Thursday, December 12, 2013

Poster Presentations by Lizzy, Katie and Kathryn


It is great fun to see players on the team in their academic setting.  I love going on campus and taking part in anything else that the team is up to, whether it's watching them play another sport, performing in a singing concert, play, or musical concert, or listening to them present their thesis, or other academic presentation.  The other night I was invited to Bi-Hall to see what these three have been up to in one of their classes.

Lizzy, Kathryn, and Katie were all in a class that culminated in a Poster Presentation of their projects.  They had combined with another student on the projects, and so two different aspects of similar issues were presented in one poster, and combined to show a common thread, or focus moving forward.  It was fascinating, and all three did a fabulous job with the poster, and with their explanation about it.

Lizzy's dealt with gender roles and resource allocation in the Sudan.  Kathryn evaluated the environmental impacts of surfers, and Katie looked at deforestation and the affects on native peoples primarily in South America.   (I may not be doing them full justice, but I hope these are close summaries?)

They all did a great job with the visual presentation through the posters, and in the verbal explanation of their projects.  It was fun to see, hear, and to read about their projects.  And, those are HUGE posters to print, but very cool presentation.  I'd love to see the printers they use for projects of this size.  Nice job, guys!

Monday, December 9, 2013

Team Celebrates Season with Banquet at Swift House

Thanks to the generosity of some of our parents, we had a fabulous end-of-season banquet at the Swift House Inn.  It was such a lovely setting for our banquet, and the food was amazing.  What a very special environment in which to celebrate our season--THANK YOU!  It's always fun to get together one last time as a whole group because the off-season is often smaller groups, or most people, but not quite everyone.  Plus, Judd and Steve joined us as well, so we really had the whole team!


 All three Sophomores were Academic All-NESCAC, which is awesome!  Well done guys!  Then we took class pictures at the end, but Piper and Olivia had to leave early to take exams, so we didn't get a junior picture, but the other classes are below.



As usual for our group, the focus was on food, and togetherness, but we did have some nice gifts and recognitions to hand out.  We handed out Varsity letters to the freshmen, (yes, the old-fashioned block letter that can be sewn onto a blanket, or something), and several people were honored with a NESCAC certificate for various things including 1st and 2nd Team, All-Sportsmanship, and All-Academic, which is great.  The Team Awards, voted on by the players were the following:  Most Improved went to Gabi; MCVB Spirit went to Kathryn; On-court Contribution went to Lizzy; Off-court Contribution went to Meg.  Then, I always give the seniors a gift, and try to wrap up their careers by recognizing their amazing contributions, which is hard to do because they've given so much over the four years.  It's really a time to celebrate our group together, and to thank the seniors for all they've given all of us over the last four years.  We also recognize our Faculty Affiliate, Steve Oster, our team manager, Charlotte Wright, our trainer Judd Mackey, and Asst. Coach Brian Dunlop for all of their time, effort and dedication that makes the season happen.  Plus the team had some nice gifts to hand out to both the seniors and to the coaches/trainers/Steve, and it was just a fun evening. 

The last photo below was the seniors getting what could be their last FREE samples of cosmetic products from Brian!  You can see they were focused on looking through the goody basket one last time.  Thanks Brian!!

Now, we are starting finals, so everyone is busy studying and finishing up their work for the semester.  Piper took everything early so she could leave to have surgery, but most everyone else is still around this week taking finals and finishing papers and projects.

We wish all the players good luck on their finals, and we'll have more updates soon as lots of things are happening right now--it's a very busy time of the year.  We've had recruits accepted ED, poster presentations by players, and community service events, so stay tuned for more updates...