Home » Posts tagged 'Grant'
Tag Archives: Grant
Increasing Accessibility in the Literary Community with the V Form Fellowship: The Aurora Journal
By Sophie Chiang, VI Form
Increasing Accessibility in the Literary Community with the V Form Fellowship: The Aurora Journal
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student in exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.
When I created The Aurora Journal (theaurorajournal.org) two summers ago, I just planned to publish my friends’ writing for fun. Literary journals were everywhere–all one had to do was submit their poetry and prose to them and hope their writing would be accepted and published. So never did I imagine that my own Journal would be able to reach thousands of submissions and be featured in news sites and blogs–a testament to the passion of our contributors. But when I first started gaining traction, I knew I wanted to do something more with my platform than just publishing writers. There exists a significant disparity gap in the writing world, in which cisgender, wealthy, educated white males dominate. With the support of the V Form Fellowship and many writer friends, The Aurora Journal has been able to make a positive impact in promoting inclusivity and accessibility in the writing community.
Education in Underfunded Zimbabwean Societies
By Charlene Tariro Murima, VI Form
Education in Underfunded Zimbabwean Societies
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.
Student-Submitted Note: To encourage a more globally-minded perspective and understanding of diverse educational practices, I received a grant through The Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship and traveled back to Zimbabwe during the summer of 2022. I conducted anonymous and in-person interviews. In these interviews were students and teachers informing me more about the country’s education system.
Student-Submitted Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of abortion and sexual abuse.
Over the summer of 2022, I traveled back to Zimbabwe to work on a documentary called Education in underfunded towns of Zimbabwe such as Dzivaresekwa, Concession, Mazowe, and Kuwadzana with the goal to educate my peers and schoolmates about some of the challenges students in Zimbabwe face. To make this study possible, I received a grant from the St. Mark’s Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. I was able to visit many schools that lacked government funding or had limited resources, and I conducted anonymous and in-person interviews with students and teachers. I learned that the education system in Zimbabwe encompasses 7 years of primary school and 6 years of secondary school. It runs from January to December. The school year is a total of 3 terms with a one-month break, totaling 40 weeks per year. I asked a few students in person and anonymously online what they thought about the country’s education system and what they hope to change. Recurring themes of sparse resources and perpetual sexual abuse from those meant to educate them surfaced.
Social Media & Privacy: Why Should We Care?
By Anika Sukthankar, VI Form
Social Media & Privacy: Why Should We Care?
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Thomas H. Kean ’53 Fellowship. At their 25th Reunion in 1987, the Class of 1962 established the Thomas H. Kean ’53 Fellowship Program to honor Tom Kean, their teacher, advisor, mentor, and friend. The purpose of this fellowship is to enable students to explore important public policy topics and to embark upon exemplary lives of public service in the spirit of Governor Kean.
Student-Submitted Note: As part of the Kean Fellowship, I took a college-level course called STS 1101: Science, Technology, and Politics. We studied several scientific controversies to further explore the relationship shared between technology and politics, and understood the societal implications. My deliverable was to write a LEO article on what I have found and researched.
“Behavioral advertising generates profits by turning users into products, their activity into assets, their communities into targets, and social media platforms into weapons of mass manipulation.”
-Rohit Chopra in his 2019 dissent against Facebook
As technology evolves and becomes an integral part of our society, the controversies surrounding its proper use and associated governmental policies have become increasingly complicated. We are building complex socio-technical systems that seem to guide our very behaviors and thinking. From the addictive nature of social media to privacy concerns, governmental policies seem to be lagging technological advancements. Events, such as the Capitol hearings, have made this topic of great interest.
Social media has become incredibly popular in recent years, with over 400 million new users joining these platforms annually. Despite this popularity, the majority of users are uncomfortable with the collection of personal data and believe that the government needs to do more to regulate the tech companies. Rebuilding trust between users and the social media companies will take a triumvirate of public awareness, self-regulation by the social media companies themselves, and government regulations.
(more…)
Amyklaion Excavation
By Frank S. Ruperto, VI Form
Amyklaion Excavation
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student in exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.
My experience at the Amyklaion Excavation program in Sparta, Greece, this past summer enabled me to bring the Classics to life. The Hellenic Education and Research Center offered the program, which consisted of an excavation, archaeological method and practice, on-site documentation and cataloging of artifacts, and Greek epigraphy.
Amkylaion is located in the southeastern Peloponnese region of Ancient Greece. The site was a ritualistic temple to Apollo and Hyacinthus. Our group sectioned it off into steps for the purposes of excavating and recording our findings in an organized manner. Some of the participants would work on a five-meter wall, using a pickaxe to loosen up the dirt. They would rummage through the loose dirt, shoveling the dirt off the wall. The person sifting through the dirt would separate out any artifacts. Others in our group would clean the newly discovered pieces, using only water and a toothbrush, before separating each piece into different sections by time period, which was determined based on both color and design. These artifacts would eventually go to the laboratory to be marked and recorded. By studying artifacts that were part of daily ancient Greek life, I strengthened my knowledge of Greek culture and my understanding of the ancient world.
Figure 1: Sorting Artifacts Based Off Time Period
(more…)Teens without Screens
By Ryan Krantz, VI Form
Teens without Screens
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.
Student-Submitted Note: I was awarded this grant to take a surfing road trip down the East Coast, without my phone.
In a world where humans are becoming increasingly dependent on electronic devices in all aspects of our lives, adolescents are particularly susceptible to screen addiction. The average American teenager spends over seven hours a day on screens, which accounts for about 40% of our conscious realities. My friends and I realized that we too, are victims of the “screenager” epidemic, and we wanted to know what our lives would be like if we didn’t have phones. In the winter of my junior year, I received a grant from the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship at St. Marks to take a road trip along the east coast without my phone. My two best friends Conor Sullivan and Toby Zeidenberg agreed to come along on the road trip, and so on August 11, 2022, we left our phones, computers, and all other screens behind and hit the road.
(more…)Researching Foreign Aid with the Help of The Thomas H. Kean ’53 Fellowship
By Kanav Sahani, V Form
Researching Foreign Aid with the Help of The Thomas H. Kean ’53 Fellowship
Thomas H. Kean ’53 Fellowship:
The Class of 1962, at their 25th Reunion in 1987, established the Thomas H. Kean ’53 Fellowship Program to honor Tom Kean, their teacher, advisor, mentor, and friend. The purpose of this fellowship is to enable students to explore important public policy topics and to embark upon exemplary lives of public service in the spirit of Governor Kean.
Kean Fellowships will be conferred upon a small number of highly well-qualified students who propose and undertake independent research and study in the field of public service, exploring meaningful domestic public policy issues. Once selected, and on the basis of their topic, Fellows will work with a faculty mentor and find meaningful connections with academicians and leaders in the field of public policy. The Fellowship will engage the students in cutting-edge topics and in a manner that is serious and capitalizes upon what they have learned at St Mark’s.
I chose to attend the economics policy academy at Georgetown University because it teaches a unique combination of economics and political science and how to use this knowledge to solve real-world problems. I find these topics interesting because they have so much influence on how the world works, so once I found this course online, I knew I would want to join it. My interest in the more political side of the world started with the social justice class I took with Dr. Worrell during the spring semester of my sophomore year. In addition, my interest in the economic side started with learning about the legendary investor Warren Buffet. Following his story on how gained investing fame by sticking to his strategy has increased my interest in the finance and economic sectors.
(more…)
Custom Shoes with the Fifth Form Fellowship
By Leila Frederick, VI Form
Custom Shoes with the Fifth Form Fellowship
Editor’s Note: This project was made possible with the support of the Class of 1968 V Form Fellowship. At their 25th reunion, the Class of 1968 created a fund to provide grants to V Form students for independent study during the school year or, more commonly, during the summer between V and VI Forms. Their intent in establishing this fund was to reward independent thinking, ingenuity, and planning and to encourage the student exploring non-traditional fields of inquiry or using non-traditional methods of investigation.
This past Summer I utilized the Fifth Form Fellowship grant to pursue a new art medium: painting custom shoes. I’d held an interest in painting shoes for a while, mostly because I had been seeing more and more Youtube videos of artists starting to paint wearable art. Being a bit of a sneaker fan, I watched a lot of those videos, especially over quarantine. Thanks to this grant, I was able to purchase some preliminary shoes, paints, brushes, and shoelaces to begin working on some shoes of my own!
I began by starting an Instagram account (@first_soup_productions) in order to easily communicate with customers. When someone was interested, they would directly message me with some general ideas.
(more…)
Stories From the Soil: Three Months on Joe’s Brook Farm
Henry Hirschfeld, VI Form
Stories From the Soil: Three Months on Joe’s Brook Farm
For the past four summers, I have had the opportunity to learn, live, and work on a
twelve-acre organic vegetable farm in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. With five of the most honest, loving, and hardworking young adults I know, I grew, weeded, and harvested over fifty varieties of produces for nine hours, six days a week. This past summer, I was able to spend nearly my entire vacation working at Joe’s Brook Farm with my older sister Cora. With the generous Class of 1968 Fellowship, I went to the farm hoping to document my experience in order to share with family, friends, and St. Mark’s. (more…)
LEO 