Spotlight on Student Achievements

Greenwich Academy Students Send Their Good Wishes on the Wings of Cranes to Japan

Greenwich Academy students recently returned from spring break and quickly decided to devote their energy to help the relief efforts in Japan following the devastating tsunami and earthquake.

Middle School girls led by director of academic technology and GA parent Yumi Nakanishi, were given colorful origami paper and learned how to fold paper cranes. By day’s end, all 800 sheets of origami paper were used in the Middle School. As their desire to make cranes did not wane, the girls used a variety of other paper sources.

At that point, Greenwich Academy’s involvement with the organization Students Rebuild was established.

Lower School students attended an assembly led by Mrs. Nakanishi and her daughter, Alexa, who is in Group I.

Alexa led the way in instructing her schoolmates how to make paper cranes. The girls were eager to make cranes not only as an expression of their hope for recovery but also to serve the people of Japan with the crane-matching gift established by the Bezos Family Foundation.

 Many of the students made more cranes at home for the project, as well as foregoing playtime during recess to continue making the cranes.

The momentum continued on March 29, as many Lower School girls gave up their usual time on the swings and monkey bars at recess to make more cranes.

The Lower and Middle School halls were filled with boxes and baskets of the girls’ handiwork.

 The Upper School also joined the origami crane and were taught the fine art of paper-folding by several Lower School girls. The cranes created by the Upper Schoolers will be added to the Middle and Lower School crane production and sent to Japan for an art installation. For every crane that GA sends, the Bezos Family Foundation will donate $2 toward Japanese relief efforts.

At last count, Greenwich Academy students made more than 2,000 cranes.

 Number-crunching Nutmeggers forge ahead

The Greenwich High School Math Team has won – for the third consecutive year – the 2011 Connecticut Math League Championship.

The 2011 Connecticut State Math Champions are Warren Bein, Robert Cheng, Kelsey Dietz, Connor Harris, Ryota Ishizuka, Thomas Yang and co-captains Dan Chang and  Yuhei Urakami.

Dan and Yuhei have led the team throughout what is the longest season (mid-September to the end of April) of the school year.  The next stop is the New England Association of Mathematics Leagues (NEAML) Regional competition on April 29^th.

 In addition, five GHS students tried out for the Connecticut All-State team, each vying for one of the 50 seats available. All five made the team. Ten percent of the All-State Team will be from Greenwich High School.  Dan Chang, Connor Harris, Ryota Ishizuka, Warren Bein and Robert Cheng will represent CT at Penn State in June at the American Regions Mathematics League Competition.

Students Achieve Cum Laude Society designations

Phi Beta Kappa, the Cum Laude Society recognizes and encourages the highest degree of scholarship.

According to Head of School Molly King, Cum Laude membership is determined by a combination of factors: a student’s cumulative upper school GPA, the rigor of her course load, and – true to the GA’s commitment to its own motto – a student’s character.  Commenting on the strength of this year’s senior class and the selectivity of the Cum Laude Society, Mrs. King reflected that this year “It is difficult to honor only a few [students].”

The secretary of GA’s Cum Laude chapter, Dr. James Fout, followed Mrs. King’s remarks with a brief history of Greenwich Academy’s involvement with the society.  Before inducting the school’s new Cum Laude members, Dr. Fout recognized the eight members of the 2011 Cum Laude class inducted last June: Susannah Benjamin, Gracie Fullerton, Christina Gellos, Alexandra Lunt, Alex Manaserri, Kirsten Schnackenberg, Kathryn Stack, and Gracia Vargas.

The new inductees were Yasmeen Audi, Alicia Denton, Katharine Galbraith, Grace Krasnerman, Danielle Martin, Katie McCormick and Alexandra Yorke.

Fout introduced this year’s Cum Laude speaker, Jessica Vascellaro ’01 – a GA alumna celebrating the tenth anniversary of her own induction into the Cum Laude Society.  After an impressive career at Harvard College, from which she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in history, Vascellaro joined the staff of the Wall Street Journal.