![IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Junior Zalie Mann performs “I Love to Cry at Weddings,” an ensemble piece from the fall musical Sweet Charity, to prospective students during the Fine Arts Showcase on Wednesday, Nov. 8. The showcase is a compilation of performances and demonstrations from each fine arts strand offered at McCallum. This show is put on so that prospective students can see if they are interested in joining an academy or major.
Sweet Charity originally ran the weekends of Sept. 28 and Oct. 8, but made a comeback for the Fine Arts Showcase.
“[Being at the front in the spotlight] is my favorite part of the whole dance, so I was super happy to be on stage performing and smiling at the audience,” Mann said.
Mann performed in both the musical theatre performance and dance excerpt “Ethereal,” a contemporary piece choreographed by the new dance director Terrance Carson, in the showcase. With also being a dance ambassador, Mann got to talk about what MAC dance is, her experience and answer any questions the aspiring arts majors and their parents may have.
Caption by Maya Tackett.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/53321803427_47cd17fe70_o-1-1200x800.jpg)
![SPREADING THE JOY: Sophomore Chim Becker poses with sophomores Cozbi Sims and Lou Davidson while manning a table at the Hispanic Heritage treat day during lunch of Sept 28. Becker is a part of the students of color alliance, who put together the activity to raise money for their club.
“It [the stand] was really fun because McCallum has a lot of latino kids,” Becker said. “And I think it was nice that I could share the stuff that I usually just have at home with people who have never tried it before.”
Becker recognizes the importance of celebrating Hispanic heritage at Mac.
“I think its important to celebrate,” Becker said. “Because our culture is awesome and super cool, and everybody should be able to learn about other cultures of the world.”
Caption by JoJo Barnard.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/53221601352_4127a81c41_o-1200x675.jpg)
Check out the mutlimedia piece above to read about the school’s pandemic response from Feb-May 2020.
No manual exists for navigating a school through a deadly pandemic, but Masters’ Chief Financial Officer Ed Biddle drew from the next best resource – a comprehensive report analyzing the effects of the 2008-2009 recession on independent schools across the nation. After school shut down unexpectedly last March, Biddle quickly called up the author of the study, Jim Pugh, whose 12 takeaways from the last major economic crisis have guided Masters’ response to the virus since it arrived in New York a year ago.
While Biddle said the most difficult part about the early stages of the pandemic was staying calm, he harnessed Pugh’s advice, upholding optimism and a collaborative approach through a period of induced isolation and uncertainty.
Biddle said, “The role of a CFO at a school is to help inform the financial decision making by the leadership team and the board. People will look to me to see if we’re going to be okay. I don’t answer, ‘Yes, we’re going to be okay, but–’ I say, ‘We’re going to be okay, and–’”
That “and” included a series of crucial steps in the early stages of the pandemic that impacted the school’s ability to adhere to its top fiscal priority – supporting the educational program.
Based on data from Pugh’s study of independent schools during the recession, Biddle said he needed to prepare the school for lower contributions from donors, lower enrollment and higher costs.
“We had no idea what our expenses were going to look like, but we knew they were going to be higher,” he said. “And we anticipated that our revenues would be lower due to lack of fundraising and potentially due to enrollment, because in prior recessions people who are in a position to pay for private school have actually not enrolled their kids in private school, but kept them in public school.”
Continued in multimedia piece…
This story was originally published on Tower on March 15, 2021.
