Good News Abounds from College Office

Northwood School’s social media feed has been abuzz with college acceptances recently. In no particular order, here’s a summary of the good news our seniors have received, compiled from those social media posts. Follow Northwood School on Facebook and Instagram for more news from the College Counseling Office.

Kaitlyn Cielo ’23
Assumption University
Giordan Gulati ’23
Lindenwood University, St. Cloud State University, Merrimack College, and University of Louisville
Olivia Duvall ’23
SUNY Albany, Elmira College, Albany College of Pharmacy, and University of South Florida
Finely Donahue ’23
Connecticut College, Wheaton College, and Rhodes College
Georgia Bailey ’23
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Audrey Bartlett ’23
Fairfield University, Le Monye College, and Siena College
Maisie Crane ’23
Lehigh University
Laura Sherman ’23
Lasell University, Lynn University, Thomas Jefferson University, Elmira College, and Moore College of Art and Design
Jazlyn Lluberes ’23
Seton Hall University, Marquette University, Seattle University, University of Connecticut, Creighton University, and Villanova University
Mariema Thioubou ’23
St. Michael’s College, SUNY Geneseo, Marquette University, Suffolk University, and University of Connecticut
Ean Malay ’23
Gettysburg College
Bella Wissler ’23
Middlebury College
Kira Cook ’23
Fairfield University
Chloe Duvall ’23
Eckerd College and Florida Southern College
Mathis Nolet-Gagne ‘23
Allegheny College
Iva-Amanda Nelson ‘23
Columbia University
Tam Nguyen ’23
Syracuse University
Natalie Zarcone ’23
University of Vermont
Camden Abel ’23
University of New Hampshire, University of Maine, Providence College, and University of Rhode Island
Jackson Smith ’23
Merrimack College, SUNY Oswego, Clarkson University, and Providence College
Sophia Kelting ’23
University of New Hampshire
Chloe Lewis ’23
SUNY Plattsburgh
Turner Jackson ’23
College of Charleston
Kiet Do ’23
Lawrence University
Sebastien La Roche ‘23
Marquette University, Le Monye College, University of New England, and Creighton University.
Bailey Bartholomew ’23
Clarkson University, Nazareth College, Elmira College, SUNY Canton, SUNY Buffalo State.
Abigail Sinclair ’23
Davidson College
Jillian Clark ’23
Le Moyne College
Carter Day ’23
University of Montana, Colorado State University-Fort Collins, University of Colorado-Denver, SUNY Plattsburgh, Vermont State College- Castleton, University of Oregon, Colorado Mesa University, and Plymouth State University
Junyeop Lee ’23
Marquette University and Creighton University
James Schneid ’23
Clarkson University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Nikolas Trakakis ’23
University of Maine
Brian Bette ’23
St. Michael’s College
Lucca Campagnani ’23
Ohio Wesleyan University
Aiden Lasky ’23
SUNY Geneseo
Henry Thorton ’23
SUNY Oswego
Cole Bauman ’23
Nazareth College and Niagara University
Noah Leddel ’23
University of Denver
Bjorn Lervick ’23
St. Olaf College and Johnson & Whales University
Santiago Salame ’23
Creighton University, Bryant University
Kirk Nguyen ’23
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Adria Tebo ’23
University of New England
Rafael Borlido ’23
Clemson University
Pedro Gonzales ’23
Rochester Institute of Technology
Joey Winthrop ‘23
Skidmore College
Paige Melicant ’22
Miami University of Ohio
Peppi DelliQuadri ‘22
Temple University
Leah DeFilippo ’22
St. Michael’s College and University of Denver
Kannon Flageolle ’21
Suffolk University
Nathan Kirschenbaum ’21
Niagara University, Salve Regina University, and UMass Lowell
Brendan Merriman ’21
Norwich University, SUNY Geneseo, SUNY Oswego, Robert Morris University, St. Norbert College, Milwaukee School of Engineering, and Rochester Institute of Technology

 

Phone-a-Thon Connects Students, Alumni

Liz Creighton ’24 on the phone with Amelia Brady ’21 during the recent Ring the Bell alumni phone-a-thon. (Photo: Maisie Crane ’23)

Ring the Bell is one of the most significant events held annually at Northwood school, as it serves as a fundraiser for the annual fund. This fund helps pay for various experiences and activities that benefit Northwood students. By donating to the annual fund, individuals can provide Northwood students with more experiences and memories they will cherish forever.

In the weeks leading up to Ring the Bell, the advancement team, students, and faculty prepare for this important day of giving. The social media pages of Northwood are flooded with videos of students and faculty, reminding everyone about the upcoming event. Moreover, alums and people with connections to the school receive letters reminding them to contribute.

Jackson Smith ’23 (left) and Turner Jackson ’23 speak to alumni during the recent Ring the Bell alumni phone-a-thon. (Photo: Maisie Crane ’23)

On February 15th, the head of the annual fund, Thomas Broderick, or Brody, hosted a phone-a-thon at the Innovation Hub on Main Street. Five Northwood students from different cohorts, grades, and places came together to make calls, leave voicemails, and write emails to alumni, reminding them to donate to the annual fund on March 2nd.

Current ski racers were able to speak to graduated students. Liz Creighton ’24, a Northwood alpine skier, had the opportunity to call Amelia Brady ’21, an alpine skier currently attending the University of Virginia. Amelia stated that it was great to hear from a current student. She remembers her days at Northwood on Ring the Bell, working on the advancement council, connecting with alumni, and building connections. All student volunteers returned from the call-a-thon laughing about the funny conversations that lasted up to an hour with people who had graduated from Northwood many years ago. Thus, Ring the Bell raises money for the fund and brings back fond memories of Northwood school to people who may have forgotten the small things they experienced.

Izzy Boehm ’26 connects with alumni during the recent Ring the Bell alumni phone-a-thon. (Photo: Maisie Crane ’23)

On the day of Ring the Bell, all students during their English classes will bus to the hub and call and write an alum. Brody believes that bringing students into the school’s philanthropy process gives them access to connections and new life experiences for their future lives. This approach encourages students to realize the value of giving back to the community and building long-lasting relationships.

In summary, Ring the Bell is a day that represents the essence of Northwood School’s community. It brings students, faculty, and alumni together to support the annual fund, which helps students create memorable experiences that will last a lifetime. Additionally, it allows students to develop a sense of philanthropy, fostering their ability to make a difference in the world.

Click here to Ring the Bell for Northwood and show your support for the school’s continued success.

Humans of Northwood: Ms. Andrea Farrell

Originally born and raised in Lake Placid, Andrea Farrell grew up alpine skiing for NYSEF and exploring the Adirondack Park. Attending Middlebury college, she went to school with plans to attend medical school and become a doctor. But she had a change of heart and sought a different educational path. Ms. Farrell ended up graduating with a degree in environmental science with a focus on conservation biology. Within this degree, she grew comfortable teaching both math and science.

After Middlebury, Ms. Farrell moved to Tanzania for almost a year. She worked for the African Wildlife Foundation, a group focused principally on improving wildlife and the environment in Africa. Farrell returned to Lake Placid not intending to stay but got a job as a long-term substitute at the local public school. Shortly after, she worked full-time at another local private school, National Sports Academy or NSA. The school closed a few years later when Farrell taught a Northwood for one year.

Ms. Farrell and her husband Mike have three children: Charlie is 9, Peter is 7, and Katie is 5. Farrell returned to Northwood this fall after a nine-year hiatus from teaching when she raised her family and tutored local children in math. Now that her kids have grown a little older, Farrell is ready to get back into teaching.

Ms. Farrell teaches two sections of pre-calculus and is enjoying being back. She says the culture feels comfortable and familiar. She is getting to know the school again, as it has changed a lot since she last taught, and she hopes to continue working here for a long time.

She enjoys spending time in the region in her free time because her family is rooted here. She likes to run, swim, bike, and hike. She grew up skiing for NYSEF, so she spends her winter weekends on the slopes and at Mount VanHovenberg. She loves to travel domestically with her family. They have been all over the country. During the school’s January break, she plans to take her family to Costa Rica and explore and hopes to bring them back to Tanzini to reexplore her old home.

As told to Maisie Crane ’23. Photo provided.

Northwood Trustee Elected State Supreme Court Justice

Ms. Allison McGahay (photo provided).

Northwood School Trustee Allison McGahay was elected to the state Supreme Court in November, and she will be sworn in to serve a 14-year term next month. The New York State Supreme Court is the highest trial court in New York. It has general jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases and hears cases involving contracts, torts, real estate, and criminal offenses. The New York State Supreme Court is organized into four judicial departments, each of which is responsible for hearing cases in a particular geographic area of the state. McGahay received the most votes of the six candidates who ran for the three open seats. She is the first woman to win a State Supreme Court seat in the 4th Judicial District, which encompasses the Adirondacks.

McGahay is a Lake Placid local who lives in town with her husband, Bill, and two young children, Liam and Grace. She has been a lawyer for 17 years and graduated from Albany Law school. In 2020, she joined the Northwood School Board of Trustees, where she serves on the legal committee.

McGahay began her election bid in 2021 and campaigned all over the state for over a year. She spent her days visiting small Adirondack towns and the Albany region. In the Adirondacks, her yard signs were ubiquitous.

Her jurisdiction ranges from north of Albany to the Canadian border. Once sworn in, she will split her time between Lake Placid, Elizabethtown (the seat of Essex County), and Albany.

She is a dedicated attorney, mother, Trustee, and now State Supreme Court Justice!

Catching Up with CARE

Maisie Crane ’23 (left) and Sophia Schupp ’24 with gifts purchased for the North Elba Christmas Fund (photo provided).

CARE is Northwood’s community service club organized and led by students. It started in 1996 and has continued through the years. The club organizes small fundraisers within the school that are fun for Northwood students and that raise money for outside groups.

During Halloween and Valentine’s Day, we usually sell candy grams. Students can buy small bags of candy to send to peers, and the money raised is given to a cause determined at the time.

In December, the club goes to local clothing and toy stores to buy gifts for the North Elba Christmas Fund, an organization that provides clothes, blankets, and winter coats for people in town who don’t have the ability to buy them. We also helped one of Mrs. Van Slyke’s art classes make a blanket for an elder in a Lake Placid assisted living facility.

Pink the Rink is a long tradition that hasn’t been organized in a while. It is a hockey-style fundraiser where teams of 3 to 4 play in a bracket-style elimination championship and eventually win a prize. The proceeds are sent to the Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation.

Over the winter, we work towards more relaxing fundraisers for the community because it is stressful for everyone. So, we try to do bake sales and decorate the living room for the holidays.

As one of the few CARE leaders, I hope to get the Northwood Community more engaged with CARE and work on some more projects communally.

Many New Courses Offered 

Students started this school year with sixteen new course offerings. Some of the new classes replace courses that were eliminated, and a few new classes were designed by teachers. Every year Northwood alters the curriculum to accommodate students and teachers, and this year the school has the largest number of new course offerings in recent history.  

The school now offers apprenticeships, basically on-campus internship-like courses that give the student academic credit. Apprenticeships happen asynchronously outside the normal academic schedule. In one apprenticeship, dancers have the opportunity to work as dance instructors for young children in the local area. Two other apprenticeships include editor positions for The Mirror, the school’s newspaper, and Epitome, the school’s yearbook.  

A relatively new program at Northwood, introduced in 2020, is the English short courses. Juniors and seniors have the option to take short courses, which means every semester they are taking a different type of English that is based on certain themes. Two popular recurring short courses are “Shakespeare” and “Word to Essay.” This year, new short courses include “Voices of Environmental Justice in Literature” and “Gender and Representation in Literature,” which are both created and taught by Ms. Elliotte Lee made to teach and speak to students about real-world situations in literature. Other new short course titles include “Chronicles of Imperial Delusion: A Novel, a War Memoir, and a Hollywood Blockbuster” created and taught by Mr. Howard Runyon.  

More recently most independent schools around the country have been decreasing the number of APs in the school’s curriculum. This year Mr. John Spear decided to replace “AP Psychology,” a course he has taught at Northwood for over ten years, with “Psychology of Performance,” which introduces students to psychology through a thorough investigation into the way humans achieve optimal performance.  

“AP Environmental Science,” formerly taught by Ms. Kelly Carter, has been replaced by “Adirondack Sciences,” which was created by Ms. Marcy Fagan and Ms. Kelly Carter. The course is a hands-on study of the Adirondacks, exploring topics in geology, environmental science, ecology, biology, and life science.  

Three new offerings introduced and taught by Mr. Ben LeBlanc are “Principles of Engineering,” “Applied Physics,” and “Data Science.” The latter is a quantitative course that combines math and science.  

Two new elective courses include Introduction to the “Financial Markets,” taught by Mr. Jeff Miller who before Northwood had a distinguished career on Wall Street and brings a vast knowledge of investing. “Game Theory,” taught by Mr. Bob Emery is a new math offering.  

Finally, Northwood is also offering a modern languages program in conjunction with UC Scout, operated by the University of California, to offer level 4 and Advanced Placement in French and Spanish.  

Humans of Northwood: Finley Donahue ‘23

“I enjoy rock climbing and recreational skiing. Outside of school, I enjoy hiking, reading, hanging out with friends, and training (in the gym). I also participate in school groups such as Cheese Club, Sustainability Club, and Headmaster’s Council.

“I chose Northwood because of the better opportunities the school offers, which has proven to be true. My favorite things about the school are how nice and helpful the faculty are. The number of coco opportunities and the chance to meet all sorts of new people.

“Before I graduate from Northwood, I hope to finally attend a hockey game.

“Finally, a piece of advice I would have to offer rising seniors is to get the best grades you can. Senior year is important, but also make sure you keep a good lifelong friend group.”

As told to Maisie Crane ’23. Photo by Mr. Michael Aldridge.

A Class Without a Classroom Earns Credit in 48-Hours

Mr. Bobby O’Connor (left) with the students who took Northwood’s first 48-hour course (photo provided).

Northwood School now offers a unique educational experience that is unlike other classes in that it does not involve a classroom. The new 48-hour course was designed by Mr. Bobby O’Connor, the director of the Northwood Outing Club (NOC) in which students have an intense outdoor learning experience over two days. The idea came from Ms. Carmicheal and Bobby O’Connor. The course was made to expose more people to the outdoors and the Adirondack landscape that surrounds our school. Upon successfully completing the class, students receive a credit towards graduation and outstanding wilderness training.  

The basic structure of the course is that one weekend, on an early Saturday morning, a group of about 8 students backpack in the woods and set up camp for the night and hike the next day. The program is for anyone who wants to participate and so far, the school has run one 48-hour course and plans to run two more this year. Depending on the season. Here’s how the course is described in Northwood’s Course Catalog: 

The first trip that set out this year took place on October 15-16. The group hiked in through the South Meadow and camped at Marcy dam. The next morning, they set out and hiked Phelps Mountain, which is one of the Adirondack 46 high peaks with summits over 4,000 feet.  

The school and Mr. O’Connor also plan to offer a winter 48-hour course that will focus on back-country skiing and learning how to ski the slides. In the spring, O’Connor plans to bring a group of kids paddling/canoeing on the Saint Regis Lake.  

Lea Lambert ‘24 is a ski racer from Quebec who took the recent 48-hour course and had a super “great experience,” even though she says she “froze” at night. She said she had a lot of fun on the hike and the views were very beautiful.  

The following slide show contains images from the fall 2022 48-hour course. All photos are courtesy of NOC. 

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CARE Hopes to Continue Legacy of Service 

CARE is the longest-running active student club at Northwood. CARE is Northwood’s community service group. The club works on tying the outside community into Northwood. Often the group gathers small fundraisers within the school that benefits needy local organizations or causes. CARE also works to organize small fun events within the school. Some examples of CARE projects include food drives, candy grams, and Pink the Rink.  

I had the opportunity to interview longtime former CARE faculty advisor Mrs. Annie Edwards. She led the group for over 20 years. She helped oversee and create quite a few school-wide events organized for the students to participate in, and the money raised was given back to local and national charities. A few examples include Lee Denim Day, North Elba Christmas Fund, Fleece Blankets for Elders, Pink the Rink, Food Pantry, and Candy Grams.  

Lee Denim day is a day where students can donate a small amount of money to dress in jeans for the day, and the money goes to a cancer charity. Pink the Rink is an engaging hockey fundraiser where teams of about 4 students pay to compete in a 3-on-3 hockey tournament, which ended up raising about $4,000 dollars for breast cancer research. Candy Grams is more of a fun fundraiser where students can buy small candy bags or flowers to send to a friend around Halloween and Valentine’s Day, the proceeds for this don’t have distinct placement and each year go to different charities.  

The group is led by passionate hard-working high schoolers who work to engage the Northwood Community with a more global society. Past leaders have made great strides to improve the school community and this year Brian Brady ‘24 and I hope to carry on this legacy.  

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Headmaster’s Council Works to Improve School

The Headmaster’s Council is a group of about eleven returning students in the senior class. A unit selectively chosen by Head of School Mr. Michael Maher, in consultation with former students, administrators, and teachers, to ensure that it is a hardworking and diverse group of students working cohesively to make Northwood a more positive environment.  

The purpose of this group was introduced by Mr. Maher when he began in 2015, an idea he brought from previous schools he worked at. He thinks that to run a high functioning school it is important to have a group of students helping. They give honest insight into what is seen from their peers and their own perspectives, with the goal of helping the constant development of Northwood’s values.  

James Schneid ’23

Abby Sinclair ’23

The Mirror talked to a few people that work in this group and they had some interesting and different perspectives about the school, and how they believe it can be improved. Mr. Maher, the core leader of this council, uses this group to readjust the social dynamic of the school and to take charge of large responsibilities that we feel passionate about. Some current goals he mentioned that the group is working on: a safer environment where students can express themselves, reinforcing rules about a more respectful outlook of the beautiful building that we use, a smarter approach at the collision between athletics and academics, and some ways we can take better advantage of the surrounding areas, forests, and town our school is in.  

Abby Sinclair ’23, an independent from Long Island, said she wants a “good vibe” for the year. But she is also looking for a change in school dynamic and the way cohorts intermix. James Schneid ’23, a hockey player from Syracuse, is working to make a memorable senior year with his fellow classmates and is passionate about changing the meal plans at Northwood to better sustain athletes. It is important to make the Northwood community more inclusive and welcoming so that everyone is comfortable to be themselves. Hopefully, this strong group of seniors can work together to improve the already well-run institution that is Northwood School. 

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