| WINTER ARTS NIGHT We hope to see you at our annual ARTS NIGHTon Wednesday, December 10th at Prep's Driscoll Auditorium from 5:00-7:00 pm to celebrate our Upper School art students' wondrous accomplishments from the fall term. The Visual and Performing Arts Departments look forward to sharing music, performance, ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, photography, drawing, and painting. The Visual Arts Reception will begin at 5:00 pm, and there will also be a special art talk by this year’s Meem Award recipient, Katie Broyles '15. The Performing Arts portion will begin at 6:00 pm featuring performances by the MS Instrumental Ensemble, Vocal Ensemble, and Jazz Band. We have a wide variety of selections showing off these fine student musicians. We'll see you a week from Wednesday!
- Brad Fairbanks, Performing Arts Chair
- Paula Castillo, Visual Arts Chair
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Reminder – The Annual Booster Club Bombay takes place this Friday, December 5th from 7:00-11:00 pm at the Inn and Spa at Loretto. The Bombay is the largest fundraiser in support of the athletic programs at SFP.
Monies raised cover uniforms, coaches, professional development, financial assistance for student athletic expenses, and facilities improvement/maintenance. It’s a lively, festive evening complete with a silent auction, delicious dinner buffet, and the Bombay, where you could win $5,000. Tickets are $200 for two people. There are still a few tickets left. If you are interested in attending, please send an email to sfpboosters@gmail.com. We hope to see you there!
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FROM THE ADVANCEMENT OFFICE
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| Choose Your Impact! The end of 2014 is near, and it’s a perfect time to plan your end-of-year giving and decide where you will make an impact in the life of a child. We have five priorities for our fundraising campaign—each designed to make Santa Fe Prep and the access we provide better tomorrow than it is today. Please click here to find the impact that means the most to you. Thank you!
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Meet Angel Sanchez! Angel, a seventh grade
student, moved (along with his parents and three brothers) from Mexico to Santa Fe just over a year ago. Having taken only basic English courses in Mexico, Angel moved to a new country, new city, and a new school.
Speaking to Angel, one would hardly guess that he had a difficult transition. He is eloquent, positive, and full of optimism. He credits his first summer at Breakthrough for easing that transition. “Breakthrough helps me build connections with other students about respect and not about differences,” he explains. Angel hopes that his time at Breakthrough will inspire his two younger brothers to apply. “Breakthrough allows me to be a star student, even though I am facing challenges.” Angel hopes to be a doctor after college and is eager to work hard in order to make his dreams a reality.
- Talia Winokur, Executive Director, Breakthrough Santa Fe
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| What a fantastic way to start the school year for Blue Griffin Sports! The Griffins had many noteworthy accomplishments in every fall sport: Congratulations to the Prep Fencers for an impressive finale; to the Cross Country Teams, who made history with both the boys and girls advancing to the State Championships and the boys posting a 3rd place finish for the first time in Blue Griffin history; to the Girls' Soccer Team, who kept their streak of berths to the State Championships alive after finishing 2nd in Districts; and to the Boys' Soccer Team with their historic run, capping off a District Championship with a State Championship victory in 4 overtimes and bringing the Blue Trophy back to the school after a 32-year hiatus. In additional history-making news, the Volleyball Team defended their undefeated district run yet again this year and made it all the way to the semifinals of the state championship for the first time in Blue Griffin history. Although they lost to the eventual state champs, they had one of the most dominating seasons ever by a Prep Volleyball team. Let's ride this wave of success into the winter season--go Blue Griffin Basketball and Swimming/Diving!
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The Prep Chess Team hosted a room full of more than 120 middle and high school students from all over northern New Mexico at a tournament in the Prep Gym last month. Coach Joey Reich shares, "Visitors to campus on this day witnessed students sitting... quietly... thinking. It was quite beautiful. To my team, you are an inspiration to me, and I am very proud of the way that you played and conducted yourselves." Enjoy additonal pictures on the team's official website>> http://chess.sfprep.org/
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The Convergence TAP is currently working on several projects. This TAP brings together groups of students from the Masters Program, Tierra Encantada, and Prep to create new opportunities for youth across Santa Fe.
The group recently held their first art show opening at Warehouse 21 to showcase different artists and voices around Santa Fe. They are also currently running a city-wide survey that asks youth about their experiences in Santa Fe, their interests in mentorships and job opportunities, and other ideas they have for the future of youth in Santa Fe. The goal is to reach at least 700 students in order to achieve statistical significance, and they are using this survey data for discussions with city council, local businesses, and non-profits, and for a series of articles mentored by the editor of the Santa Fe Reporter, which are designed to raise awareness about youth and youth issues and interests in Santa Fe. In the spring, students will collaborate across schools to bring their project proposals to fruition, similar to last year's free piano program in the Railyard.
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| Santa Fe Prep's 3D Studio Class participated in the ArtCRS (Art Collision & Repair Shop) exhibition at the Center for Contemporary Arts which explores the modernist principle of originality and singular authorship. Students collaborated with each other and with hidden artists to explore shared originality and the ambiguity of authorship. Student artists include Erik Birk '15, Halia Harvey '15, Max Thurston '15, Jesse Wells '15, Jeremy Portillo '16, Ariel Whitten '16, Annie Schulz '17, Anna Lippman '17, Eliot Thornburg '18, Trevor Wilson '18, Harrison Trainor '18, and Samantha Wilson '18. The exhibit will be up through January 2015.
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| 24 Prep students attended this year's 53rd Annual New Mexico State Model U.N. conference at the State Roundhouse, with delegations representing Norway, Nicaragua, Switzerland, and Uganda. They all worked hard to collaborate with students from other schools to get their policy resolutions passed on topics ranging from refugees and immigration to women's rights and the European debt crisis. Eliza Harrison '15 was recognized as the most outstanding student delegate as a representative of Norway on the Model U.N. Security Council!
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| 11 Prep students recenlty participated in the UNM-PNM Math Contest, and the results just came in! The contest was founded in 1966 by two professors at University of New Mexico and has two rounds of exams designed to test mathematical potential and ingenuity, as well as formal knowledge. The diverse and difficult problems (usually 10) of the first round are given to the students in early November of each year. Students have three hours to solve them. Approximately 700 to 1200 New Mexico students grades 7-12 participate. Finalists from this fall exam go on to take the February exam, and compete at UNM.
Congratulations to our Santa Fe Prep finalists: Annie Wu '16, Bridget Bohlin '15, Harsh Bundiya '16, Jimmy Chen '16, and Suqing Liu '16.
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| Our first annual Prep Speech + Congress Invitational Tournament on November 15th was a dazzling success. So many students, parents, and community members helped out either with judging, with food, or with setup and administration. Coaches and students from other schools remarked that it was among the most organized tournaments they'd attended! With 205 participants and over 250 entries, having a tournament that starts and ends on time is almost impossible. Thank you to the entire Prep community for your outstanding support!
The Prep team went right from our own tournament to another at Albuquerque Academy on November 22nd. Mike Laposata '16 garnered 3rd place in International Extemp, and the team of Elena Wirth '15 and Amanda Jacobs '15 won all four of their Public Forum rounds, sweeping up but ultimately losing the tiebreaker for the trophy. Great job, everyone!
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| What Would We do Without Our
Sports Tweeters? Thank you,Tweeters! Without you we’d be chewing our nails and left in the dark! A big thank you goes out to our fall Tweeters, Marti Newman (girls' soccer), Jim Weyhrauch (boys' soccer) and Bob Borden (volleyball), who kept us in the know and at the edge of our seats even when we could not be at the game. Now, on to winter sports! Maggie Andersson will tweet boys' basketball this winter, and we are looking for someone to tweet girls' basketball and swimming. No experience necessary. We will train you! Call Marcia Lenihan at 505.795.7516 or email her mlenihan@sfprep.org to volunteer.
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| Thank you, Grandparents!
On Tuesday, November 25th more than 100 grandparents braved the cold and ice to visit classes, take photographs with their grandchildren, and spend time with them over lunch. Prep graduate Anya Markowitz ’13, on a holiday break from Yale, spoke to the grandparents about the value of a Prep education (click here to view) and Ms. K’s Middle School Spoken Word Team, read heartfelt pieces written especially for their grandparents (click here to view). We hope to see all of you grandparents next year for this festive event...and thank you for coming!
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| Congratulations
Jun-Hong!
In October, Jun-Hong Chen '19 competed in the Southwestern Regional Skating Competition in Fort Collins, placing 2nd and advancing to the sectional competition (only the top four skaters from the regional competition advance to the sectional competition).
In November, Jun-Hong headed to the Midwestern Sectional Skating Competition held in Geneva, IL. Jun-Hong placed 2nd and earned a spot (only 12 available per level) to compete at the U.S. National Championship to be held in Greensboro, NC, in January 2015. Jun-Hong skates at the Intermediate level, and this will be Jun-Hong’s fifth time competing at the national level!
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| Words Of Love
From An Alum
The Boys' Soccer Championship showed us, in so many ways, what it means to be a Griffin. Parents, alumni parents, grandparents, friends of the school and alumni all gathered in masses to support and celebrate. Click here to read an email Marcia Lenihan received from graduate Danny Quinn '12 (on left) about how enduring connections are in the Prep community.
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| Kudos To Faculty Member Russell Spinney!
Russell's co-authored and co-edited special issue of the Cambridge Journal, Contemporary European History on Emotions in 20th-Century European Social Movements, Protests and Revolutions, was published at the beginning of November. Click here to read the introduction online.
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| Stress & Resiliency
December brings the fun and relaxation of winter break, but not before the anxiety-producing experience of final exams. Many of our students here at Prep, whether it be from internal or external sources, experience a great deal of stress this time of year.
One thing we are doing in both the middle and upper school is teaching ways to manage stress and increase resiliency with tools like mindfulness. Together we can help students recognize and maintain the balance between healthy and unhealthy stress, in other words, their peak performance state. Click here to learn how parents can help their students monitor stress and model stress management skills.
- Mikahla Beutler,
School Counselor
- Claire Romero,
Learning Specialist
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| Prep Speed-Dating?
The senior English classes capped off their study of Camus' The Stranger by a "speed-dating" style debate with teacher, Rob Wilder. The students examined issues of existentialism in the novel by close reading, interviews, reflection, debates, and a term paper comparing The Stranger to Shakespeare's King Lear and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. No one got a date, yet everyone had fun and learned a ton.
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| Bag Credits For Breakthrough Did you know you can help Breakthrough by shopping at WHOLE FOODS this November and December? Just bring your reusable bags, and make sure to donate your bag credit to Breakthrough Santa Fe! And please SPREAD THE WORD to your family and friends.
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