be different here, right? And so identifying what are those previous experiences that they had to make them develop this response, right? 'cause nobody is born.

Right, you don't come out, I'm a biologist. You're like science is not for me right? Or in like a deep British accent like it just doesn't happen. And so as we think about this, I want to know what happened to get you to this point.

Oh I like have a hard time with like memorizing stuff. I'm like, oh, can you like what's your favorite song? Oh, you just rattled off all of those song lyrics. OK, well here's this thing. It's called the massive database. It's all of these songs for singing about math and science. This is how you're gonna learn it, right? And so we sing about oxidative phosphorylation in my class. It's like really fun and so getting to meet people where they are and then they're like, oh, actually, like science is kind of cool.

When right, it's not about winning right, but helping people see that there's more in them than they know, right? There's more in you than you know, and we hope that if you come to Lawrenceville, but you'll get to have that experience. Thank you, Andy.

Great awesome Miss Roach. Do you wanna do you wanna speak on this?

Say that whatever the math and science departments are doing here, it absolutely works because I've been advising some second form students who will come in and say just those things that Miss Sachs was talking about. You know, I hate math. I'm really not good at science, but I have rarely heard that coming out of students on the other end of the process. And the college counseling. I mean, so many of our students want to be women in STEM, and I absolutely love that. So they're coming out the other end really excited about math and science, and I think that's terrific that we are sending off so many students.

Interested into the STEM fields?

We will start with Miss Brown.

See what free time do I have in the middle of reading season to sort of serve others aside from going to the checkout line at Wegmans and not buying the chocolate chip or the the old Mill Raisin cookies? Which are my favorites. So I'm the things that I sort of do outside to kind of keep myself grounded. I'm belong to a sorority is helpful, you know. I belong to a sorority and so I I go out into the community and support where I can come along those lines. I do a lot of.

Just a lot of self care. You know. Lawrenceville is probably the first school that I've worked at that.

Actually actively.

Makes you think about self and gives you a chance to take days for yourself right? We just had an amazing session with a former parent who runs this organization called Landed and it was about a just finding your sponsors and ward kind of gearing up your your entire professional career beyond where you are right now and thinking about that not so much in terms of when you need a job, but what does that mean while you're.

At your own in your own job at the at this current moment, how do you make those connections? One of the things that you who do you need to talk to but also who, what sort of professional development should you start to use? And so I think outside the classroom I did a little bit more focusing on self this year and that's something I hadn't done in New England off for awhile. And so I guess coming down this Turnpike has its advantages, you know, and so I appreciate it for that. For that particular part.

So yeah.

Awesome, thank you. Miss brown. Miss Saks, you wanna go next?

Sure, so I I'm. I'm really interested in endurance sports, so running, biking, doing those things and then also volunteering for races and so every year since I've lived here I've volunteered for the Princeton Half Marathon, which raises money for high tops, which is a local organization that really works with at risk youth as well as transgendered and GSA alliance groups. So raising money for them. And I also I'm working on illustrating a children.

Book about lemurs, yes, so it's called escape from the zoo coming never to a bookstore near you, but maybe to the Lawrenceville Library. So I I do a lot of art and drawing and things like that so no else miss. New was looking at me like what I didn't know that, so I'll be in the art building this winter. Actually working with Mr. Robinson, artists and residents. Hopefully trying to finish that up so endurance sports and art is what I do.

Sure.

You know, I can't say I share your love for running, but I do have so much respect for you.

Miss Hall take her away.

I have a few things like it's a really busy place here, but I also have managed over my 14 years here to take time to be with my family. So I have three children and spending time with them is super important and my youngest one just turned 10 years old and so we cook together and so I'm such a foodie. And so I love to eat and explore. I also love to travel, hence the food. So I go to places that and just to try food and so that but I also like within Lawrenceville.

Have my alter ego of Cherise, which is my first name so that she surface her ugly head. You know, in classes, so that's kind of fun to take a step back from being mishol and kind of relate to the children, but I'm spending time with my my family. Cooking and traveling has been like my saving grace outside of Lawrenceville getting off campus to do that. So that's what I've done.

You're gonna have to tell my son. Happy birthday for me. I can't believe I bet moves the big 110.

Last Wednesday last Wednesday, I sure will. I'm surprised he hasn't passed through here yet, but I get morning, it's like, don't do it.

Awesome thanks. Miss all this new.

I'm still a little rattle about Miss Axis book about lemurs. I cannot wait to see this. I'm so excited about that and I'm so happy that's all you brought up. Cherise 'cause this is my sixth year at Lawrenceville, six year teaching and I remember one of the first my first year when I was near. Need to teaching. I went to Miss Hall's class and she brought out Cherise and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

And so I I just I loved Miss Hall, and I love Charisse, UM.

He

So I mean, I guess that kind of goes along with what. What keeps me grounded and stuff. I guess it's a part of UM, still, apart of Lawrenceville. But we only have two people in the math department here, but our math department. Sorry to everyone else is on the math. Warren is is amazing. I I really, I love that math department a really great group of people to work with. Like I said, this is my six year teaching. So when I was very new to teaching, it was a really, really supportive group of people who have been able to be, you know.

Mentors and just you know, teachers for me, but also a lot of friends there. So it's been really fun just to work with them and try to help them as much as they've helped me. And so I really enjoy working with the math department. And, you know, outside of school, like so many other people have said, I also have a pretty big family of four siblings. And so it's fun to, you know, stay in touch with them and stay in touch with friends from UM from high school and college. And I have my dog, Eli, sitting right next to me.

So he's he's amazing too, so he helps me stay grounded as well. But again, I think you know a lot of the time it's it's working with people who are really amazing, especially those in the math department and the language department. But most of the line department 'cause I don't work with a lot of the other languages, but yeah.

Yeah, I was just I was waiting for the puppy 'cause I that's that he keeps me grounded too so.

Yeah, he's 90% of my personality, so there's.

Miss Roach take it home.

I think part of the way I stayed grounded. My family lives in Brooklyn, so it's nice to be able to get back to the city S Brooklyn girls. Come to get back to the city. It's a lot closer than I was previously when I was up in New England, so it's nice to be closer to family. I'm still figuring out the greater community here, and so I'm definitely looking for more ways to get involved. But as a true college counselor, I've been working with a nonprofit organization for a few years, called College Horizons, that works specifically with students of native backgrounds.

And helping prepare them for college and the college application process. So every summer I get to do that. It's been virtual unfortunately for the past couple of years, but hoping to be able to get more connected with other college counseling colleagues. Hopefully in Atlanta this summer and be able to give back to those students who don't come from a place or have as much college counseling as our students are really fortunate to have here at Lawrenceville.

Incredible.

Back to you, honey.

Oh for me, well, I wasn't expecting this. Uhm, I suppose that my dog is also very important.

Uhm, part of my relaxation honestly. Also, just like I I try to find a good balance of spending time with friends. Work life balance is definitely something that you have to get used to it. Lawrenceville and you know whether that's working with my friends, the library, or you know, just like taking time to go to dinner and be social and spend you know, an hour debating ridiculous topics over bowls of cereal. It's important that you know, find the pockets of your day. That can really make a difference.

And bring down your stress levels so those are some of my strategies. So those are my my my prescribed questions for today. I also have realized so if we don't, I'll let anyone who has any questions submit them into the chat box to Miss Brown. But I also realized I might have overlooked the introduction part of this. And so a lot of you introduced yourself. You know, as we're going through questions, but if anyone has anything they'd like to add to their introduction, or just you know, re emphasize about who they are and what they do for this campus, I'll open the floor for that now.

If not, I can talk.

Well, I have nothing I have nothing to add but I just want to say that every time I like I really love being on these panels. I get to hear about all these really cool things that all my colleagues that they might people aren't going to brag about this, but they absolutely should. There's so many cool things that you guys do outside of school that I know about so I really love that. Thanks guys.

I will brag to you all about any cats who this past Saturday night, single handedly facilitated an interhouse dodgeball tournament.

With about 250 kids, so you talk about women in leadership and he's there. It's Saturday night. She's had a million other things going on, and there's only four adults for chaperoning. I think that actually speaks a lot to like how responsible our students are. So parents like don't freak out. It's fine. And and there's a lot of people we can call a public safety and he or she is. And all these kids. They are respecting her and they're listening to her, and they're like, OK. This is when I'm on and this is when I have to get off and I guess I actually did get out. Yeah, you did get out.

Like the ball hit you dumb, but it was amazing to see her facility this dodgeball tournament. And to get so many kids excited for it so shout out to Andy Katz.

Look, I take dodgeball incredibly seriously. And if you're out you're out. I don't know how many times I can explain that to the sophomore boys. But you know, it's it's something that I'm working on. My dodge ball tactics, but I appreciate that miss Sacks. I will add a little bit to my introduction because I didn't really talk about what I do on campus, but a few fun things other than Student Council mission that I have more of our head ropes, course instructors. I'm also head of the acting department for SNL Ville, which is our version of Saturday Night Live.

Uhm, I do improv comedy. I run community service club and I was part of one of our community service like our umbrella organization on campus. I was junior president that for a bunch of years. I play soccer. I play basketball with Miss Hall which unfortunately I'm not able to do this year, but I'm incredibly upset about it. You know, a few other fun things here and there, but overall, I'm incredibly, you know, happy to be doing this panel with these incredibly powerful women and.

Yeah, so if no one has any other questions, I guess I'll pass it back to Miss Brown.

Thanks.

Yeah.

We're at the point now where we're happy to entertain any other questions coming out of the chat. But Emily Amelia eight, she said there's just been a wonderful panel and she's so inspired by each of you. Also, she shares her thanks, and I'm quite sure with the other participants, China all the way from New Zealand to New Jersey, Singapore, New York, and Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania. That's unique at this, sorry.

We've got folks from all over the world who stuck around for us tonight. We we certainly appreciate we can begin to close out a little bit early, so that way we can have our our applicants and their families return to either dinner, homework, or even working on their essays. But again, I say thank you all so much for taking time out of your busy schedules, particularly for duty. And as we are on our our Turkey term and getting ready to go into the holidays and notes it, time is precious at boarding schools, but you all made tonight a very probably.

An incredibly important point of why I think families should consider Lawrenceville but also look deeply into those women who are leading in front of the classroom leading in the classroom but also in administrative positions. And you all have showcased that beautifully tonight as well as you ask for being an incredible leader for our student body. So with that we will say goodnight. And then we'll have everyone usher out and I would love my panelists to hang on just for a few seconds. But this ends our session for this evening and thank you also.

What should we look forward to reading that application on Jane? Hit submit early. Friends would be great so I can read some apps over Christmas. Thank you so much. Have a great night. Thank you. Bye bye.

Why thank you Stacy.

A memory.

Mad.

Goodnight thanks so much bye Serena, but not so good Ella.

Excellent.

With some strong family future leaders on here, I can already tell.

They'll probably have a lot a little bit, well, I feel like this is the closing credits of the movie, like where everyone kind of stays longer. Seem kind of out rolls were gonna do or anything kind of blooper reels. We might throw out.

Uhm?

Alana. Maybe you can sing one of those science songs for us.

Uhm, so someone once asked me a student said, oh, do you play musical instrument? And I said that would be offensive to people who play instruments. I have held an instrument and made sounds come out of it, but to describe what I do is playing would be offensive. But I am happy to tell you that in oxidative phosphorylation matrix protons get pumped out and then they taken in or out.

Oh

Through ATP synthase, it's kind of a Lion King vibe. Going to it, you can imagine like circle of life like things happening there, uhm, but I definitely this is thank you for that question because I did improv in college as well from our requirement and I think it should be required of all teachers. I think it's really important skill for that. So yeah what else? What else do I know? Miss new?

Miss Saxon I can just.

why should we?

Thank you.

I miss them all.

See you tomorrow morning.

Sounds nice.

That was fun. I do improv when Sherry shows up. Unfortunately or fortunately I don't know which way you want to look at it, but I need to jump off 'cause I have another meeting that already started so goodnight everyone Miss Brown. Thank you for you know, having us all on here on it was an honor to be here. So goodnight to everyone and I'll see you around on campus and one less here.

Molly.

Thanks bye take care of the luck. Stay safe everyone.

Who on earth?

Why?

Thanks so much bye bye.

Alright, so thank you so much. I just wanted you to see all of the gate, applause and and and well wishes from families in the chat. Honestly, this is probably been one of our.

More in depth, not in depth, but more touching panels, so thank you, thank you, thank you.

For tonight, honestly, this was so great and I'm I'm happy this worked out. This was a brainchild that I had at 20,000 feet in the air over Denver, Co and flying. I said, you know, we're going to feature all the amazing women on this campus. 'cause that's something these schools don't do enough of, and so I'm psyched and I'm very proud. So thank you for your time tonight.

No, thank you.

Thank you for having us. This is fun. Let's do it more often.

Alright alright have a good night. I'm going to end it now for real. OK, let's see you.

Bye goodnight everybody.

While I.

Well, she didn't end it, she just left us.

Oh hey guys, oh it's just it's not mine.

Hopefully.

It's not pretty fun. Hey, is there anyone else out there? How's it going? Says 10 participants.

10 oh, I think it's just you and me.

But then once you're 10.

I think it might be frozen.

Oh maybe.

'cause I wanna and Danny are still there.

Yeah.

What if I thought you were duty tonight? No, I'm usually do diesel.

No, I mean on Monday you're a what day are you?

I'm usually Wednesday, but I switched with Jess yesterday so I could be here.

Oh nice, that's nice.

Yeah.

How's the Tuesday life? How does it differ from the Wednesday life?

Oh, that's always so fun, yeah?

Like

Well, last night we had carolers which was riding. Yeah so I love that and I would have totally missed it. But Wednesdays are usually very quiet.

Oh yeah, 'cause I guess I've had the afternoon to do a little work and stuff.

Yeah, they've. I think that the midweek gets to them or they just they have a lot of work to do.

Yeah.

It's been quiet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's pretty nice, it's pretty nice. I'ma Monday gal. I really enjoy the Mondays just 'cause it's already such a long day. You know when it rains.

Yeah.

Might as well. Yeah, Tuesday was rough 'cause we had faculty meeting and I didn't like that.

Yeah.

Yeah yeah, Oh yeah, yeah, it's a quick turn around there but what you gonna do?

Uhm, I think it's funny how you're a couple houses down for me or so.

I know I was like I should just run over and we could be in the same room.

Knock on the door. That would be funny actually.

Hi my wife I went out.

How do you?

Gotcha.

Oh yeah, that works. I mean I have two wife eyes for those time when my wife I wasn't, well, it's Nikki's Wi-Fi, but he let me let me get on it.

Golf.

Yeah, well you like ran in at the start.

I didn't see him.

Yeah, it's time.

He's laying on the ground now. It's his bedtime, I think number he was running around. I couldn't kick him out how my supposed to kick him out.

No, you can't know.

You don't, yeah. So he just stayed here is pretty good.

No, you do it.

Huh?

He's good.

Yeah, he's so good. I wish I could bring the class would be the best buddy.

Even cool.

Yeah right. Do we have a House meeting this Thursday? Do you know?

Someone didn't show up.

We had one last week week, so I don't think we yeah. It was like five of us but.

I felt so bad. I totally spaced on that. That was my bed.

Uhm, but I don't so I don't think we have one this week and then next week is. I'm assuming we don't have one.

Yeah, I have wilderness first aid training from eight to five Thursday and Friday for the Harkness travel trips so.

Who where you going?

Oh, look at you.

Wait?

I'm going to Italy with the Latin landing strip. It's going to be awesome. I've never been to Rome, which is wacky because I studied classics in college and I have a masters in classics so.

I didn't know that in classics OK.

Yeah, I've never been around.

Rome's beautiful, you'll love it.

I hope yeah. I hope we get to go on like I hope that.

When do you? What are you supposed to go?

It's like June 10th through the 19th.

Exciting.

Yeah.

So we've got time to like for things to get better, but that means there's time for things to get worse.

See it works, yeah?

So we'll see. I'm hoping for the best.

But yeah.

Fingers crossed for you and my toes too.

Yes.

Very dexterous, good for you gross.

Right?

I think we can sign off now.

I hope no one is listening.

And I also hope that this was not like recording.

Dave is gonna come back and be like what were they doing here? This is like a muno unlike Marvel movies and marvel movies like at the end after the credits.

Right, and it's like this weird thing that happened. You like me as you're walking out of the theater. You're like, what are you talking about?