IN THIS ISSUE…

An Interview with Dr. Hills: Reflecting on the School Year and Looking Ahead

Reunion 2025 Weekend Recap

Interview with the New Monitors

Community Engagement at St. Mark’s

Grants at St. Mark’s: Creatively Exploring Passions

STEM Fellowship 2024-2025

Ways to Disconnect from Screens

Don’t Be A Fossil FOOL, Teach Climate Justice in SCHOOL!

Inside the Yale Daily News Spring Symposium: A Week of Storytelling, Collaboration, and Connection

Underreported Stories from Ms. Plimpton’s Saturday Class

Silenced Voices: The Hidden Reality of Sexual Abuse in North Korea

A Puritan Pandemic? The Rise of Catholic Aesthetics in Gen Z Culture

Letter from the Editors

First of all, I am extremely grateful for our wonderful editorial team — Andrea, Vanessa, Catherine, Anouk, and Lucas — everything we have done within the St. Marker would not have happened without you guys! Also, thank you to Ms. Plimpton for all the support and guidance you provided to the team. As a writer and editor of the St. Marker for four years since my Freshman year, this platform was a space that taught a lot of lessons for me; how I can lead, write, and in the end, express myself as who I am. It was a great honor to take part in this team, and I am thrilled to see all the amazing work our new editorial team will carry on starting next year. Please enjoy our Prize Day Issue, and stay tuned for the upcoming issues for the next academic year!
- Hannah

St. Marker has a special place in my heart: it's one of the few groups I have been part of throughout my entire time at St. Mark's. I have outgrown my old self as a writer, friend, and leader in news writing. I am so grateful that St. Marker has rewarded me with the opportunities to express myself and know the same cabal of people who share my vision for creating a community like St. Marker. As a soon-to-be alumna, I hope St. Marker will become a stronger presence in our student body!
- Andrea

I would like to thank my team, Hannah, Andrea, Catherine, Lucas, and Anouk for their dedication and hard work in making running the St. Marker smooth and fun, and I am grateful for having such a great team of writers and editors to create our content. As a member since Freshman year, it has been an honor to dedicate my four years to writing, a passion of mine. I hope to continue such interests into college, and I wish my writers the best of luck!
- Vanessa

Letter from Ms. Plimpton

To the St. Marker’s readers and contributors,

Despite my role as faculty advisor to the St. Marker, I’ve had very little to do with its actual

publication this year. Blessed with a veritable holy trinity of senior editors, I was able to leave

almost everything in the capable hands of Hannah Cha ‘25, Vanessa Leung ‘25, and Andrea

Xu ‘25. Under their command, the St. Marker forged ahead like a great steamship, stirring up

and churning out the voices of our community.

To my holy trinity: thank you for your tremendous work this year. You coordinated, scheduled,

and led our staff meetings, some of which were so well-attended that they spilled out into the

English hallway. You wrangled all stages of the writing process with attention and care. You

mentored our editors and encouraged our contributors. You held our writers accountable by

having tough conversations about blown deadlines. You did all of this, of course, while

navigating the endless demands of school, college applications, extracurriculars, daily

sustenance, and (I hope) sufficient REM sleep.

Looking ahead to the 2025-2026 school year, this year’s managing editors, Lucas Jiang ‘26,

Anouk Shin ‘26, and Catherine Zhang ‘26, will step into the role of senior editors. You have

my utmost trust and support as you take the helm.

Feifei Cao ‘27 and Lily Oh ‘27 will work closely with our seniors as managing editors for next

year. Our newly named layout editors, Ian Cho ‘26 and Aiden Lee ‘28 will oversee online and

print layout and publication.

I am thrilled to share next year’s section editors, all of whom are veteran St. Marker writers:

Alice Wang ‘26 and Abby Stone ‘26 will oversee the Opinion section. Seoyeon Kim ‘26 and

Brynn Leonard ‘26 will lead the News section. Charlotte Han ‘27 will take on Arts and

Lifestyle, and Annabel Zaterka ‘26 will manage Humans of St. Mark’s.

And to the entire staff: you are the eyes and the ears of the St. Marker. Listen, always. What

murmurs ripple through the student body? What makes students mad? What worries them? What

elates them? What are they obsessed with or horrified by? What are they creating, destroying, or

boycotting? As you tell their stories, I hope you will each be bold and cultivate your unique

voice.

With gratitude,

Ms. Plimpton