Category: News

by Finn Ruderman ’25

Just for a second, put yourself in their shoes. You wake up and instead of a daily morning routine, you have to grab your empty five gallon water container—weighing over 40 pounds when full—and set out on your walk to a water reserve roughly five miles away. 

For almost everyone in rural Burkina Faso, this is their everyday lives. There is no running water, and the water obtained from these daily treks is almost always dirty and unsafe to drink. This, as you can probably imagine, causes a lot of problems for those in this situation. These problems are exactly what those involved in the recent Walk For Water conducted here at Sem sought to resolve.

For the past couple of years, Sem has partnered with the Barka Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of those without access to clean water in Burkina Faso through the implementation of water wells in different villages throughout the eastern part of the country. For this past walk, all of the funds generated went directly to the new well-building project in the village Fada-N’gourma. 

The walk, organized by the Upper and Lower Schools’ Environmental Clubs and myself, was a fully in person event for the first time since Sem has started doing them. 57 Sem students, faculty, and friends, along with five dogs, came together on April 21st to walk from back campus, to Kirby Park, and back for a total of around three miles all whilst carrying jugs and containers of water in an effort to simulate, even in a very small way, the journey that the residents of Fada need to make daily to get their water.

In total, the walk managed to raise over $2,000, roughly one-fifth of the total cost of the well—a fairly significant amount. As always, one of the main purposes of the Walk For Water, aside from raising money, is to call attention to certain aspects of life (in this case, having access to clean/fresh water) which you may unconsciously take for granted, all while others who go without are struggling.

For all those who helped in any way, I offer you a sincere thank you.  And to those who missed it this year, the Walk for Water will be an annual event, so there will be more opportunities to come.

by Brady Wood ’24

Wyoming Seminary Upper School has a recurring issue with students not having fobs and student cars not being registered to the school. The security office works very hard to keep all of the students and faculty members safe, students not having fobs is not only putting themselves in more danger. It puts students in danger because if there is ever a threat outside on campus and students seek for shelter, they will not get in without a fob. An emergency can be anything from weather, chemical spill, suspicious individuals and armed individuals.

Recently many public schools around the area have been getting bomb threats, luckily none came to Wyoming Seminary but security expresses that everyone knows the procedure just in case but students will be locked out of buildings without a fob.

The head of security and former state trooper Matthew Grebeck puts in a lot of work for the safety of faculty and students, he said, “Fobs also dictate who is allowed to access certain buildings through authorization.”

Fobs are not only for students to be able to enter the buildings but for people to not enter the building. If you ever see a suspicious person on campus and they try to act as if they belong in a building, don’t let them in! They can cause great danger to everyone in that specific building, thankfully due to the Security team, people are seen walking onto campus before potentially trying to do something they shouldn’t.

Another occurring issue for the security at Wyoming Seminary is day students registering their cars. Grebeck said, “vehicles parked on campus property need to be registered so the security department can identify  who the vehicle belongs to in case of an emergency.”

An emergency in this case would be somebody illegally parked, car broken into and damage to their vehicle. If there is not a sticker on the back of an illegally parked vehicle that says Wyoming Seminary, security will not know that they can save a student from getting their car towed.

by Evan Coates ’24

Improvements to campus have been going on since the start of school. So far, they have included the exterior and interior repainting of different buildings and various landscaping upgrades. Some of the more routine work around the 25 acre campus ranged from the cutting of lawns, making and laying new mulch, and pruning trees, all the way to seeing up every single on campus event, both athletic and social.

The amount of time and work that goes into these tasks is remarkable and should be appreciated by the entire community, as many on campus events would never be possible without the maintenance team led by Janet Murray, Director of Facilities Operations. 

One of the more current project on campus was the repainting of the Sprague Hall basement and offices. This brought a refreshed and updated look to the building, making it a more pleasant experience to spend time there for both faculty and students.

These are just some of the improvements done during the school year, while the vast majority of the work to residential houses, school buildings, and dorms were completed over the summer.

Sem residents were happy when they returned from summer break to find common spaces and residential spaces fitted with multiple upgrades. These included, but are not limited to; a new roof for the Pettibone Dickson Darte Center , new flooring and painting for the 3rd floor of Swetland Hall, along with new furniture for the 3rd and 4th floors, 45 new windows, trims, trims, surface sills, and painting in Nesbitt Hall, the expansion of the athletic training center, and repairs to the tennis court. The combination of these projects adds to the visual aspect of Sem’s sophistication and appeal as a day and boarding school. Looking into the future, the maintenance team is considering seeking board approval for pool renovations, more roof replacements, new HVAC chiller for Sprague Hall, and possibly more.