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The Magazine of Cary Academy FALL 2020 All politics are local, even in Middle School Page 4 Students flex their minds, muscles, and creativity Page 10 Democratizing debate Page 15 Dark history, bright futures Page 24 GETTING IN THE ROOM: ONE ALUM’S JOURNEY ACROSS THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE Page 20 WELCOME BACK, CHARGERS! Page 18While the fall issue of ?, The Magazine of Cary Academy comes to you towards the end of a tumultuous 2020, we tried our best not to make the pandemic the defining theme of this issue. Instead, we present to you myriad ways that current students, faculty, and alumni are all engaged in deepening their understanding of and engagement with the world. While these topics are particularly relevant during a presidential election cycle, the underlying mindsets are consistent with Cary Academy’s mission and our strategic vision of cultivating self-directed and bold life-long learners who make meaningful contributions to the world. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, a team of Upper School students have helped to democratize and expand the scope of debate education in the Triangle and launched a hugely successful online summer camp. Upper School social science teacher Bill Velto helps students build important connections from the past to the present. Alumnus Firoz Jameel (’09), himself a product of Cary Academy’s Speech and Debate program, has gone on to support civic engagement through political work and volunteerism at the local, state, and national level. And students across both divisions have found important ways to engage with the democratic process this fall, ahead of election season. Of course, much of this work has been impacted, but not diminished, by adjustments demanded by the pandemic. One such area has been the introduction of Flex Day. During the pandemic, in order to balance class loads and de-densify campus, many independent schools have added a similar day. But, while most have made the “flex day” a quiet day for teacher check-in and homework catch-up, Cary Academy has added another dimension. Our iteration of Flex Day also involves a large number of clubs, activities, and advisory-based activities designed to help students find and explore new interests. This effort is highly aligned with our current strategic plan and coordinated, in large part, through our new Center for Community Engagement. Wishing all our families a safe and healthy holiday season. Dear CA Community, FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL Mike Ehrhardt, Head of SchoolThe Magazine of Cary Academy FALL 2020 In this issue Campus News 2 Alumni News 28 Snapshots 18 COMMUNICATIONS TEAM Mandy Dailey Dean Sauls Dan Smith PHOTOGRAPHY Dan Smith The CA community HEAD OF SCHOOL Michael Ehrhardt DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS Heather Clarkson DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS Mandy Dailey HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL Robin Follet DIRECTOR OF FACILITIES Jess Garcia DEAN OF FACULTY Martina Greene HEAD OF MIDDLE SCHOOL Marti Jenkins DIRECTOR OF EQUITY AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Danielle Johnson-Webb DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION Karen McKenzie DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Ali Page CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Deborah Reichel is published three times a year by Cary Academy. CARY ACADEMY 1500 N. Harrison Avenue Cary, North Carolina 27513 (919) 677-3873 www.caryacademy.org Moving the needle How do you make the change you want to see in the world? For Firoz Jameel, it has been a journey that has taken him from municipal politics, to the governor’s mansion, to the White House, and back again. 20 Connecting the dots How does grappling with dark periods of history create a brighter future for students? Bill Velto has the answer. 24 Democratizing debate Speech and debate is often the stuff of rarefied air. Faced with the global coronavirus pandemic, the student volunteers of the Triangle Debate League upped their game to deliver a world-class debate camp experience to dozens of their peers across the Triangle. 14 Can I count on your vote? In the United Regions of Cary Academy, every year is an election year. This eighth- grade tradition puts the fun in learning the fundamentals of democracy. 4 Let us see you flex What would you do, if given the time to explore any interest? That’s exactly the question that CA students are answering each week with an innovative new initiative. 10Campus News ? The Magazine of Cary Academy Two CHARGERPRENEURS TAKE TOP PRIZE Mary Esposito ’21, Mila Patel ’21, and Sonia Shah ’22 took the top spot in the Young Founders Institute’s 2020 Fall Makethon, publicly launching Blōra Beauty (formerly Nexkap) and generating $50 in sales in just a few hours. YFI’s Makethon challenges young entrepreneurs to work with local CEOs to craft a brand, identify market challenges, develop innovative solutions, and build leadership skills. The team plans to use the prize money to diversify their product line. Aside from lip gloss, Blōra Beauty is also developing a tobacco seed oil derived skincare product— the idea that launched the company and earned them honors as Conrad Challenge finalists. CHARGERS DOMINATE TISAC CROSS COUNTRY SEASON After starting the season with a virtual alumni meet, Coach Conrad Hall led the Cary Academy girls’ and boys’ cross country teams to sweep the TISAC Championship meet. For the girls, Thuc Dzu ’21, Elise Boyse ’23, and Jenna Pullen ’23 were named to the TISAC All-Conference Team. Five members of the boys team were named to their All-Conference Team: overall TISAC Champion Kenny Eheman ’21, Matthew Crow ’21, Kyle Murphy ’21, Sebastian Polge ’22, and Arran Swift ’23. CHARGER CORNER GOES VIRTUAL When the (virtual for 2020) Holiday Shoppe opened in November, so too did CA’s new online student store. Visitors to the online Charger Corner (https://bit.ly/chargercorner), can now purchase all manner of Charger gear— from magnets to clothing. In typical CA fashion, the new online store was a collaborative effort. Entrepreneurial students working with the Center for Community Engagement created website content and developed the site in partnership with the Communications team. While PTAA volunteers, our Business Office, and Development team worked on the logistics that will allow you to safely order merchandise online and get socially-distanced, curbside pickup in time for the holidays. CA is also assembling the team needed to reopen Charger Corner in brick and mortar form and is finalizing the policies and procedures that will allow for safe in-person shopping. We can (almost) smell the coffee brewing. CONGRATULATIONS, ATHLETES! Six members of the Class of 2021 recently signed letters of intent to participate in collegiate athletics. Thuc Dzu will run cross country and track and field for the University of Chicago. Kenny Eheman will compete on Davidson College’s soccer team. Koa Kaliebe will play soccer for Franklin & Marshall College. Aaron Messer joins the University of Pennsylvania’s soccer team. Anna Newman will swim for Davidson, where Abby Pompeo will play field hockey. Go Chargers! KEEPING CHARGERS CONNECTED In a typical year, campus would be host to dozens of events—chances for the CA community to reconnect after a summer apart. Because that wasn’t possible in 2020, CA launched Keeping Chargers Connected, a bi-weekly video series highlighting various dimensions of life at CA. To date, KCC has featured conversations with CA’s leadership team, members of the Board of Directors, students, and the PTAA, on topics ranging from anti-racism and community- building to updates on how CA is adapting to meet the needs of our students and families in these challenging times. INNOVATION TAKES THE TEDX CARY ACADEMY STAGE The third biannual TEDx Cary Academy, organized by Head of School Dr. Mike Ehrhardt, Sonia Shah ’21, and Ashleigh Smith ‘22, focused on innovation—a fitting topic given the event’s transition to a virtual format due to COVID-19. Student speakers explored various dimensions of innovation, from creating a learning platform designed for immigrants grappling with the English language; to the value of and challenges to diversity in STEM fields; to the effects of gene splicing on our daily lives; to the way music offers our society an answer to our quest for justice and equality; and more. Check out https://bit.ly/tedxatca for more information. In this time of stress and uncertainty, the CA community came together in myriad ways to support our broader community. The seventh grade collected diapers, wipes, hats, and gloves for local refugee and immigrant communities and participated in gleaning with the Society of St. Andrew as part of their Migration Collaboration project. During recent Flex Days, the ninth and tenth grades assembled dozens of meal kits for Meals on Wheels and Catholic Parish Outreach. DELTA Service Club upcycled t-shirts into dog toys, helped pack diapers with the Diaper Bank of North Carolina, produced handmade cards for hospice patients, and helped local nonprofits sort donations. Students held drives to help hurricane victims rebuild, people experiencing homelessness find their footing, and the hungry to have a warm meal during Yom Kippur. The Center for Community Engagement worked with Middle and Upper School students to support Read and Feed—a nonprofit dedicated to improving literacy and child hunger—by recording stories, packing lunches, and helping clean their mobile classrooms. CA community steps up for impactA WELCOME RETURN TO CAMPUS After six months of remote learning, it was wonderful to return to in-person classes on campus at the end of September. In an effort to de-densify campus and maintain recommended social distance, the transition to “orange mode” means students in the Blue cohort are on campus Mondays and Tuesdays, Gold cohort on Thursdays and Fridays, with Wednesdays being Flex Days. To support the return to campus, CA worked in close consultation with a committee of health professionals comprised of local physicians, nurses, and epidemiologists. Based on best practice recommendations, CA installed handwashing stations, reworked campus ventilation systems, established in-depth sanitation procedures, launched a daily health check-in app, placed temperature monitoring stations at entry points, rethought dining procedures, distributed more than 1,000 masks to faculty and staff, and completely changed the way foot traffic flows across campus. Faculty were provided technology to assist both in-person and remote students, including personal voice amplifiers and webcams for each classroom. Music and choral classes moved outside, a new ‘Zoom room’ was created in the Upper School, and the outdoor classroom spaces have seen significant use. In addition, CA Athletics began live-streaming matches from Fields 1 and 2, in addition to the FC Gym for Charger fans at home.Every year since Cary Academy first opened its doors, eighth-graders have participated in a mock election. “It seems like, if you’re trying to introduce American history and government, the logical starting point is to show how it all works, beginning with the electoral process,” explains eighth-grade history teacher David Snively. ALL POLITICS ARE LOCAL To be clear, this isn’t your typical mock election, nor is it a costume contest. Students are challenged to take on a role that represents the various dimensions of our electoral process: candidate, campaign staff, or journalist. Most importantly: everyone is a voter. Everyone. Candidates who seek office in the United Regions of Cary Academy (URCA) construct personas, build biographies, and decide key issues around which they build their platform and recruit campaign staff. Members of the campaign teams do everything from researching the issues and drafting campaign speeches and position papers, to fleshing out the platform and engaging the public, to devising advertising strategies and courting donors—more on that in a bit—all to give their man (or woman) the edge. Journalists investigate the candidates and the issues that matter to the voting public while producing news and opinion pieces for the primary media outlet of the URCA, The Cary Communicator, under the auspices of Editor- in-Chief (and eighth-grade language arts and history teacher) Meredith Stewart. As in a real election, laws and regulations are enforced by an oversight body—in this case, the Board of Elections (aka Snively and Stewart). The “B of E,” as it’s affectionately How do you teach students to be media savvy citizens, ready to understand the complex dynamics of the modern political landscape? By making them run for office, of course. CAN I COUNT ON YOUR VOTE? ? The Magazine of Cary Academy Fourknown, doles out public financing, sets rates for media advertisements (curiously unaffected by inflation since 1997), manages voter registration, levies fines, approves materials distributed to voters, manages the candidate debates, and conducts the election day vote. VOTING REFORM In a typical year, every citizen of the United Regions of Cary Academy is provided $50 (CAD—Cary Academy Dollars) to back the candidate(s) of their choosing. Those publicly-sourced funds are the lifeblood for the campaigns and their only way of buying airtime and ad space to get their message out to the electorate. Candidates and campaigns vie for the voting public’s votes and financial support through advertising, candidate forums, statements to the media, and public appearances that give candidates and their staff the opportunity to press the flesh (at a distance this year), answer questions, and persuade the undecided. However (here it comes), in the URCA, as in real life, election 2020 was anything but normal —but that doesn’t mean it didn’t reflect the real world. With the school year starting with remote learning, the highly collaborative nature of the election project convinced Snively and Stewart to push back the assignment until after Cary Academy resumed in-person learning. “Despite everything going on, because it is an election year, we could not not do this. But we couldn’t carry on as usual, either,” says Snively. “We had to rethink how we run the project, to adapt to having only some students in-person each day, and some students who are always virtual.” So, in-person fundraisers and candidate meet-and-greets were out, and public financing of the campaigns was in. Each candidate received a set amount of funding upon which to draw, regardless of their number of supporters. 2020 also saw another change to how the United Regions of Cary Academy votes. (Heck, even the URCA itself changed, into the more recognizably-named “United States.”) Rather than one election, with everyone a member of the electorate, Gold cohort candidates court Blue cohort voters and vice-versa. This means personal (and political) allegiances were less likely to impact votes, and playing roles on both ends of the election provided the opportunity for students to engage the process from multiple perspectives, making them a little more media savvy in the process. Because the Middle School is not host to the electoral trenches of a more typical campaign season, one other change has come to the eighth grade’s election project. The eighth grade was asked to put together brief live Zoom presentations with visual aids to demonstrate their understanding of elections and help educate their sixth and seventh-grade peers, who won’t get to witness the eighth-grade election in-action. ELECTORAL COLLEGE COUNSELING You’re probably wondering: how does this translate into students better understanding how real elections work and increased civic engagement when they reach voting age? It all boils down to simulating reality. ? The Magazine of Cary Academy Five“You’d be surprised to know that— despite this being a class project that takes place during the school day—just like in the real world, not everyone registers to vote,” laments Snively. “Each year, about a dozen students fail to register. Of those, three or four will show up to vote and get turned away.” The United Regions of Cary Academy doesn’t use a convoluted system to register voters—well, no more convoluted than the real world—it uses North Carolina’s voter registration forms (with “NC” carefully scratched out and “CA” carefully written in). Only, instead of submitting them to the county board of elections, the forms go to the good ol’ B of E. Just like in the real world, errors on the forms result in voters being omitted from the rolls. This critical lesson is much easier to swallow for students, than learning it the hard way on your first election day. Much like the real world, URCA citizens are required to vote on their own time on election day—there’s no time off from class to vote, and if you don’t get to the polls before they close, you’ve missed your chance to have your voice heard. According to Snively, this fact surprises some students; he notes that at least five or six students forget to vote each year. Votes cast do not count towards the direct election of candidates. Like the United States of America, the United Regions of Cary Academy relies on an electoral college system. Students are assigned regions, and those regions are awarded electors based on populations. In the past, some campaigns have used this to their advantage, recruiting staff from highly-populated regions to capture their all-important electoral college votes (for example, hiring three staffers from a region might almost guarantee winning that region’s electoral college votes). That strategy won’t work in 2020, with the divided, cohort-based electorates. The project has even proven eerily similar to real life. One year, a spate of inconclusively marked ballots and a very, very tight margin of victory led to a particularly memorable election. The Supreme Court of Teachers was convened to rule on whether or not voters’ intent could be determined by the Board of Elections when ballots were subjectively marked. Sound familiar? But not everything reflects the real world. In the URCA, there are no primaries (election season is simply too brief), and candidates’ statements, platforms, and advertising—as well as journalists’ reports —are held to the CA Statement of Community values. “No matter how outsized some of the personalities they construct might be, we still have to live in the same community at the end of the day and the end of the election,” explains Snively. ? The Magazine of Cary Academy SixTHE RESULTS ARE IN To be clear, these aren’t trivial campaigns about what’s on the menu in the dining hall or which clubs should be offered next trimester. Instead, students tackle real-world issues, including tax rates, environmental policy, healthcare, and the minimum wage, to name a few. Historically, members of the 8th- grade electorate form non-partisan political organizations around issues that are important to them. Analogous to Political Action Committees, these groups not only tend to sway the political conversation but extend the project’s impact beyond the conclusion of the URCA election season. Throughout, students are encouraged (if not downright required) to engage in evidence-based politics, which has the effect of reframing the world around them—often in a context they’d never considered before. “They can’t just pull arguments out of thin air,” quips Snively. “If a candidate has a plan to fix healthcare or raise people out of poverty, they have to explain how they are going to pay for it. Each year, I have to explain that the ? The Magazine of Cary Academy “Many times, students choose to focus their persuasive letter project—which happens during the second trimester—on issues they became passionate about during the election project. Often, these are subjects they knew nothing about before researching it for a campaign or a journalistic article,” says Stewart. These conversations extend outside of the classroom, too. Snively often observes students discussing healthcare policy during lunch, and many eighth-grade parents find themselves discussing real-world political issues with their students at the dinner table. government can’t hold a fundraiser; a bake sale isn’t a solution for deficit spending.” Both Snively and Stewart note a fine line between guiding productive discourse and avoiding any influence on their students’ viewpoints. “Most politicians get into politics because they want to help out. It’s important for students to realize that there aren’t simple solutions. There are different ways to get to a goal, and we don’t always have to agree on the path we take,” says Snively. “There’s rarely anything in politics that’s a clear-cut ‘yes and no’ or ‘right and wrong’ issue—when it comes to public discourse, the answer is often somewhere in the middle. And what it comes down to is: how do you judge the merits of different approaches?” “We want students to be responsible, engaged citizens,” says Stewart. “That’s why we spend time going over real campaign ads from years past and create a public forum to discuss the issues. We are building media literacy and giving them the toolkit to be analytical thinkers.” “And they’re having fun, in the process,” adds Snively. SevenNext >