Month: September 2026

Please stay tuned for more Week 6 updates from afternoon faculty and staff: they get verrrry busy toward the end of the summer!

Publishing (Christa Bell, Instructor)

Musical (Greg Stratton, Instructor)

Working each scene with lines now memorized. Working problems out of dance and songs and scenes.

Drawing (Shawna Nile Batchelor, Instructor)

Students continue wrapping up their drawings for the art show. A small team works on stage signs for the musical.

Critical Thinking 1 (Robert Markstrom, Instructor)

Here is the list of activities/games during the summer:

Stardew Valley, the board game.
Ticket to Ride
Anomia
Chess
Bloodborne
LEGO
– group scene creation
– bridge building
– blindfolded partner challenges
1. Builder blindfolded, caller can only use voice
2. Builder blindfolded, caller can only use touch.
Magic, the Gathering
Ingenious
Everdell
Twixt
Score Four
Various puzzles
Jigsaw puzzle race
Puzzle packet challenge
Contagion (the board game)
Pan Am
Blokus

M-F: Spent doing a game or activity.

Critical Thinking 2 (Robert Markstrom, Instructor)

Class is spent playing a wide variety of games.

Games:
– Score Four
– Twixt
– Risk
– Robo-Rally
– Lords of Waterdeep
– Magic the Gathering (using only common cards)
– LEGO (scene creation and bridge challenge)
– Axis and Allies
– Nightmare Chess
– Tile Chess
– Reef
– Machi Koro

Mixed Ensemble (Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)

This week we worked toward full run-throughs of each piece. Wayfaring Stranger and Chester were reasonably comfortable, but Spiritual Medley required a lot of attention to play each song with the transitionary sections. We did eventually have our first successful full run. We also received and began working on a student arrangement of a Navajo Song.

M-TH: Running full pieces, Working Toward full run of Spiritual Medley.
FR: Woodshedding on The Happiness Song.

Dorm Life (Kathy Barrios, Coordinator of Housing)

Herding cats!

Freshman (First Year) Classes:

Science 1 (Ryan Patin, Instructor)

Stay tuned!

Composition 1 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)

Stay tuned!

Humanities 1  (Chris Hebert, Instructor)

And with the close of Week 6, we finished “Julius Cesar” by Shakespeare. The Gifties loved it. I also brought Plato back into the conversation. Plato’s definition of justice is that we are all born to fill a need, and if we don’t carry out our designated action, it throws society for a loop. So I asked what characters did not fulfill Plato’s definition? They came up with three (and rightly so): 1) Cassius—he was smart enough to know others had more than him, so he envied and sought to take it for himself; 2) Cesar and his ambition, because by this time, Rome hadn’t had a king in centuries, and now Cesar was ambitious for the crown; and 3) Brutus. Dear Brutus. Brutus was beloved by Cesar as a friend, a brother even. Brutus’ killing blow to Cesar is the stroke that showed he was a traitor.

Monday-Friday: Shakespeare

Sophomore Classes:

Science 2 (Ryan Patin, Instructor)

Stay tuned!

Composition 2 (Ryan Abshire, Instructor)

Stay tuned!

Humanities 2 (Chris Hebert, Instructor)

With “Antigone” being completed, we examined how the ideas of Utopia and dystopia have influenced culture. We listened to Holst’s “Mars” and its link to the “Imperial March” of Star Wars. We watched General Hux’s speech from “The Force Awakens” and how that imagery conjures images of modern history. We looked at how dictators target specific areas of life and culture to rise to power and how we can counteract that rise in the tide if we see it. I left the Gifties with this thought: as a species, we are flawed. But we are capable of such beauty and love and kindness, and that’s what pushes us forward, to hope for and to fight for a better tomorrow.

Monday-Friday: Philosophy

Senior and Grad (Third & Fourth Year) Classes:

English (Jack Vanchiere, Instructor)

This week we are working to finalize our semester project. We met each day in the library this week, in order for the students to have access to computers. Early in the week, we worked on finishing rough drafts. Most of our days consisted of typing and revising our creative works. Those of us working on mixed media projects have been busy writing musical accompaniment for our poetry, building three dimensional models of our “infinite” poems, and coding for a software accompaniment. The students are also working on their critical essays, wherein they explain the creative choices made in their projects, whilst building a body of logic and reason that explain how and why the form and the function of the work interact, overlap, or hide from each other.

Monday, we worked in the library to finish rough drafts of our poems. Students and I would work one on one, or in small groups, towards a better conceptual understanding of the project, and how to support our creative decisions with critical thought. A few small tears shed.

Tuesday-Thursday, continued work in library towards a Rough-Final draft

Friday: Final library day to fine tune our projects, clear up critical essay questions, and prepare for submission.

History (Carson Savoie, Instructor)

Stay tuned!

International Relations (Joshua Brown, Instructor)

Stay tuned!

Musically Gifted (MG)

Music Theory, History, & Practice (Brandon LaFleur, Instructor)

This week we discussed Milton Babbitt’s famous essay “The Composer as Specialist”, provocatively retitled “Who Cares if You Listen?”. We discussed 7th chords, practiced part-writing, voice leading, RN analysis, and the aesthetic practices of the 20th century. We discussed the mosaic of styles developed in the 20th century, the dissolution of a singular prevailing musical idiom, and listened to thought provoking Avant-Garde pieces by Ligeti, Penderecki, Reich, Cage, and Babbitt. We ended the week with an extended Q/A on any musical topics selected by the students.

M: “Who Cares if You Listen?”
T-W: 7th chords, triads, RN analysis, figured bass realization
TH: 20th Century Music History and Styles
F: Extended Practice Day