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A “tough contest” is how English faculty member Lisa Baker describes the Bennington College Young Writers Award. But Letitia Chan’s (II) stood out in over 2,000 entries and she was awarded the first place poetry prize, a tremendous accomplishment.

Her poems cover topics such as a distant relationship between a mother and daughter to a grandfather who favors men over women, but only has granddaughters. “Most of my writing is only partly autobiographical. Often it is a version of something or an experience I took inspiration from,” says Letitia. She gives credit to Ms. Baker’s Advanced Creative Writing class and the workshop style of the classes where students receive “amazing feedback” on their work.

Letitia’s work was also recognized in another national contest, the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest, where she earned a runner-up award.

A young poet in terms of national student prize-winners, Andrew Chan (III) received a Silver Medal in the national Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for his poem “Falling Asleep.” “I was pleasantly surprised when I won. It was my first swing at poetry in Creative Writing class. I have to thank Ms. Baker and the class for the guidance and feedback that shaped the poem as it is.”

Starting with a series of Instagram videos featuring a grim industrial kitchen and some seemingly random letters, Class III students embarked on a mission to solve a complex puzzle Wednesday morning. From that point, they solved equations and a riddle, and unlocked a code with instructions for completion, ultimately ending with some prizes from Trapology Boston, whose co-founder, Nicole Chan, visited Class III as the math department’s invited speaker. As the different pieces of the puzzle fell into place, small groups of students raced down the bleachers in the Fitzgibbons Convocation Center to receive their next hint from Ms. Chan and her colleague, Karen Eng.

A corporate attorney turned social entrepreneur, Conor French ’99 is the CEO of Indego Africa—a nonprofit enterprise that partners with cooperatives of nearly 500 female artisans in Rwanda and Ghana. Indego Africa tries to break cycles of poverty by providing women with the tools and support to flourish as independent businesswomen and drive development in their communities.

Indego Africa supports its artisan partners by exporting, marketing, and selling their products—clothing, jewelry, accessories, home décor—online and to retailers like J.Crew and Nicole Miller. Indego Africa pools profits from sales, donations and grant support to fund training in business management, entrepreneurship, technology and literacy for its artisan partners.

“You can make a difference. You may not know what that is today, but keep your ears open as you’re learning, as you’re growing, to how you can make an impact,” Dr. Emily Reichert told students Wednesday morning. Dr. Reichert is CEO of Greentown Labs, a clean technology startup incubator. She encouraged students to think about the environmental problems facing the world today—climate change, energy deficiencies, water scarcity, deforestation, waste management—and the actions they can take to solve them.

“Going on project,” is a familiar 91̽�� term; it refers to Class I students beginning their long-awaited “Senior Project” at the start of May. Senior Projects are a 91̽�� tradition dating back to the 1960s, and they’ve evolved over the decades. The projects that seniors undertake today fit within four categories: scholarly or academic; community service; internships; and the arts. The procedural hoops to set up a project begin during early winter when students who are interested submit their ideas and plans. They must recruit a member of the faculty or staff as a project advisor, and a committee of faculty decides whether the project meets certain criteria and can be approved, or needs amendment. The faculty committee looks at the size of the group, how the students plan to divide the work, how many hours each week they’re likely to spend on their plan, and why they’re interested in this particular project.

“If you’re tempted to disengage from politics as a result of this surrealist campaign, don’t” students heard this morning from John Avlon ’91, editor in chief of The Daily Beast and a CNN political analyst. Ceding political debate to “hyper-partisans” is partly to blame for the highly polarized state of Congress and political campaigns right now, he explained. John Avlon launched Seminar Day 2016 as the Sally Bowles ’56 Keynote Speaker. John has long advocated for the power and importance of political centrism, a level of discourse that has before and can again generate real progress in the United States. He has written Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics as well as Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America. Earlier in his career John was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun, and a chief speechwriter for New York Mayor Rudolph Guliani. He won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ award for best online column in 2012. Avlon has appeared on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, “Real Time” with Bill Maher, PBS, and C-Span.

Keeping up with current events is a must for 91̽��’s Daneis League Debate Team members. The team is a “small but mighty group,” says faculty advisor Susan Marianelli. This year’s team—which includes 20 students—had great success in recent league tournaments.

The Daneis League is made up of independent schools from across New England. Students compete in parliamentary-style debate on Sundays throughout the year. 91̽�� 30 teams compete in each division at each tournament; team members typically compete as pairs in either the novice or varsity division.

Romain Speciel (III) and Ben Pratt (IV)—both new to the team this year—competed as a pair this season. “Team practices helped us understand not only the structure and strategies of debate, but also the delicate techniques that can mean the difference between winning and losing,” says Romain.

In their first tournament at Andover, the pair took second place in the novice division, and Romain earned third as individual speaker.