Meet Our Student Council

This starting in seven seconds in case.

Never mind.

Alright, 4 seconds we just start smiling on power through.

Alright, so hello everyone and welcome oh we got to our registrants number quite fast so my name is Christine Ding and I am the director of admissions communications here at Lawrenceville. I'm also the associate director of admissions and tonight you are joining us for our meet our Student Council. So before we get started, if everyone can just do me a favor and throw something.

In the chat so that I know that you can hear everything I've just said. Feel free to just say hi. Or perhaps you could say, oh, I can hear you. I can see you, oh good we're getting some yes I can see you and some highs and some lows perfect and so for my student council. So you'll see if you look at the question section, that's where you'll see where everyone is typing in their responses so.

Everyone that's joining us here tonight. Come again, welcome. We are so excited that you are here. One thing this platform that we're looking at right now is through our database. And so we selected to use this simply because this way we are able to know that you've attended and this will be tacked to your profile online. But one thing I will make note that we have just figured out amongst myself and our students here on student council you might have.

To scroll and go horizontally to be able to fit everyone on your screen and be able to see everyone. So again, my name is Christine Ding. I work in the admissions office. I'm gonna admissions counselor. I actually interviewed one of the people on this student council panel. Cough cough the president. And So what? We'll do tonight. I'm going to outline here.

The structure of the evening, so I've introduced myself and hopefully that will be one of the last times I speak tonight because I know you very much just want to hear from our students and I do as well. So in a bit I'm going to hand it over to Andy Katz, Student Council president and she then will introduce herself. She'll speak a little bit about what student council is and why that matters and why that matters to you all who are looking to join our community? Then she's going to hand it over to.

Of the members of Student council so that they can give you an overview of themselves and what they do on the Council. We're also going to talk a little bit about their progress. You know we are, you know, beginning of November, so they've been at this for over two months. And then at the end we will segue into the questions that you've already submitted during your registration. But then we will also move into.

Any questions that you submit during during the conversation, and so if you have questions about something that someone says, feel free to pop that in the questions section and we can get to that at the end, OK?

Student Council Are you ready?

Oh I'm ready Miss Thang.

Awesome family so I'm gonna go mute and Danny, it's all yours.

Alright, thanks misting for that wonderful wonderful intro. So as she said, my name is Andy Katz. I am Lawrenceville Student Council president for this school year, so let's see some facts about me. I am a day student from Yardley, PA and I came to Lawrenceville as a freshman. So it's my fourth year at the school. I was formally in the Kirby House with misting. Pretty much the best house on campus and we have three student council members.

Will be able to back that up here and yeah and so some things I do on campus other than student council. Uhm I'm in RCI. One of our header size this year and that's a I can get more into that if we have a question about experiential learning but essentially we run the challenge course or the ropes course on campus. I also participate in Winter Fest. I'm ahead of the acting department for Lawrenceville's sketch, comedy production SNL Ville, which is like a spoof on SNL.

Uhm, I do a few other things. I play soccer but and we can get into that later and so essentially to explain how student council works. It's comprised of nine individuals here and everyone kind of besides me represents a facet of our student life, and so when I say that I'm see I'm talking about athletics, social diversity, everything that we kind of find important at Lawrenceville, we have a student council to represent those members of the student body who feel is important to them as well. And so.

A lot of schools have student governments that are kind of participatory many years in. Aren't counting government functions in a different way, whereas we have house councils that work in the grades below us, and so we're there every you know. If you haven't heard about Lawrenceville House system, we have 16 houses on campus. Mistake might correct me on that number. I'm not good at math on top of my head, but you have 16 houses on campus and every within each of those houses we have kind of a mini student council.

That represents the needs specifically of those houses and kind of each facet of student life is represented in there as well, and so we are in high communication with them and we work with them often. But student Council kind of represents the entire school as a whole. I think I hit all the points that I was going to do so. Without further ado, I will introduce my.

Pierce, let's start with mustard.

Hi everybody, my name is Lee Musgrave. I am the vice president, social life this year and my main job is planning social events mostly on Saturday nights and a bit about me. I am a border from Atlanta, GA. I was a new sophomore says my third year at Lawrenceville and I was just Morticia Addams in the Addams family. This past fall or fall musical.

I am a prefect in the McClellan House, so basically I act kind of like a college RA or the sophomores and juniors in the McClellan House and the Crescent, and I'm a pageant girl. I've been competing in pageants since I was 11 years old. I am the current Miss New Jersey Teen USA and I also run a photographer business.

Let's just go down the line, so I go away.

Uh, I'm the diversity Rep on Suckow and I'm a decent from Princeton, NJ from some other things I do on campus or I'm the editor in chief of Our Diversity magazine. In the margins, President of the Muslim Students Organization, Lawrenceville Film Society and Democrats Club. And I also participate in the Religious Life Council and I was a Healy scholar, which is our schools summer history program where we do archival research and more. Exposed archives so.

A few things I've done is that ever grew up this year are developing the affinity and cultural clubs, as well as some events that we have in the spring such as international night and our Martin Luther King Day.

When you when I speak now, you guys can hear me right? The buttons are confusing, right? You can hear me. I have beautiful and we're going to talk more about kind of what we've accomplished in this next segment. But still, you wanna go ahead and introduce yourself?

Yeah hi, I'm Scarlet and the arts Rep this year. So basically that means I'm responsible for organizing arts events and advocating for all areas of arts life on campus. So I get to plan all arts nights each term and other various events and I also get to work with the Council of around 10 to 15 students that make up our Arts Council. And it's a little bit about me. I am a border from Greenwich, CT. I was like Kirby house with Annie and misting and and the chairman McPherson houses.

A senior and I came for Intel's freshman as well, so I've been here for four years and come along with being arts Rep on the editor in Chief of Elle Magazine or school fashion and lifestyle publication and on the captain of Lawrenceville Dance Team, which is our competitive jazz and contemporary dance team.

Alright, Scarlett cut out there for a minute for me. I don't know if everyone else felt that way, but uhm, I think I think if you covered everything's car, I think we'll move on over to Michael.

Can anyone hear me?

Oh hi. Hi everyone, my name is Michael said a rescue. I'm need sustainability representative on student council and I'm from Lancaster, PA.

Uh, outside of stucco I serve as Co sports editor for our schools newspaper, the Lawrence. I'm a prefect in the Cleve house and I also throw javelin for the outdoor track team in the spring. Outside of school. I love movies, cooking and watching football.

Arthur, all you man.

Yeah everyone. I'm our economic fee this year. I grew up in Cleveland, OH and moved to Charlottesville the same year that I came to Lawrenceville on Charlottesville, VA near UVA.

Uhm, I came here as a new sophomore into the Griswold House.

Uhm, around campus. I'm involved in speech and debate. I'm also a highly scholar like Michael, and so ha. I run our classics club so Latin and Greek and I'm involved in a couple other clubs and publications around campus. Esther Athletics come ro, I swim, and since I came here I've picked up water polo as well.

Uhm, so yeah, that's that's me in a nutshell.

Beautiful alright minnock take it away.

Sophie all you.

Can you guys hear me?

Yeah awesome OK perfect. Hi, I'm Sophie. I'm the vice President of Honor and discipline and just to provide some context on what that means. Lawrenceville kind of has a set of what we call major school rules.

In time, if student is found to be potentially violating one of those major school rules, I'm kind of the student who's in charge of talking to them about what happened, then guiding them through the whole disciplinary process.

And on campus I do a number of things. I'm on the Sustainability Council with Michael. I'm an executive for our yearbooks. Alapad, I'm a tour guide. I'm a ropes course instructor with Annie, a peer tutor, yeah, couple other things. That said though. Oh, I'm also I came as a freshman and I was in the McLellan house with Delaney.

Wonderful itassis bring us home.

He guys hear me yeah. Hi guys I'm the community service Rep on stucco which basically means I help from a lot of the community service, all school events and I work with a different house counsels with their specific house centered service ventures come a little bit about me. I came to Lawrenceville as a freshman. So this is my 4th year. I'm a border from West Orange, NJ, so about an hour away. A couple things I do on campus. I'm hutchin scholar, which is like our signed scholarship program. I'm our senior arts Bruce or an L 10.

I'm the president of our Coed acapella group, Larry's yeah and a couple other things. But yeah, that's pretty much me.

Alright, alright so that studio and a little bit about us and now you guys probably wanna know like what are you really doing? And I also apologize for this weird kind of tech limbo that's going on. We were getting used to this platform so if you ever can't hear it's just just let us know. Will probably ask you anyways, but OK, so let's jump right into it because this last week was a pretty eventful one. Delaney, do you want to take it away with some social stuff?

I would love to take it away with some social stuff. So basically every Saturday night we have a really big social event that's kind of our big weekend thing that students go to and have fun at and this year it's been a range of things we've had dances. We started off the year with a red and black out dance we were outside. We had a DJ come in, there were snacks. It's a great time. We had a pep rally and we also had Comic Con in the library and the past two weeks have been pretty crazy with social life. Last week we had our Halloween.

Dance it was a blast. We had candy. We also had a DJ. Everyone came in costume and this past week we actually had Hill Day Hill weekend where we all went to Hill and we turned on our sports teams. Hills are rival school. If you didn't know and it was a really big week. We had our homecoming dance last night. It was a blast. We had a photo booth. Everyone came dressed to the nines and leading up to the week we had spirit days so you could come to class stress according different themes. I think my personal favorite was anything but a backpack day.

My head of house in Mclelland, her 9 year old daughter has this little pink car and I drag that around with all my school supplies in it. It was kind of obnoxious but it was a good time. It was totally worth it and this year we actually excuse me. We decided to encourage homecoming proposals, posters and we've never done that before and it was a total success. If you go to our Lawrenceville student life Instagram you can see how some kids got really creative with it. You can see some really great posters and it's been a really great past two weeks.

Hilarious.

Well.

Yeah, absolutely. This past week was a lot of fun. My personal favorite on anything but a backpack. Today people would take the letters off their bunk beds and just like stack school supplies in each run like we got into it, I mean, if not older engine who right yeah?

And he did a great pep rally Friday night talk, a little bit about that.

Yep.

Yeah no absolutely so. Minocha also can talk about it when we talk about the big Red dog pound revamp, but essentially the night before Hill Day. It's kind of tradition to have a Lillian so middle of the field house. We did some captains tug of war. We did some Dogtown musical chairs, finished it off with a faculty, students volleyball game. It was a ton of fun and a great way to get hype before Hill. One thing that Delaney she's being modest has done a great job of.

Doing this year is providing social events for multiple types of students on campus. So whether that be more introverted or extroverted, she mentioned Comic Con so dances you know are very social. You can also hear it in her voice. She's lost it a little bit. From all this. I mean, she's been doing but.

Screaming it a hell day. Turn on our athletic teams. What can I say?

Right, and so she's done a great job of, you know, providing experiences from multiple kinds of people. Whether that's you know a trivia night show thing in the bathhouse with like a little more musical performance, that was definitely something that was big on her platform and she's absolutely followed through.

Two kind.

All right, moving on just 'cause I already mentioned it, but do you want to talk about athletics a little bit?

Totally and and everyone knows we did beat Hill. We did beat oh, snap snaps, rustico, uhm, yeah. And so we know kind of already touched on it but the dog pound in the past has been just kind of a sign up sheet and you just go you you know you go to games and it's kind of like a loose kind of structure. And So what we're really trying to do this year is add kind of levels to it and have organization built into the structure so it's you know, really encouraging people to, you know, pick the theme for you know have it like.

Making sure that every single game has someone represented from the dog pound and that we have all of our athletes being celebrated as MC mentioned totally alright, I'm just gonna do random picks. Scarlett, you want to talk? I want to little bit.

Oh wait, can you hear me?

Yeah OK, sorry about my issues earlier, but basically it's been a really exciting term for arts already. We had our big fall musical that Delaney starred in the Allen family, so that was super exciting.

OK, and then I also wanted to implement something this year. So in the past we've had all art styles which are basically nights that just entail displaying all forms of art. So we have musicians, dancers, singers, all sorts of stuff like that. But I really wanted to prioritize having an all arts night really early in the fall so that new students could see all these arts clubs before the applications and issues and stuff. So we had that with really well. So yeah, and we also had our October dance series.

I think last weekend and that was just all of our dance clubs. I think we have around 8:00 and our dance company LSTC performed then so it's been a super exciting tarom already.

Yeah, totally everything.

Performance my jaw just drops lower and lower to the floor. I didn't think it was possible until I. You know I saw the musicals like Oh my God and then I saw the dance performance auto like it's just so many talented people on this campus in Scarlet's doing a wonderful job of showcasing their talent. Michael don't take it away.

Yeah, I would love to. So come as sustainability rap on stucco I get to oversee the Sustainability Council here at Lawrenceville, which is about 70 Members strong this year. This year the Sustainability Council has launched a new zero waste initiative, which seeks to gather ideas from the school community on how to reduce waste on campus and shift the conventional focus of sustainability away from solely ineffective recycling. Additionally, we are currently working on establishing a green Revolving fund which will raise.

Awareness for our collective carbon footprint and raise money for sustainable infrastructure here on campus. Another cool thing we're planning to do is sustain uuri, which occurs during the month of January. Essentially, we dedicate the entire month to sustainability with events like a trashion show, which involves representatives from each house designing dresses, jackets, and other articles of clothing from repurposed trash and recycled materials were also planning flexitarian nights in our dining halls.

Which will involve all vegetarian meals for a few nights just to highlight the considerable carbon footprint from meat consumption.

Uhm?

Wow, pretty cool stuff going on ability. Uhm oerther.

Yeah, so a couple of minor issues are a weekly academic newsletter.

Uhm where I set up a an academic tip, a quote affect stuff like that.

Uhm, a school meeting recap.

Uhm?

Uh, I've also implemented some economic workshops with any, UM. So originally the program was designed to help catch up new sophomores, juniors, new students who might have missed what they wouldn't. They would have gotten here, and their freshman or sophomore years at Lawrenceville.

A man without thousand part, especially with like a year of remote classes and online learning. So those have been hit and I guess moving forward the next big thing is menoken. I would like to open up more college counseling resources to our sophomores and juniors who are thinking about committing to NCA schools. So as soon as the November 1st and January 1st deadlines are out of the way, we'll get to work again. Those conversations back up and going.

Totally yeah and talk a little bit more about the workshop initiative. Like like Arthur said, our original intention was to kind of support the newer students coming in who might feel a little bit behind 'cause, you know, coming in as a new sophomore. The pace of Lawrence was definitely tough, and so we really look to support them as best we can. And it was a great job already. But on the student perspective, the workshops have covered things like grammar and you know everyone comes in with a different level of grammar knowledge and we also did a more informal panel.

With a bunch of seniors who had varying degrees of academic interests just to give them some tips, like how to how to do this well and then our firm was kind of on tech infrastructure so like everything take it more and so we kind of told you it so you could just, you know, get some bolts out of the way if you will. But yeah, they've been going. They've been going really well so far. The grammar one especially and you know, kind of an unintended value of opening up to the entire student body was that we got. We got a lot of kids that you know that weren't new sophomores who still need this support.

And so it's great to know that the need is there and that we can support them in that way.

Really excited about the academic workshop and or and I have been cooking on that. Alright, let's see Sophie, you know chat a little bit.

Yeah, totally so unlike the rest of my fellow super Members, my job is kind of less designed to cater to the needs of the student body as a whole. And I would say more designed to aid the specific students kind of experiencing Lawrenceville disciplinary process. So essentially, any student who is found to be in violation of one of our major school rules has to sit in on a disciplinary committee hearing.

So I'm really responsible for just walking every student through the steps of that whole process and making sure they're alright. And I work really closely with our Dean of students De'vondre McMillan. She's a blast, so it's been great.

But yeah, that's kind of my main purpose on student council, but also we've done a couple new things this year. We're really trying to focus on transparency because a lot of students who've never you know gotten involved with discipline in any way don't really understand what what the process is, what it entails, what it's like. So we've worked on a couple things. One of them has been performing a mock disciplinary committee hearing at our old school.

Meeting in front of the whole student body, which I hope helped. Kind of everybody understand what the disciplinary process is about and I'm working on a couple other kind of broader things that hopefully will impact the disciplinary system going forward. But yeah.

Yeah, the maqdisi was deaf.

I did play a student, it was my debut acting moment. I played a student leader, eyes to paper. Don't worry, I've never plagiarized a paper, but I have to say I was pretty convincing. I don't know if you don't think so, but I, I thought I did a great job and mistings who was here earlier, played my support human. So that was fun. Cool alright tesia.

Yeah, so this has been a lot of fun for community service, mainly because coming out of COVID, we've been able to do a lot of things. We used to do before kovid as well. I'm going with the House community service reps on their own community service projects, so a lot of them are thinking of new ways to fundraise for their specific house projects. I know Stevens, for example, is thinking of doing a sushi night to feel any for one space, which is which will be really fun I think, and just generally trying to raise advocacy within those house projects as well so that more students get involved in are interested.

And then also as like a schuko initiative that we've initiated this year, third edition called Big Roads. Big cause, which is sort of a school wide fund raising initiative and and so that's that, was started this year, and it's been going really well so far. This term. We're supporting Mercer St Friends, which is a local nonprofit organization and a lot of different groups on campus have been getting involved so student writers are like writing for the Lawrence, which is our school newspaper, arts clubs, or like selling some of their works in support, and we have a couple other fundraisers that we're really excited.

Or so overall, the schools really coming together for service and also trying to be meaningful and very intentional about how we're supporting these communities, which has been really great for us to see.

Totally yeah, and Tesla is being modest. Stoco didn't do this test. He did this and she's doing a wonderful but one. So the the kind of point of big Reds big causes to really be able to see the impact that you know community service can have on a specific organization and a lot of times we talk about meaningful service in the sense that non meaningful service can be. You know, one time you just go, you know, maybe you get a credit or something and it's done and you know with big Reds, big 'cause we're really able to.

Like I said, act and also feel like.

We're making an impact specifically for one organization and just having like, really get having an entire term to really learn about it. 'cause it's pretty special and you know we're kind of weaving in different facets of student life so you know a fundraiser at mathletics event you know, or you know at the academic workshop of sorts, and so there's lots of different ways. Like the publications you know, academic at the Lawrence, there's a lot of cool things that we are tesia has been doing, and figure it's paid calls alright it everyone with our general.

And they wrapped.

Some things that general stucco has done. One thing that we put out to the community is our progress tracker and so in the past it's kind of not a mystery, but a lot of people just think that student council just kind of does's meeting, which I can tell you for sure. True, and so you know, in order to kind of promote transparency and help you know the Community, see what we are actually doing. And if we're delivering on our promises is we published something called a progress checker and this was the brainchild of Mr Arthur Lee over there. But.

Initially we kind of, you know, put down everything, every initiative that we promised and then we have a description of that initiative and exactly what it entails, and then update you whether that's going so you know whether it's completed on in the fall, or maybe set for the spring. Or you know happening in two weeks, the student body can really see how we're doing on delivering on our platforms, and so that's really a nice thing. And then the beginning of the year.

We're going to have to promote equity in this, but we put out some election reforms for house councils so every House, counsel, kind of function our own way, and they all have kind of different representatives and and you know, in order to increase communication with student Council, we've ensured that all of them have the exact same amount of reps, or it's not exactly that exact same amount of reps, but each facet of student life that we that every house is the exact same facets of student life.

Presented and so those election reforms are pretty successful, and now we're able to kind of meet monthly to weekly with each of those reps. And just to get a read on how the circle and Crescent are doing is that was pretty exciting. And then we did a bunch of little nuts and bolts like a standard event proposal and a lot of fun stuff like that at the beginning. But generally it's just been, you know, speeding and getting into our initiatives.

Thanks, I will probably bring this thing back now for a little Q&A time.

Uhm, and you want to circle back to zoha?

Oh, that's so awkward. I'm so sorry I want you to tell me everything.

I was gonna toss them later, but I I'm gonna I really talked about earlier how I've been developed developing our affinity and cultural Club.

And we have spring that fall under the umbrella of diversity and inclusion. So we have numerous affinity groups on campus, both religious and cultural. The religious ones include the Muslim Students organization, which I'm president. As I mentioned earlier.

She was students organization, Hindu students organization and review of our cultural clubs are the Pan Asian Alliance Alliance of Black Culture is Latinos, and so many more that I don't have on the top of my head. But I think our cultural and religious groups on campus are really valuable to promote a sense of just ensure that the demographics are being heard, that everyone has a space where they can find community. Personally, I've been the Muslim Germans organization size of come in and.

I've I've met so many wonderful people and I've really been able to connect with people who share similar values and model release affiliation. So just helping those and we will now have a wonderful group of adults to just this minute. If we have a a director of diversity and equity which is doctor Nori, Friedlander, our Dean of Diversity, Miss Cameron Brick House and we have our forum Hutchins Center.

The recent social justice Dr Mississippi Rally and as well as an office of Multicultural Affairs which is 5 faculty members who are complete superhumans helping, helping with all of our initiatives and fostering a sense of inclusion at Lawrenceville.

So the events that I mentioned earlier include our committee.

Martin Luther King day. So Community Day is something that's really, really unique because it's an event where both faculty members and students run workshops that fall under the wide umbrella of every inclusion. For example, me and Tessa actually ran a workshop in despairing about the importance of rebranding, so it's really, really, intellectually enriching experience and a place where people could speak on what they're passionate about and also learn about what the people were. Community are passionate about and are.

International Night is where all of the evidence groups run booths where they can hand out their cultural food and just talk a little bit about their experience.

And there's also and some music performances, or many of our cultural dance groups on campus. And then lastly our Martin Luther King Day is in collaboration and community service where we usually have a speaker and then we discussed the speaker and others take years so little bit of what we do in diversity and inclusion at Lawrenceville. I'll pass it back to you, Eddie.

Yeah, I I have to be honest though, has been cutting out from you.

Alright, can you hear me now?

Well, this is been going great so far so yeah, so ha.

Totally. Alright uhm. Did I miss anyone? Let me just do a quick a quick pan I think. I think I got everyone.

You can hear me. OK, great, so a couple things that I'm going to circle back on. And then I'm going to start hitting this fabulous group with some of the questions you've already submitted. So any was close. But there's actually 17 to this, and each of the houses has a House council, so that's what they were just discussing about how every house now has a diversity Rep. Every house has a sustainability Rep, so that was something that was big. A big initiative from this.

Crew to make sure that every house is a smaller version of the bigger student council at large and so another thing I'm going to bring up is Andy mentioned that she and I think Sophia are RC eyes and so.

But

My job here is basically translate Lawrenceville lingo to all of you so, and RCI is a ropes course instructor and so we are very blessed Lawrenceville to have a ropes course right here on our campus and ropes. Course instructors are a group of student leaders that facilitate all that goes on on the ropes course and and then the next thing I had, which I'm not going to explain this, I'm going to have an E or one of these fabulous people explain But's meeting which.

Is short for school meeting, which I'm going to make any talk about, but what I will say is this is one of my favorite parts of the week because this entire Council runs it. But it's, uh, so the one time in the week that we are all together as a community in our Kirby Art Center. So this is the time where everyone's together gathering as a community and really just kind of embracing being altogether so. And you can start off by explaining what's meeting is an.

And then you can explain how you know how you guys run it.

Absolutely yes. Meaning is also one of my favorite parts of the week and has been since freshman year. So essentially, like misting said, we all come and gather as a community in our Kirby Art Center. And you know, there's the nuts and bolts. Kind of at the beginning, and so any student who wants to can present a slide its meaning and announce anything that they choose. So if they're having a club.

Event or a performance of sorts. They can kind of come up and have the entire student body as an audience, which is really incredible because not that many people read their emails, so it's a perfect you know with discriminating.

And so kind of with the rest of the time, depending on how many announcements we have, we kind of do something fun. So this past week's meeting was a pretty eventful one. If I do say so myself. We played our hill hype video and we had a performance from the disciples, which is.

Will bend, they're not official, but we love them so much that they might just just might as well be.

And so yeah, we have student performances for Halloween. We had a mummy wrapping competition. There was some controversy over my judging skills. Things are still in dispute with who won, but we have lots of fun events and it's, oh, Glennie McLellan one, but it's it's still up for it.

And they deserve that one deserved to win it. I will refuse any other opinion on it.

Anyways, and so we've done lots of lots of fun things and there's lots of fun things ahead with school meeting, but it's generally just a really good time and a good time to, you know. See what this student body is doing with their time and it's really great. Just to you know, see what's going on on campus. It's my favorite part of the week for sure.

Why does my missing guys need?

So when Annie mentioned earlier that she we did when Annie Sophie mentioned that that we did a mock DC, that's where we did it. That's where I was. Any support person as we did a mock DC and that was showcased to the entire student body and our faculty so that everyone was on the same page about what takes place in in one of those. Just so you know Sophie all the way down to.

Everyone here knows how to support a student when something like that were to happen so wonderful. The next thing that I need you all to clarify is just our academic scholars programs, because I'm sure you heard someone say that they're Healy scholar or hutchin scholar. We also have the Leopold and the Meryl scholars, so maybe Arthur or someone can explain what those are. We oftentimes forget that the Lawrenceville lingo doesn't translate to those outside, and so if someone could just

those through. If no volunteers, I'm happy to do it myself.

Uhm, yeah, I'm happy to talk about Healy obit so I can pass rushing off to Tecia.

Uhm, but the Healy Scholars program is like Zohan. Michael and I think I might have mentioned earlier, archival historical research where for two weeks during the summer, we dive into the schools archival collections in the library basement, and we were taking a seminar. Now the three of us defer that research eventually will put together a presentation and turn in a thesis paper.

So that's going great umtas he won't talk about Hutchens.

No, so hedging is similar in that it's another like scholar program, so Hutch and starts our sophomore year. You apply after if you're very interested in science research and then throughout your sophomore year and sophomore summer, you do some like lab work and like learn some basic skills in that way and then junior year you get to partner with the lab of your interest. So this past summer I did some like molecular genetic research with lab at Stanford and we worked throughout or junior summer on that. And then this year we have.

Like our poster session where we like ultimately show all of our research and our findings, so that's actually in a couple days which should be really just a really cool opportunity to get in touch with experts in the field and also more about something you're really interested in.

Uhm, similarly, Leopold Scholars is a group that focuses on like Environmental Conservation.

Ecology and all of that and then the metal Scholars program is another similarly structured program where eight to 10 students will focus on creative writing literature and they're delivering their work at the post recession as well, so.

Yeah.

Thank you guys so much for that, so I'm on the other side of this. Oftentimes in admissions we do get that question. You know I'm very passionate about science or I'm very passionate about. You know, literature. How can I do more? This is the exact answer to that question. These are the programs where if you are super passionate academically about one of these four topics, this is kind of where you could dive in and do a little bit.

More So what I'm going to do is is now we're going to head right into the official Q&A, so, uhm.

I'm going to throw out some softballs that I think might be super super easy, but tell us a little bit about the steps of getting involved, and I say that from the standpoint of how were you all elected and chosen for this position, and when you explain that and it becomes abundantly clear that you're all in the fifth form, how is a second former able to get involved and be a part of?

Student Council, House Council and any sort of leadership at Lawrenceville.

Totally, I guess I can.

Awesome how Stoco is elected generally, and so the president, the presidential race kind of comes in the spring before everything else. And so essentially how that works. First round where anyone can kind of put their name in. And there's a first round of speeches and debates. And then we narrow it down to two or three candidates. And then we also do some more intense speeches and debates. There's really no campaigning at Lawrence, so it's kind of all on your platform, and so we put out a formal platform.

There were two.

Soon buddy to see and then we are kind of quizzed on it at a school meeting and so from there the you know the President did and then once the President is elected in the spring, we also elect the VP of Social Life, the VP of Academics and the VP of Honor and Discipline. And so those kind of VPS run in a similar way. There's only one round. Is there one rounders or two? Someone correct me.

Well, we had Bruno's yeah.

Yeah, it was the same as president.

Just kidding, it's the exact same and and and so it's a similar errors or elected positions. And then once we kind of have those four people, we as a group kind of taken at an intense rigorous application process and narrow it down from there. But yeah, so the the other positions are application based and so we have a round of applications and then a round of interviews kind of just within the student council.

And then that we have chosen these five levels. And yes, that's the general election of student council. Did someone else want to talk about how you know? A younger student can get involved?

Uhm, I'd add that.

Like it's great to get involved as a freshman, but it's also not the most critical thing when it comes to senior year like delay, and I were both new sophomores and the way the houses are organized. All of freshman live together, but all the sophomores in Union live together as well. So all the new sophomores are as new to their houses as the freshmen are when they go there.

Uhm, so that experience as a sophomore and junior is also really crucial too.

Yeah, I'll touch it a little bit on no go ahead.

I have been OK tonight, but.

I was just going to touch a little bit on the House system. The sophomore and junior houses and joining those house counsels as a sophomore there. I do believe some houses have third form Rep, some don't. I'm not entirely sure. I know McClellan, we do, and that is the only position in the House that a sophomore can run for. So your sophomore year, I know for me, coming into new sophomore, I just kind of focused on taking part and participating in whatever the House events were and are doing your year. I ended up running for House president and I ended up being the Clown House president despite coming as a new sophomore. That did not affect me in.

Any negative way? So if you believe it, you can do it.

Totally and I would just add, you know, just generally getting involved. It doesn't have to be student government. The biggest thing you can do with a freshman if you really are eager to get involved. It's just follow what you love and follow what your passions are. And really, you know, look for things that you're going to enjoy doing because you're going to be spending a lot of time doing them. If you do get involved with them. And so I'd say, follow what you love and leadership positions will come if you're passionate.

And I would also just like to add that it's there's a lot of like flexibility in room to kind of explore what it is that you love. You don't necessarily have to know at all. Everyone changes so much in the span of the.

432 have many years you're here and there there's so many opportunities across the entirety of campus for you to kind of put your foot in a bunch of different kind of areas of interest that you can kind of choose to pursue to not pursue. So I think it's kind of also something to note as well.

Yeah, if you would have told me that I would be doing improv comedy, UM in 8th and I would have laughed in your face and never spoke to you again, I just I wouldn't have believed you. But I absolutely love it and I've, you know, put my hand in a lot of different goals with arts and everything. I've tried directing for winter class, which is a collection of short plays.

And I absolutely loved it. And, you know, I've never touched anything with experiential learning before, and now I spend like every Sunday on the Josh, which is what we call our ropes course with Minnock and Sophie. And so it really is time to explore and find out what you love and you really do have such a community that supports you and encourages it, which is exciting.

Can everyone hear me? Sorry I muted myself my back in action.

Still learning this whole system here. So uhm, one thing that I'm going to ask next is, as we wrap up student Council, what is one thing that you wish that you knew about Lawrenceville before joining our community?

John office mount at once.

Anyone on?

Sorry, Miss Daniel trying to think of something I can't. This is a tough question.

Yeah, I'm thinking missing.

Hey, I thought this would be easier. That's why I coded it yellow in my spreadsheet. I would have quoted it read if it was too hard.

Bulldogs got it. He's got a hand.

He told me.

Uhm?

Yeah, that's awesome.

Tiring.

So.

Uhm, I'm not totally sure that this is something I wish I necessarily new, but it's definitely something that I was surprised by when I got here. I just heard so much about Lauryn Hill's academic reputation. For, you know, much circulating here, and I was really, really expecting it to be kind of very competitive. Maybe not cutthroat, but very intense work, academically driven, but I was really shocked by kind of like the uplifting nature, it's.

I would not. I would not characterize it as a competitive school. I was really surprised by everyone's ability to kind of help each other get through everything and anything. I'm I was really, really pleasantly surprised, and I think if I had known about that kind of culture before coming here, I would have kind of saved myself. A lot of anxiety and nervousness about the academics to come.

I guess sort of similarly, I would have liked to have someone tell me as a sophomore not to like, take everything way too seriously.

Uhm, it's not all about like it's gonna get into college. The people and the opportunities here are incredible.

Uhm, and I wish that I had taken advantage of some more of them.

Uhm, 'cause there's some really, really cool stuff that it's a little bit too late to get involved in though. But I admire everyone that does it.

Uhm?

Go ahead now, go ahead.

OK, well I'll go OK.

Kyzylorda, Arthur I was gonna say one really cool opportunity that I think that mostly when I know about Lawrenceville is the kind of off campus. And even like international experiences. So I was actually supposed to go to the Sea France program the summer of my sophomore year before Kovid, and so there's so many great ways to go abroad through Harkness, travel trips, or these school year abroad programs, or even just like weekend trips to New York with different arts groups or stuff.

Like that's like it may seem like when you're coming to Lawrenceville, you're just stay on campus, but you're really doing much more than that.

Totally, uhm, no human hook.

It's important.

So.

Yeah.

Meeting, you know as many people as you can early on, 'cause there's so many people like some of my absolute best friends that I haven't met until.

And it's just such a shame I'm like, man. I wish I did would have known you for years ago. We could have had all this time together and so I'd say, you know, just just I know it's easy to fall into a smaller group when you're at a new a new place, but just really branch out. I definitely love that. And then another one I had just like appreciate just being a participant. Just, you know, exist at Lawrenceville. 'cause it's suddenly, you know you're a junior and a senior and you're planning all these events and don't get me wrong, it's a different type of joy. You know that we experience as we Council, putting things out for our Community. And it's a real joy.

And I I do love the area, but it can be, you know, there's beauty and just experiencing and going to things and just go go to things literally just you know, love and appreciate all that Lawrenceville has to offer and then touched on the last thing. But like be yourself my favorite people on this campus are unapologetic, Lee themselves, and they're weird and they just you know, the sooner you're able to find out who you wanna be at, Lawrenceville? And Lawrenceville does give you opportunity to kind of find out what she wants, which would be, what do you want? What do you really want to do?

Mom, but I would just say, you know, don't don't sweat the small stuff and really take the time to just figure out exactly who that is.

Yeah.

Well, fabulous, thanks for that Annie and thanks to our entire student council for a fabulous evening come.

So next steps for all of you include the next couple rounds of this discover elville information series, and so this was essentially the kickoff, and we're going to go for the next five weeks. You can find the schedule on the elbow, admissions Instagram and you can also find it on our travel and events page on the admissions website. And so I know there were a ton of questions that either got sent during the session or sent prior that were.

A little more specific, whether it was about an arts program or chatting with a coach, or about the academic adjustment to Lawrenceville, there are sessions for all of those things. Some of these panelists here will be returning for some of those events and come, but beyond that we were just so happy that you joined us this evening and that you were able to get a little taste of what it's like to be a student at Lawrenceville and a student leader here in our community.

So that's it for the. For the rest of the evening, but I will give you the opportunity if you have any follow up questions about something. One of our panelists said this evening, please feel free. You can just email me directly. My email address is c.dingding@lawrenceville.org and if you would like it to go to a specific panelist, whether it's about social diversity, sustainability, whatever it might be, I will happily.

Past the back and forward it onto our student Council representatives who will answer it probably 100% better than I could. So again, big round of applause for our panelists and hopefully we'll see you all again on a different panel as we continue to showcase Lawrenceville and allow you to discover why it's the next place for you. So thank you all and have a great evening or day.

Depending where you are OK, I.