By Sophia Harris / Features Reporter and Columnist & Louisa Wang/ Features Reporter
Every week, Harpeth Hall students anticipate attending their various clubs. Not only does this time provide some relief from the grueling hours in the classroom, but clubs are also a fundamental part of Harpeth Hall culture. They serve as a built in opportunity for students to explore their different passions, meet new friends, cultivate new skills, and take on more responsibility as leaders. Through clubs, students become more in touch with themselves and the world around them.
This semester, many brilliant new clubs are taking off at Harpeth Hall, including the Archery Club, the Quiz Bowl Club, the Writing For Pleasure Club, and the Upcycling Club. The new star club is the Artificial Intelligence Club. ENGin Club and Songs of Service Club are the two new clubs that will meet out of the regular club rotations.
Many of the club founders, including the founders of the Writing for Pleasure Club and the Songs of Service Club stated that they started the club out of necessity, needing spaces for people to work on skills that are not always offered in accessible classes.
Photo by Olivia Decastro
The Writing For Pleasure Club was co-founded by sophomores, Greta Haroldson and Emma Cropsey, as well as freshman Larkin Boyd. During this club, students will have a chance to explore an assortment of writing styles, from Japanese poetry to screenwriting. They will work on a long term project of their choosing, and girls may also have the opportunity to display their hard work in the future. Not only will students discover new styles of writing in this club, but they also find a way to speak out about their passions and express themselves.
The Songs of Service Club was founded by Louisa Wang and Caroline Thomas alongside their faculty sponsor Mrs. Bromfield. Wang explained that the club gives students both the opportunity to reach out to their community and connect with the elderly, and practice performing their work for an uplifting audience. The club provides singers, musicians, poets, and other performers with the chance to practice their pieces in a low stress environment.
Both Louisa and Caroline are active in Harpeth Hall’s theater program, and were inspired by their trips to Abe’s Garden, a local retirement home, where they sing through their musical sets in preparation for a show.
Instead of offering chances to further practice and work on new and pre-existing skills like Writing for Pleasure Club and Songs of Service Club, the Archery, Quiz Bowl, AI, and Upcycling clubs dedicate themselves to learning and teaching new skills and applying them.
The Archery Club is a new club founded by Addie Williams. Archery is a unique interest of Addie’s that is not found in any classes or sports at Harpeth Hall. Students will learn the necessary information and rules to use bows and arrows safely, before learning the basics of archery and getting to practice using actual equipment and targets.
Learning new skills teaches patience and emphasizes consistent practice, and according to Harvard Health, practicing a difficult new skill can help build and maintain cognitive skills, not to mention that learning a cool new skill like archery is just fun and can fulfill childhood interests.
The AI Club combines both hands-on activities with different AI models, like ChatGPT and Dall-E to learn what AI can do and dives past just AI’s capabilities into how AI is actually created, trained and used in real life.
This club is a great opportunity for students wanting to learn more about what AI can do and how they can use it to benefit themselves and their studies in school, and for students who are interested in the technology that goes into creating AI and the science behind artificial intelligence.
Charlotte Mikos and Erin Fikri are pioneering the return of the Quiz Bowl Club to Harpeth Hall this spring. Mr. Croker and Dr. Pippenger, the club’s co-sponsors, are excited for this opportunity to test student’s knowledge. Already, Quiz Bowl practices are buzzing with energy while the team works towards an upcoming competition.
According to Mr. Croker, Quiz Bowl encapsulates the quest of any Harpeth Hall girl: “to garner more knowledge about the world.” Mr. Croker has been the sponsor for Quiz Bowl teams twice – once at a coed school in the Midwest, and once at Harpeth Hall earlier on. He noted that a major difference between these two teams was that at the coed school, the young men had much more “reckless confidence” than their female counterparts. On the other hand, in Harpeth Hall’s all-girls environment, Quiz Bowl is “empowering for young women who aren’t afraid of embracing their knowledge and power – and aren’t afraid of being wrong. You have to be willing to be wrong to be a quiz bowl champion, and that is empowering.”
The Upcycling Club is another addition to Harpeth Hall’s plethora of clubs. Co-presidents, Caroline Kath and Sophia Harris were inspired to create an accessible alternative to tossing out clothes, either in the garbage, or in a donation pile where the fate of the clothes is uncertain.
On average, clothing is worn between seven and ten times before it is discarded, which contributes to fast fashion being the third largest global polluter. Moreover, less than 1% of clothes are recycled to make new products. Alongside their sponsor Mrs. Eisen, Caroline and Sophia aim to give another life to old garments that have been given up on.
Finally, the ENGin Club, which is cofounded by Anushri Ray, Ella Murphy, and Zoe Green, is part of a pre-existing organization, which connects English-speaking volunteers with international English students for hour-long weekly video meetings. 99% of students improved their English, and 42% of students who joined for professional growth got a promotion or new job.
Ella signed up for ENGin because she was interested in learning about a new culture and wanted to meet new people. She currently has two girls that she tutors, Victoria and Daria. Both of her girls have improved their English since they began, something that Ella finds extremely rewarding.
Dr. Jacobs, the clubs’ sponsor, has been volunteering with ENGin since the spring of 2022, after the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Her exchange student, Yuliia, lives in Kiev, and they have become close friends through their weekly meetings. Dr. Jacobs described how Yuliia has been able to maintain normality despite the treacherous wartime conditions that she is living through. Ukrainian culture has prevailed despite the circumstances, and programs like ENGin allow Americans to better understand people in Ukraine through making new connections and friendships.
It is just the beginning for this year’s new club lineup, a diverse, exciting group of new hobbies and activities, learning opportunities, and ways to practice service. Each club uniquely fulfills Harpeth Hall’s mission statement to Think Critically, Lead Confidently, and Live Honorably in its own way, and it will be interesting to watch them soar to new heights as years go by.
