//PICTURED ABOVE: New Board Chairs and presidents buckle up for a new school year.

Academics Board: Lucy Young, the new Academics Board Chair, crunches the numbers for a successful 2019-2020 year. She hopes to reach out to the Hockaday community and bring students together. This year, Young plans on continuing the successful events Academic Council hosts — including Junior Research Paper panel, Hockatalks, and movie screenings to promote academic discourse. In addition, she aims to be a more sustainable, “green” board by reusable utensils in events. “Instead of using plastic plates for pizza, we could bring some plates over from the cafeteria,” Young said.

Athletic Board: New Athletic Board Chair, Margaret Woodberry, pumps up the crowd for an upcoming school year. She hopes that the Athletic Board will spread school spirit and increase the attendance at both home and away sporting events. Woodberry also wants pep-rallies to instill more school spirit across the entire student body. “I think that I will be able to reach out to the rest of the Hockaday community by overlapping more with other boards,” Woodberry said. For example, she is thinking about a possible Big Sis/Lil Sis kickball game with Student Relations Board.

Community Service Board: Gina Miele, new Community Service Board Chair, serves up the exciting ideas for next year. Miele is striving to revitalize a love for community service in the Upper School. “It just takes one positive experience with a service program to change an individual’s perspective about the transformative role service can play in her life,” Miele said. She believes that sharing meaningful and personal experiences involving service is the best way to spread the love and appreciation of community service. Miele promises to carry on the Community Service videos that will summarize the impact that the Upper School has on the Dallas community. “I would love to change how people perceive community service – not as a requirement, but a privilege,” Miele said.

Convocations Board: Ines Guevara, new Convocations Board Chair, uses her assembly-ready voice to welcome her new board members. Guevara hopes that her board will be more interactive with the student body. She is working on creating assemblies that reflect what people want to see. In addition, Guevara plans to verbalize her board’s message at assemblies, for it is one of the only times that the entire Upper School is together. “I want to make sure people can easily access the board and feel like they can share their opinions on what they want assemblies to be,” Guevara said.

Fine Arts Board: Lily Forbes is going to break a leg as the new Fine Art Board Chair. She wants to increase the student outreach of the board. “There are so many people [at Hockaday] who are interested in more than just their fine art, and I want to create more opportunities for exposure across disciplines, ” Forbes said. She aims to make coffeehouses a more diverse experience in terms of performances and displays. Furthermore, as the new chair, she is planning more workshops where students can learn from the other students in different fine arts. Her goal is to create and offer opportunities that interest a vast majority of the school to get as many people involved in arts as possible. “It’s really important to me that there is more collaboration between all art forms this year,” Forbes said.

Honor Council: Mary Gum raises the gavel as the new Honor Council President. Her goal is to make the Honor Council a resource for the student body. “We are a council that is meant to educate and help the student body follow our Honor Code,” Gum said. Honor Council has added a border student to the council to represent the boarding community. “The reason the council is made up of so many students is that we can relate and understand what the student is going through when a violation has occurred,” Gum said. She aims to continue the new tradition of honor week to educate the teachers and students alike about the honor code. In addition, the Honor Council has an email where students are encouraged to send questions, comments or concerns. “This year, I want to help people realize that you don’t have to violate the Honor Code to be influenced by the council,” Gum said.

House Council: Annalise Ashman, new House Council President, preps the Residence Department for another exciting year. Her vision for this year’s House Council is to foster a strong sense of community within Boarding. “Because we are such a small community, I think that there can be immense power in intimacy and truly getting to know each other,” Ashman said. She believes that being able to learn and grow with each other will provide the girls with a memorable experience of Boarding and lifelong friendships. While a typical goal for House Council is to unite boarding and day students, the primary goal for next year is bonding as a Boarding community. “I strongly believe that if we can work to improve internally then we will be able to have a stronger presence in the general Hockaday community,” Ashman said. As a member of both House and Student Council, Ashman will represent boarding’s best interests. “Through internal improvements and bridges between Upper School and Boarding, I am confident that this year’s House Council will be able to reach out to the rest of community while helping to make Boarding a happier place,” Ashman concluded.  

Student Diversity Board: Richa Kapoor, new Student Diversity Board (SDB) Chair, prepares to make changes for the better. She hopes to make SDB more accessible to the Upper School students by making forums and other events more inviting. She wishes to strengthen the ties with the boarding department, as well as with other parts of the school that do not always hear about SDB’s activities. “I hope to implement the idea of community within the board and within the upper school students this year,” Kapoor said.

Student Relations Board: Casey Freeman, new Student Relations Board Chair, relates to the upper school students to create a fantastic year. Freeman’s goal is to work with the student body and her board to come up with new, exciting events for Big Sis/Lil Sis program as well as Form Points. She plans on doing this by reaching out to the community for fun ideas and activities to earn Form Points throughout the year. “I want to add new games that include all of the upper school students and faculty,” Freeman said.

Technology Board Chair: Maisy Crow gets ready to print out a great year as the new Technology Board Chair. Crow wishes to establish a better line of communication between the technology department and the student body. She wants to  She wants to establish a better line of communication by possibly creating a tech-board email address that would, alerting the board of any problems. Furthermore, Crow wants to spend time teaching the student body the ins-and-outs of using technology in this modern age. “I am hoping to get the board more involved in day-to-day technological problems at school, and solve them,” Crow said.

Story and photo by Kate Clark