An international panel of leading doctors, people with PhDs, online influencers who don’t have PhDs, historians, and so-called “almond moms” announced this week that Western civilization will reach the “best day ever” starting at 11:11 A.M. Friday.
“From the data I got staring at the sun yesterday to analyzing the fluctuations in gravitational constants to creating a database of all the alpha wave music I found on YouTube to today’s top-grossing movies featuring naked world leaders, I have discovered there is a shared milestone in each of these activities, festering into one exact moment in time,” said MIT graduate student Robert Dukie, who is completing his PhD at the Best Lab, which focuses on evaluating the psychoanalytical and philosophical considerations of computational geologic dating.
He gestures towards a nearby line graph illustrating Western society’s highs and lows. He draws a circle at one peak using a fat red Sharpie. “We’ve been charting this scientific and cultural ascent for generations now, from the creation of sliced bread to the first monkey in space, to the graffiti we’ve scanned in bathroom stalls at 18092 different public high schools. Everything has been leading up to this Friday.”
According to this unlikely group of panelists, the first miracle of “Best Day Ever” will occur at 11:11 a.m., when an Uber Eats driver will enter NCSSM-Durham’s PEC, believing the school to be a lackluster cubist prison, and, not finding what he is looking for, ask where “the freaking ‘brain’ lobby is supposed to be.”
The man, dressed in Crocs and blue overalls and determined by researchers to be the first catalyst in humanity’s epic beginning of a new era, will then be met with a $5000 tip from a certain Greenville-native, who will pop up from the bushes.
“This awesome day has been a long time coming,” said researcher Jamie Olivier, before picking up a hot pink marker and, seemingly without thought or intent, drawing an enormous, stupid-looking smiley face on his clipboard. “And by the looks of things, this will be our reaction.”
Some social media influencers believe the coming cultural pinnacle–the most intellectually and spiritually upgrading moment conceivable by science or philosophy–will signal the start of a healthier and less indecisive lifestyle. Many celebrated by filming 6-hour long TikToks (separated into multiple parts) and talking into microphones about every other time they did “something good for myself.”
“I’m just taking care of myself until that day,” said self-identified “carnivore” Miley Raymonds, mom of four, tearing out a hunk of what looked to be a skinned squirrel with her teeth. “God knows I trust those ‘see-in-tists’ completely. Our budget’s been constrained to the point we’ve had to scavenge for roadkill, and my little meat-eaters cannot be living on protein-less spinach and greens and less-than-quality red meat.”
Despite the panel’s findings, many are skeptical that humanity will see a new change on Friday, claiming that good things in life are only rewarded to those who act. The same terrible things happening in the world are likely to continue as egg prices rise to $1000 per carton and ICE becomes SHICE, now committed to deporting all people with small hands, which are of course “un-manly” and “un-American.”
A super confidential investigative report into the disappearance of the Instagram account, NCSSM Uranus, which erased their carbon footprint with just one conveniently-placed “delete account” button, was created for the purpose of being rivals with The Stentorian. According to third-party investigator Shrew D. Dodgers, the account was run by one man who claimed his application was rejected by the editorial board. As the editorial board, we have no recollection of this man because he simply did not submit the application in time. He was recently found in the corner of the PFM, building a makeshift newspaper box using an amalgamation of scrapped 3D-printed parts and frozen earthworms as glue, for the latest issue of Uranus.
“Idiot. Only live earthworms are sticky enough to use as glue.” – Jesus Berthardt, Box Engineer
“Look, I’ve been saying it for a long time, I know it, everybody knows it, this man is bad news. Bad. Terrible guy. Very mean.” – Donald Grump, Communications Specialist
“He was funny until he spelled my name wrong.” – Dominiquq ASdjlajm\\,a, Email Spellchecker
Note: This is the center spread for the February 2025 issue, designed by editor-in-chief Teresa Fang.
AROUND THE WORLD. This past January, NCSSM students and faculty traveled all over the world to explore new places, form relationships across campuses, and learn about different environments. Our JTerm experiences were worth reminiscing about, so here is a brief snapshot of the geographical reach our community ventured to.
Dr. Lichtman presented his thoughts on STEM education and his research at the Harvard Northwest Building on February 14. (Teresa Fang/The Stentorian)
By Teresa Fang, Stentorian Editor-in-Chief
Two weeks ago, Dr. Jeff Lichtman, Dean of Science at Harvard University, began his research talk with five claims, each answering the specific question, “What is school for?” Together, the five claims expanded on education in the 21st century, stemming from a variety of philosophical considerations throughout his 50 years of teaching.
If you consider that almost everyone in the world (or at least, in this country) has access to a phone, “nearly all knowledge is at one’s fingertips,” which is the first claim Lichtman makes. I agree. I also agree with his fourth point, on behalf of educators: “The peril of education in the information age: because of the glut of information, professors are necessarily teaching an ever-smaller proportion of the extant data.” But the fifth point raises a series of questions as Lichtman questions the ways in which educators “fail” their students. Of these five claims, as someone who cherishes the value of education, I was curiously intrigued by his thoughts.
Rather than dissect his claims, I would like to summarize his argument, which he does himself quite nicely:
“First, irrelevancy. The subjects we [educators] teach are irrelevant to your ultimate career plans. For example, in medical school, you don’t use calculus. A doctor uses 0% of the calculus knowledge they learned in school.”
After presenting his points, Dr. Lichtman asked the audience of high school student researchers if they disagreed with anything he said. I was already responding to his points mentally, so I took the first microphone immediately. “Why is that a failure?” I asked. When I emphasize the importance of school, like Dr. Lichtman, many people echo similar claims that most of what you learn in school will not be applicable in the real world or that they will forget nearly everything they once learned. But I say the answer depends on what type of learning we’re referring to: the type on the whiteboard or the type beyond the whiteboard.
“Second, prematurity. When the courses are relevant, we [educators] hardly explain why they are, so you can’t focus on what is important as it is presented long before you might use this material, maybe 5-10 years later.”
I might not remember that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 in twenty years when I’m trying to interview people for a job hiring. But I will definitely remember a friend saying, “you should design the poster art because you’re good at art, and I’ll write the content in the meantime.” I learned that designating tasks to an appropriate individual with the perfect skillsets will finish our task faster so we can finally eat our meals during lunch break.
You may forget the curriculum, but you won’t forget the experience. Learning to judge one’s ability to fulfill certain responsibilities and justifying your selection are examples of knowledge that do matter. Perhaps, these are skills you might need that separate you from a good candidate for your dream job versus the ideal candidate for the responsibilities of the job.
“Third, preoccupation with the right answer. Perhaps the most important failure is that the whole science enterprise [sic] is just a continuation of the secondary school preoccupation getting the correct answer on exams, problem sets, and homework assignments. Regurgitating an expected answer has little to do with the real world, where the ‘right’ answer is unknown.”
Besides calling the entire occupation of researching science an “enterprise” (throwback to my previous piece on ncssm.edu’s misrepresented marketing of students) as if the sole purpose of research is to generate economic value, I think the preoccupation with the “right” answer is a universal failure that permeates through all subjects, not just in STEM. We endure numerous “irrelevant” courses in history, English, physics, and math, not because we intend to become an academic jack-of-all-trades (go on, make your snarky “erm, actually”s), but to develop our method of thinking and reasoning. Will I ever need to prove the Pythagorean theorem using geometry postulates when I’m in my late-30’s? No. But will I ever need to make a claim, learn how to support it with evidentiary facts, and arrive at a logical conclusion? Yes. I think me writing this article proves that I can.
Thus, school is for teaching you how to think. Not what to think, but how to think. You are getting your critical thinking in, your collaboration skills, and most importantly, the connections you might need later in life, aka your support system or your potential business partners. Indeed, you could think of this column as the sequel to my article“Settling the debate between STEM and the humanities.” Do I wish that more people were aware that “Frankenstein” is more than just a classic Victorian novel but a commentary on Marxism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and much more? Or that Emerson and Thoreau are two completely different people camping around the same pond? Of course, I’d love if America’s level of general knowledge of literature, and social studies, or just being more news-savvy about the world was more proficient, but I do not think that it is equivalent to trashing the entire education system.
“Last but not least, the fear of failure. Solving a problem often requires showing all reasonable ideas fail. Failure is a necessary part of finding a solution.”
School is not a promise of success and prosperity, but I do think that Dr. Lichtman and others are approaching school with misjudged expectations. He makes many sound and fair points, and undeniably, it’s important that students learn the curriculums they are taught in the classroom. But they shouldn’t walk away with report cards and memorized flashcards. They should be walking away with new and improved models of thinking and an arsenal of approaches for the real, structure-less world.
It’s undeniable that the quality of our education system, federally and at NCSSM, is flawed. Nonetheless, there is still value in it. But if you measure the value of school based on test scores and grades, then I suppose you really didn’t understand the assignment.
The name “eating disorders” (EDs) may seem straightforward, but they are one of the most misunderstood conditions. The rise of attractive, accessible social media has exposed mass populations to messages conflating the ideas of body image and health. EDs impact a broad spectrum of the population and for many different reasons and ways, making recovery complex; 1 in 11 Americans—or 28.8 million people—will develop an ED in their lifetime. For young people, 13 percent of adolescents will develop an ED by the age of 20.
Today, a general distrust of mainstream media outlets has led the public to flock to other reliable sources, leading medical sites to skyrocket in popularity and engagement. Modern readers are obsessed with personal image, and sites have adjusted and seen a drastic rise in health facts and biomedical communication. The seriousness of possible actions and repercussions has pushed objective data-driven information to subjective opinion-based suggestions, vulnerable to dishonest and dangerous arrangements to lead to misinformation, fearmongering, and competition. Thus, it is paramount that the general public becomes aware of the avenues of language a science communication piece possesses over their subjects and readers, especially with a topic so universal and nuanced yet often overlooked as eating disorders.
Language by the writer
To have a context for the ethical intricacy of biomedical communication when it comes to EDs, we must first look at the basic information available to the general public on the Internet. A quick Google of one of the most prevalent eating disorders, anorexia (even so, “anorexia” is an umbrella term for other EDs), will take us to the first search result by Mayo Clinic.
Like many informational websites, this article starts with an overview of the subject but its language regresses on the verge of being a piece of scientific writing versus giving directions as if it is the widely-accepted truth. A growing subjective language used to describe anorexia, which still is a widely-debated topic to be categorized medically, effectively freezes the process of teaching anorexia to telling readers how to see anorexics, disqualifying the root issue as how to deal with the aftermath rather than deal with how anorexia is borne in the minds of anorexics in the first place. The writers of Mayo Clinic unconsciously adopt this false essentialization of all anorexics as people who have no self-control, have unrealistic perceptions of life, have fatphobia, and starve themselves for personal validation of their self-worth.
This is not to casually accuse Mayo Clinic of scientific misrepresentation. They are among the world’s largest and most influential medical nonprofits, rated as the No. 1 hospital in the world for the past six years in the global hospital rating. In the organization’s mission and values statement, Mayo Clinic claimed that its vision is “transforming medicine to connect and cure as the global authority in the care of serious or complex disease” (Mayo Clinic); they view success as the paradigm of scientific progress and social compassion, a representation of their patients by collaboration so close to their patients the doctors can be called patients themselves.
Interpretations by the reader
As seen in Figure 1, a person with anorexia may interpret the language as hypocritical or as further justification to continue their starvation behaviors to be “better” or thinner than other anorexics for more societal attention and praise. With this article and that of other biomedical communication writers from organizations such as the National Eating Disorders Association and Healthline, the lines between objectiveness and subjectiveness are easily blurred.
At the same time, these texts gain traction on the Internet because of their authority and wide acceptance. Articles by lesser-known professionals and experts are often buried underneath higher-standing ethos, albeit they may provide the same information about eating disorders but at a level easier to digest and understand for both general audiences and people with EDs, like citizen science.
In a 2022 blog post on Octave, a mental health care provider-based company, author TJ Mocci explains why EDs are difficult to understand, along with suggestions on how to support people struggling with an ED. The ethos of the writer as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the logos of the broad but niche language become a powerfully visceral tool for the blog in promoting understanding in a non-triggering way; the use of targetted facts and statistics are reminiscent of active listening strategies that make an effort to understand what the other person is trying to communicate, making them feel less alone.
In regards to research articles that describe the latest updates/breakthroughs in producing medical cures for EDs, many articles are sourced from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision, which places the majority of the symptoms of each ED on physical symptoms, remaining vague in its behavioral ones, to categorize patients. Mocci utilizes careful wording, like pronouns, and lists “common signs,” not “symptoms,” of an eating disorder to inform readers how to be good allies/supporters. These are mostly behavioral, which is less emotionally/psychologically triggering and less likely to appeal as a fairy tale weight loss story. Intentional language can address readers directly and allows for a reader with an ED to gain sympathy for third parties, who may or may not also have EDs, which in turn allows them to gain sympathy for themselves.
Misinterpretations
As with any piece of writing, it is impossible to avoid misinterpretations, but the writer must be especially careful when consciously choosing language and interpretation to teach science because their work is dependent upon honesty. Some articles can fulfill both obligations; Mocci’s Octave blog can both inform and generate sympathy. This article promotes a pragmatic way for individuals, families, and communities to help people with EDs recover fundamentally. Other articles may disregard language and interpretation to get their information across. The growing demand to get immediate answers at its extremes has altered people’s perceptions of honesty. Technology has superseded honesty to dangerous trust. Now, more than ever, biomedical communication must be aware of the nature of this ethic.
An excerpt of Mayo Clinic’s article on Anorexia nervosa (Mayo Clinic, 2018) with annotations by a person with anorexia (Anna Tringale).
Students volunteer with staff at the NCSSM Mailroom. (Denise Burgette)
By Teresa Fang, Stentorian Editor-in-Chief
Service Learning coordinator Sue Anne Lewis and Mailroom staff organize a successful Western NC Supply Drive, thanks to students who have donated and volunteered to pack supplies and teachers including Ms. Gabriela Stefan who took shifts supervising the truck.
The truck, a 40-foot long container on wheels, was driven to Western North Carolina by Director of Residential Education and Housing Michael Newbauer on Friday morning. This supply drive was born out of a way for NCSSM to “support our community and neighbors in need” and “send as many supplies as possible to Western NC,” Lewis wrote in a October 2 email.
From October 2-12, items were donated to the drive via dropping them off directly at the truck in the Bryan parking lot or shipped as packages directly to the Mailroom. More than 120 students signed up to help pack those items in cardboard boxes, labeled, then carried to the truck, contributing more than 400 total hours.
“We repacked them to make sure baby bottles, baby formula, and the like, all went in a box and we labeled it. Batteries, first-aid kids, medicine, feminine products, stuff like that.” said Mailroom Manager Denise Burgette. “We had a lot of those. So we just took them all. The students that came over were just totally amazing.”
During our chat, she gave me a tour of the Mailroom storage, where she showed me a box of white shipping labels ripped off from packages. She says that Lewis plans to have some students write thank you notes to the senders.
“Within two hours, we had 372 Amazon packages.” Burgette said, describing the scene in the Mailroom on October 14. “They couldn’t fit on the shelf so we had them lined up on the dock, and there were extra tables for the students to work, breaking down packages and everything.”
In addition to just holding the supply drive, NCSSM partnered with local Durham business Lee’s 24-Hour Towing to bring a “Stuff the Truck” semitrailer at the parking lot at Club Boulevard and Broad Street. Students were also encouraged to sign a large “NCSSM <3 Western NC” poster in the Bryan lobby and share images on social media promoting the supply drives.
In this fantasy, it’s the last day before winter break, and she’s placing her foot in the optimal position to spring up from her seat and be the first one out the door. Her eyes — always big and round and beautiful — reflect the words coming out of her mouth. It echoes what the crowd is saying, let’s go to the beach!
In this fantasy, I can’t get through an afternoon drive without remembering all the things I’ve read on the billboards and graffiti on the road signs. Photographic memory. I look forward to getting home, full of the strangers who say “God bless you” on their cardboard signs at traffic signals and disappear into thin air on hot days because they’ve all appeared in our house. She’s watching on TV the latest updates of the barrier wall around New York City, and we giggle because it looks like a scene from that anime with the titans.
In this one, the ground trembles and that’s the signal that another glacier has been dethroned, and she looks at me with fear and confusion; I meet her with the same. We must check on our sand castles before the sea swallows them forever.
In this one, we catch picnics at the park in the windows between droughts and tornadoes so that we don’t mess up counting the millions of freckles on our faces. She takes out the vegetarian sandwiches for us to eat, and I wrinkle my nose to protest as if my bloodline has never eaten vegetables before. They’re wrapped in yellow paper, but under this sun it looks black.
In this fantasy, water tastes like smoke. We live up in mountains and underground like moles, and racism doesn’t exist because we’re all red from the freezing cold or the bitter heat. I tell her I’m dying.
—–
We live in extraordinary times for the understanding of science. Before January 2024, I thought I was strictly a humanities student—I was content writing about how humans interact with the environment rather than conducting climate research myself. But as I dug deeper, I realized thatlearning about a problem was just as important as being part of the solution. And, if it’s possible to be the solution, I’d rather be the solution. So, in January 2024, I also became a STEM student, creating a climate model to predict sea level rise to help coastal communities.
Global climate models (GCMs) are continually created or updated in the scientific world. These models are tuned and validated using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). These scenarios predict climate behavior based on projections of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, atmospheric concentrations, air pollutant emissions, and land use. The IPCC has ruled these scenarios for all countries from the most to the least predicted GHG emissions: RCP8.5, RCP6.0, RCP4.5, and RCP2.6.
Where are we now? In 2022, the IPCC released a report based on 14,000 scientific papers from over 300 authors, stating that Earth’s temperature will reach the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius within 20 years. This report is described by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres as an “atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.” As of 2024, we are following the highest prediction pathway: RCP8.5. This predicts that by 2081-2100, temperatures will increase by 3.7 degrees Celsius, global sea levels will rise by 0.63 meters, and extreme weather will greatly increase.
I won’t overwhelm you with more numbers; you can read about them in news articles and reports. You’ve likely already heard about rising sea levels, climate protests, and species extinction due to global warming and deforestation.
Perhaps you believe every update, every statistic, and every quote you read., And, when you open the weather app on your phone and see a week of rain or above 90° temperatures, you may even shed one or two tears for our poor planet.
Or you may have attitude. It’s just the same thing every day! I get it!
Or maybe you’ll join the climate protesters for a bit. Stop cutting down our trees! Or you’ll join the counter-protest. Extremely Mad Scientist! It’s So Severe, The Nerds Are Here!
Then we’ll go back to living our lives.
Historically, climate research has been met with skepticism and denialism. When the journal Science published a letter signed by 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences in May 2010, it began with, “We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything.”
But political exposure twists the interpretation:
2011. Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. “We don’t know what’s causing climate change, and the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try and reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”
2015. US Senator Ted Cruz. “Any good scientist questions all science. If you show me a scientist who stops questioning science, I’ll show you someone who isn’t a scientist.”
2016. Donald Trump wanted to eliminate all climate research done by NASA. “Mr. Trump’s decisions will be based upon solid science, not politicized science,” said his top NASA adviser Bob Walker.
2024 is still the same. “Can you imagine, this guy says global warming is the greatest threat to our country?” Trump referred to President Joe Biden at a rally in June, which had the hottest June in recorded history across the globe. “Global warming is fine. In fact, I heard it was going to be very warm today. It’s fine.”
Now, the problem isn’t simply misinformation and believability about climate science. Yes, science produces findings that reveal something true (or close to true) about nature based on evidence. But what we need the general public to know is not a better understanding of those findings, but a better understanding of what makes those findings distinctive.
Some believe the philosophy of science is based on the idea that the “scientific method,” if rigorously applied, always produces good science. Twentieth-century philosopher Karl Popper warned against this, citing the problem of demarcation: a theory can’t be correct unless it can be proven wrong. In other words, it might be that people don’t believe in climate change because they don’t recognize its effects in their daily lives.
Conducting research is not something that anybody can jump into and do, but it was through experiencing research firsthand that I knew the severity of climate change. My classmates, who are also conducting climate research, now know that. We are lucky to have the resources and opportunity to do that.
We can’t pretend that our efforts won’t be heard because we’re just one person. I can’t “solve” climate change,” and neither can a whole country. But I can recognize the differences in my life that climate change is making, and I am not comfortably numb enough to sit still and live with what I don’t like. At its core, what makes science distinctive is its purpose to make people care about things bigger than themselves. It’s not the subject or method of inquiry but the values and behavior of those engaged in it that make science matter.
At the conclusion of an all-employee professional development session at NCSSM-Durham last month, members of the administration unveiled news that 5th Bryan was ready for employees to move in. They reportedly chanted “we are a community” louder and louder until complaining faculty members grew tired of objecting.
“So that’s why we bought that custom-made circular conference table?” a confused but increasingly aware employee, Joseph “Sharp” El Bows, observed. “Anyways, good riddance, because I always hated not being able to stare at everybody’s faces equally across the old square table. Oh, and I guess I’m excited to live rent-free.”
The move will be effective over Fall Break, while students “don’t have the chance to mess stuff up” and faculty members can move in “without a hitch,” aided by all available residential staff. This will be overseen by Dean of Students Patricia Punctly, who volunteered for the position. “Rain or shine, I’ll be there. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate that the NCSSM comm-UNI-ty has immense compassion for our students going above and beyond the scope of the classroom!” she declared, chuckling at her own wordplay.
Additionally, the 28 rooms on 5th Bryan will all be triples; an idea created by the new Director of Community Building, Wallopy Jones.
“I love that we’re finally seeing eye-to-eye with each other through the thick and thin,” said Jones. “In my past job, we didn’t get to live on school campus. We were always bored on the weekend! That’s why I quit.”
Other employees share Jones’ excitement, including Community Coordinator Mary Ramsbottom, who has been at NCSSM since 1994 and was ecstatic to live closer to her teacher friends but slightly disheartened to hear she wasn’t able to room with them. Wondering why she couldn’t invoke the “Seniority Privilege,” she was quickly shut down by the administration.
“I don’t need to share a room though, I’ve got mine right here,” Chancellor Tom Hawkins said, motioning to a hidden door on the far wall of his office, revealing a closet full of colorful sleeping bags fitting every holiday from Christmas to Tax Day. “I’m literally the chancellor of this place.”
While this move is certainly novel in a variety of ways, the consensus among faculty is overwhelmingly positive due to the convenience of residential living and the opportunity to see the relaxed side of their students.
“Sweet! In all my years at Science and Math, I’ve always wanted to work on the weekends and see what my students are really like–like, what they’re really like,” said counselor Chitan Lee. “I hate seeing my seniors through grades on their transcripts. Now that’s saying something.”
But despite the excitement of the administration, it was noted that during the professional development meeting, a fifth of the table stared at their fumbling hands in worry while imagining their work-life balance torn apart. Reporters were about to ask them for interviews before the loud chanting started and all forms of media was pushed out of the room.
A viewer visiting the school website at ncssm.edu can immediately see the huge words, “Igniting innovation, cultivating community.” Inspiring words, but what does this really mean?
Initially, I did not plan on writing about the ncssm.edu website at all, considering it was redesigned between November 2021 and October 2023, according to webmaster Will Mack. Not to mention mixed concerns about the student newspaper giving any form of criticism to the school that governs it and has the power to shut us down. Yet, as a senior, with the student body gaining a larger digital presence, it’s time to take a stand.
The ncssm.edu website is the epitome of selective attention in representing a student body. Like the illusion of validity in politics, what is visible is superficial: there are very few families and applicants who wouldn’t like to be a part of the residential, online, or summer programs that NCSSM prides itself on in every marketing and outreach campaign. The reputation this selective marketing builds is outdated and reductive to the school’s current and prospective students.
Mack wrote that the website redesign was a two-year effort that “collected feedback from students, parents, faculty, and staff…to make it easy for new folks to understand what the school is, what its programs are, and which might be right for them.” But it’s hard to see what the school offers beyond research programs and how prospective funders can donate.
“Yes, we want to prospective students to check out the website, and for parents, donors. But there’s nothing really about the students,” said Chidera Ezenwenyi ‘25. “There’s a residential program. There’s online. There’s summer. But no actual student activities. It doesn’t showcase anything that we do.”
When you dig even a little bit deeper, it’s clear that the school administration’s idea of a good website is a good advertisement to expand, not to intensify–even if it means leaving voices from its employees and students behind.
If you’ve taken a look at the walls of Bryan lobby at all, the website’s tendency to wrap the school in vague and flowery language would not come as a surprise, but nonetheless a disappointment. As they claim to help “talented students find their niche and realize their potential,” they lag significantly behind in showcasing what niche and potential. While they say they promote a “highly talented, committed, and diverse workforce,” the supporting data is always behind a “coming soon” label or none at all, and they expect employees to make personal sacrifices out of compassion and loyalty to the school.
Even when they try to provide a window into what accomplishments or projects that students are working on, the news that are provided to the public are narrowly filtered into three types: the first or last day of school, retirees, and national/international recognitions. Everything we see in words seems prideful and great, but the coverage thoroughly undermines what else students can do once they come to NCSSM.
“Igniting innovation, cultivating community”
Now, I’m not an opponent of innovation and community. I love trying new things and socializing with people as much as anyone who lives under the sun. But the fact is that bragging about what we’re already the best at does nothing to innovate or grow the external–or even internal–community’s perceptions of NCSSM.
According to their website, third on NCSSM’s Strategic Plan 2024-2030 is to use an equity-oriented approach to meet student success and wellness needs, by implementing new and expanding existing programs that increase “faculty, staff, and student intercultural competence and humility” and give an avenue for students “to provide and receive feedback about their academic experiences.” While this is a valid objective for a diverse school, the first priority should be mitigating the causes of student dissatisfaction and troubles, whether that be academically or emotionally. Otherwise, they will just be plugging one hole while digging a wider one right next to it.
Once a student is accepted into the school, they tend to not visit the website at all, as Ezenwenyi and his parents never did. “I feel like everything is in Blackbaud, I’ve never had to go to this website for anything, which, in contrast to my old school, I definitely used the school website a lot,” he said.
At times, ncssm.edu’s lack of coverage speaks just as much as their coverage. We know that if something or someone is repeatedly covered in media, then they must be important to that media. It is telling when NCSSM’s idea of innovation and community, usually in the form of news coverage by communications specialist Brian Faircloth, barely even encompasses anything other than achievements in math and science.
Using the website’s search feature, we can see there are six mentions of Christina Koch ‘97, four of which are feature stories, and three of which contain primary-source quotes from her. Searching Rhiannon Giddens ‘95–Grammy Award-winning musician, MacArthur recipient, and Pulitzer Prize winner on vocals, fiddle, banjo, and viola–yields three stories, all of which are of recognitions to accolades.
In none was she directly interviewed by an NCSSM affiliate; all her remarks were outsourced from other mainstream media or her social media accounts. Prior to RexHum class, I didn’t even know Giddens was an alumnus, nonetheless that she was the banjo player in Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em.” The selective perception is complicit even in searches of George Cheng ‘24, dubbed “STEM powerhouse,” who has three in-depth feature stories with interviews.
Regardless, if we are truly trying to build an innovative community encouraging students to think outside the box, we cannot continue to be an advertisement for the same old elite STEM education. If prospective students come to NCSSM only knowing the names of fancy-sounding courses and faulty links to Google Documents, then they will not be able to grasp what a vibrant community this campus really holds.
Students’ Definition of Student Culture
The team who worked on the website was comprised of the NCSSM Communications Team, ITS, External Relations, NCSSM-Morganton Administration, and the Communications Council, which is a representative committee of all departments at NCSSM. When asked if the purpose of a high school website should be promotional or as a window into current student life, Mack said they were “deliberate at making the primary purpose of our outwardly facing website to be introducing new people to NCSSM and all it offers.”
While it is understandable that NCSSM is an unusual school, it’s surprising to hear the team’s interpretation of “student life”: “Of course, a very important part of making that appealing for them is showing them glimpses of current students’ experiences, so we do seek to offer a window into current student life in all of the programs from Residential to Step Up to STEM to Summer Ventures to NCSSM Online and more.” Is that what students would expect to represent their everyday experience as a NCSSM student?
Taylor Eason ‘25 described what good qualities of a school website should look like, pinpointing the outdated news articles. “Honestly, being frequently updated to showcase what’s been going on in the clubs.” she said. “We have news about meeting the students, but [for example] in ‘NCSSM lets students craft tailor-made science research experiences,’ that student graduated two years ago.”
Eireann Marcus ‘25 added that the last quote from any student on the website was from 2023. “We don’t know who they are, and the pictures don’t help,” Marcus said.
What we need for a closer-to-true representation of NCSSM student culture is frequently updated information on ncssm.edu. Nevermind that we have 150+ student-run clubs and organizations across the two campuses; if the current website has a page for student publications, then we should continue to update all student publications whenever one is released, or ensure there are resources available to direct site viewers to the domains that students directly control. In the first place, student publications are supposed to be a representative showcase of students’ work and stories, and it’s advantageous for NCSSM to have four school-sponsored ones (Broad Street Scientific, Blue Mirror, Fifth World, and The Stentorian).
Ezenwenyi also thought of ideas. “I think the good qualities of a website are resources for the school students, and maybe some stuff for some parents. Having an interactive slide with photos of events that we do could also help,” he added.
Promoting the school, from an admissions and funding perspective, is inextricably tied to widening the outlet for student expression. Sure, this is an idea that might have complications that give a fraction of more work to the administration or webmasters to do and might seem like a wild risk to take for both publications and the school as a public institution, but that’s what igniting innovation means.
Letting Down Our Reputation As The #2 Best Public High School in America
I won’t argue that the website does have aesthetic appeal, and some functionalities are quite convenient. I like how each block looks different. I like our colors. I like the resources of the library. I like the ticking numbers that show our impact metrics. However, the vagueness of what students are doing to achieve those metrics graciously permits us to examine closely some of our school’s opinions and poll results on the Internet, since they’re not available on ncssm.edu.
NCSSM brags about their influence (do we not?); Institutional Effectiveness reports our total enrollment, including residential, online, and Connect students, represented 94 out of 100 North Carolina counties last year. NCSSM is ranked number one in Best College Prep Public High Schools in America and number two in Best Public High Schools in America. Well, let’s take a step back. Are we satisfied with where we are now? For instance, while the average graduation rate is 99 percent, the average SAT and ACT scores are 1440 and 33 respectively.
Is this all the “elite, academic reputation” that the NCSSM administration, the Board of Governors, the Board of Trustees, alumni, families, and donors want to see? The website certainly doesn’t live up to the standards the school has touted. It’s almost as if we, the students, aren’t solely academic machines but real people with breathing backgrounds and multiple disciplines to devote our bodies and minds. The same goes for faculty.
“There’s a navigation bar but it’s about residential, online, summer, and admissions, but NCSSM is so much more than those things,” Eason said. “How are you supposed to promote it if you don’t know anything about what it’s like to actually be here?”
Unless a student is one of the lucky chosen few who get a story done by Faircloth, students come and go without leaving a trace of their impact. Only if we are lucky enough to have access to social media, we can see the memorabilia of posts and past officers of clubs and organizations. Only if we are lucky enough to be permitted, tech-savvy to create a digital archive, or insistent enough to see real-life proof, we can access records of past students’ work, and likewise be inspired by their stories of struggle then success.
Is all of this the special legacy students want to take away from their two years at NCSSM?
If NCSSM’s website continue to be selective of our school’s student culture and life, we will forever be running on a hamster wheel of vague goals, blatant inappreciation, and laziness. We will constantly be asking ourselves the same question: where do I see myself in my “elite” school? Yet, the answer will always remain the same: we don’t.
This is a documentary film produced for an international film festival during the Summer Research and Innovation Program (SRIP) in the summer of 2024. Special thanks to everyone who contributed to the making of this film: North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Carrie Alter, Kate Auger, Mello Harden, Heather Mallory, Michael Falvo, RBio, RPhys, RChem, SRIP directors and instructors, friends, and the filmmaker’s parents. Featuring Amy Sheck, Nikhil Vemuri, Anna Tringale, Skyler Qu, and George Cheng.
Earthy Proof is a short documentary that focuses on young people taking on a new kind of activism: innovative and impactful research. The film follows four student researchers from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) in Durham, NC, as they tell their story of starting their research projects, their thoughts on promoting change through science, and where they are now or for the future.
Guided by their mentors and the Dean of Science, these students’ visions put them in the driver’s seat of the vehicle for change, channeling their energy and creativity into solving local and global challenges. They persevere to take care of the Earth, the climate, and their communities with contributions regardless how large or small.
