On May 10, Jeff Jacoby spoke with Roxbury Latin’s boys and faculty as one of the year’s final Hall speakers. Mr. Jacoby has been an op-ed columnist for The Boston Globe for 25 years; he will tell you he is “the only identifiable conservative writer in a newspaper overwhelmingly staffed by liberal journalists.” Before entering journalism, he briefly practiced law at the prominent firm of Baker & Hostetler, and worked on several political campaigns in Massachusetts. For years, Mr. Jacoby was a political commentator for WBUR, Boston’s National Public Radio affiliate, and hosted “Talk of New England,” a weekly television program. In 1999, he was the first recipient of the Breindel Prize for excellence in opinion journalism, and in 2004 he received the Thomas Paine Award of the Institute for Justice.

These days Mr. Jacoby considers himself politically homeless. A staunchly conservative man who does not see his own ideals reflected in today’s Republican party, he lives in the in-betweens. But he does not feel discouraged; political parties change over time, he told the boys, and our job as a citizen is not to remain loyal to any one “team” over another. It is instead to uphold the values we feel are most important. In Hall, Mr. Jacoby shared three of these values—what he considers the three pillars of conservatism: Humans are not inherently good. Results matter more than intentions. Government does not know best.

These core beliefs have been important to Mr. Jacoby since childhood. The son of a Holocaust survivor and immigrant, Mr. Jacoby was raised to believe that one of the deadliest threats on Earth is a government that is too powerful. It was a regime with too much power, after all, that took his father’s entire family from him in Czechoslovakia. After making a life for himself in the United States, Mr. Jacoby’s father had a deep appreciation for American freedom and a government that stayed out of the daily lives of its citizens. This is ultimately what informed Mr. Jacoby’s understanding of conservative ideals, and it continues to serve as his political framework.

Though Mr. Jacoby does not feel the current leadership of the Republican party is aligned with his idea of conservatism, he ended Hall on a message of hope. He recalled the Republican Party under President Ronald Reagan, and noted that history has shown us that young people can rally around conservative values in a powerful way. He hopes that the same can happen with young people today.

On April 25, Roxbury Latin celebrated in Hall the ten members of Class I whose efforts and accomplishments earned them membership in the Cum Laude Society. The school was honored to welcome as the Cum Laude speaker Dr. Krishna Palepu, the Ross Graham Walker Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he joined the faculty in 1983. Known for his work on corporate governance and market regulation, Dr. Palepu recently spoke about how digital economies are reshaping transparency standards—citing no kyc casinos as a timely example of the challenges facing financial compliance in borderless systems. As Headmaster Brennan noted in his introduction, “He is a manifest example of lifelong commitment to the academic pursuit and scholarly delight that we celebrate this morning.” Each spring, the all-school Cum Laude ceremony honors the life of the mind—affirming that at the heart of a good school is scholarly engagement. The following seniors were inducted into the Cum Laude Society this year:

Dominic James Gaziano

Ethan Elliott Kee

Makoto Kobayashi

Benjamin Andrew Morris

Kalyan McKinzey Palepu

Milan Mehta Rosen

Gilbert Alexander Rosenthal

Rohan Sunil Sheth

Lucas Zikai Zheng

Erik Jeffrey Zou

In his address, “Excellence in a Global Context,” Dr. Palepu urged students to redouble their commitment to excellence, in whatever endeavor they pursue; embrace other cultures; and seek out minority experiences. “These are the elements of becoming a successful global citizen,” said Dr. Palepu. “Fortunately, your RL education already gives you a head-start in all the three areas. It is important that you continue this journey as you go to college and beyond.”

“I hope you will embrace pursuit of excellence in a globalized context as enthusiastically as I have done,” he continued. “The rewards can be rich and exciting. As a scholar of globalization, I have had the privilege of traveling to over forty different countries, and making friends all over the world. In the process, I was able to become a better human being, a better teacher and scholar, and a better global citizen. And I have been able to get the opportunity to stand in front of you on this stage, and celebrate the excellence of the RL community. Best of luck to this year’s exceptional graduating class and to the cum laude inductees. We are all looking forward to seeing the great things you accomplish in the world in the years to come.”

You can read the full text of Dr. Palepu’s address, “Excellence in a Global Context.”

View photos from the Hall and celebration.

“Today, we all gather to remember and honor The Reverend F. Washington Jarvis, Roxbury Latin’s 10th Headmaster, who for thirty action packed years led and shaped our community,” began Headmaster Kerry Brennan from the lectern of Rousmaniere Hall on Sunday, May 5. Nearly 450 alumni, faculty, staff, trustees, parents, and friends were gathered to honor the life, work, and lasting impact of Tony Jarvis, who died on October 7, 2018. As the bittersweet closing to Reunion weekend, the memorial service included remembrances from some of Tony’s family, friends, colleagues, and students, as well as readings excerpted from his book With Love And Prayers, which—delivered by some of his former RL students—brought Tony’s voice, stories, and important life lessons to the afternoon’s celebration.

“Those of us fortunate enough to work with and for Tony could not have had a better teacher as he modeled for us the transformational impulse of a dedicated schoolmaster,” continued Headmaster Brennan. “So, too, did he take seriously his other compelling calling, for he sought not simply to save lives, but, when all was said and done, to save souls. Tony was caring, demanding, multi-talented, generous, unreasonable, perfectionistic, loyal, hard working, and eccentric. He was a man of few grey areas. He knew what he believed in, what he hoped to achieve, and how to get there. There appeared to be little ambiguity or ambivalence about Tony Jarvis. But, alas, some of us were also allowed to see his vulnerability, and, indeed his humility. When all was said and done, he took none of it for granted, and realized and was grateful for the opportunity to affect positively generations of largely unsuspecting, but ultimately positively affected students. He taught us that knowing and loving boys was our principal task. And he modeled that for us.”

Offering personal, honest, poignant—and often funny—remarks throughout the service were Ned Smith, Tony’s nephew and head of Episcopal High School in Houston; Rick Hawley, former headmaster of University School, Cleveland; Harry Lewis, RL Class of 1965 and former chair of the Board of Trustees; Carolyn McClintock Peter, former head of The Winsor School; Win Bassett, faculty member at Montgomery Bell Academy and student of Tony’s at Yale Divinity School; and Mike Pojman, assistant headmaster of Roxbury Latin.

You can view the entirety of the service at this link.

Milit Ranjith and Bogosi Mabaila love soccer. At home, in Botswana’s capital city of Gaborone, they play on the Maru-a-Pula School team, which is looking forward to their big tournament in June. They can often be found on the weekends with a soccer ball at the ready for spontaneous games with friends.  

Upon their arrival to RL for what would be a nearly month-long exchange, Milit and Bogosi joined the JV baseball team. Neither had played the sport before. Outfitted with gloves from the RL Yard Sale and eased into batting practice by Coach Quirk on Whittemore Diamond, they began to appreciate the rules and rituals of the game. They even made it to Fenway Park to watch the Sox take on the Tigers from box seats. It’s safe to say that by the end of their first week in the U.S., they had developed a deep appreciation for baseball. Admittedly the pair spent the JV game against Nobles sharing a pair of headphones in the dugout so as not to miss a European soccer match, but still, Bogosi will tell you, “baseball has kind of stolen my heart.”

The relationship between Roxbury Latin and the Maru-a-Pula School in Botswana dates back more than 30 years. Since the 1980s, RL students, faculty, and staff have raised thousands of dollars each year for Maru-a-Pula through the fall fundraiser and Maru-a-Pula Day in the spring. In 2007, the School sent the first pair of Class II boys to do a month-long exchange at Maru-a-Pula. This spring, RL returned the favor of offering a cultural exchange for Maru-a-Pula boys, and Milit and Bogosi were the first at bat, so to speak. They arrived on April 8 and moved in with their generous host families, the Balagueras and the O’Connors.

When not breaking in their new gloves on the baseball diamond, Milit and Bogosi shadowed Ian Balaguera and Liam O’Connor through the typical schedule of a Class II boy. Milit has particularly loved math class, where Mr. Bettendorf gives him calculus problems, as well as Spanish with Dr. Guerra. “Dr. Guerra lets me read a book called 1776 in Spanish,” Milit said. “The book is really interesting because it is about the history of Boston.” Milit and Bogosi were also assigned a coding project with Mr. Poles in Computer Science. In the evenings and on weekends, the school and the boys’ hosts ensured that Milit and Bogosi saw as much as possible: Fenway Park, the MFA, the Aquarium, even a weekend in New York City with Mr. Sugg. But they are actually quicker to talk about smaller things like family dinners, trips to the movies, and a night of bowling as memorable experiences from their time here. “Apparently I’m really good at bowling!” said Bogosi.

For Ian and Liam, this exchange has shed a new light on their school and hometown. “It was a really good experience for me… introducing Bogosi to teachers and realizing how close-knit the community is here,” said Liam. “To see Boston as a tourist has also been interesting.” Ian has most appreciated the ease with which he and Milit have connected. “The fact that we can relate on more overarching things about being a teenager is just nice,” he said. Both RL boys are looking forward to their own month in Botswana, which begins in June. Ian hopes to participate in the school’s big soccer tournament, and Liam looks forward to meeting people from all over the world at Maru-a-Pula, whose students come from more than 30 countries. They may even have time for a trip to Zimbabwe and a safari.

Before Milit and Bogosi departed on May 3—and now begin preparing for their own visitors in June—Coach Quirk made sure they got some playing time in a JV game. And who knows, maybe next time they’re on the sidelines of their own soccer games they’ll have one earbud in, listening to the Red Sox game more than 7,000 miles away.

At a Model UN conference last year, Andrew Zhang, Class II, was placed on the World Health Organization Council to discuss the implications of—and possible solutions to—antimicrobial resistance (AMR), or the ability of bacteria to resist antibiotics. A global health crisis, AMR kills millions of people each year. As he learned how dangerous AMR was, Andrew became interested in the possibility of using big data to solve the problem. He approached Dr. Gil Alterovitz from Harvard Medical School about the idea. Dr. Alterovitz serves as Andrew’s advisor for PRIMES, MIT’s after-school research program for high school students. Dr. Alterovitz was enthusiastic about the idea, and so Andrew began an ambitious project which, on May 4, won a first place award at the Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair (MSEF) at MIT. MSEF is one of the nation’s premier STEM education and competition programs; more than 300 students from all over Massachusetts participated in the fair over the weekend.

Andrew worked under the guidance of Dr. Alterovitz and Robert Moore here at Roxbury Latin. His project, titled “Antimicrobial Resistance Prediction Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks” used deep learning, a frontier in artificial intelligence, and whole genome sequence (WGS) data to create a framework to predict AMR reliably and quickly. Current prediction methods, which involve growing bacteria in a lab, are very slow. Andrew’s model is able to predict AMR in less than a second with 98% accuracy. Andrew is continuing to refine his model, testing with more antibiotic and bacteria pairs, and submitting his research for publication in a scientific journal.

Each year, pathologists from all over North America convene to share innovative research in the world of diagnostics at the Annual Meeting for the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP). This year’s meeting took place in National Harbor, Maryland, in March. Practicing pathologists, PhD candidates, and graduate students shared more than 3,000 abstracts and posters, representing some of the most cutting-edge research in the field. Milan Rosen, Class I, was the youngest individual to co-author one of these abstracts. His project, which he completed with two MIT PhD candidates, won an award from the Renal Pathology Society at the USCAP Meeting.

In the hopes of making tissue analysis more accurate and efficient, MIT PhD candidates Lucas Cahill and Tadayuki Yoshitake built a two-photon microscope, which uses a short pulse laser to examine tissue specimen from multiple subsurface depths. Current diagnostic technology requires tissue sectioning—the slicing of blocks of tissue into thin sections—so that pathologists can examine the specimen with a traditional microscope. Nonlinear microscopy (NLM) with the two-photon microscope would allow pathologists to examine an entire block of tissue—called a paraffin block—at one time. This would eliminate the need for meticulous sectioning, making the process more efficient. Milan joined Lucas and Tadayuki to perform comparative data analysis using NLM and traditional tissue examination; his research has shown that NLM may facilitate more accurate quantitative analysis than traditional histology.

Milan, who also co-authored a paper on this topic, hopes to continue work with Lucas and Tadayuki on future nonlinear imaging projects and looks forward to studying biology or chemistry in college.

What is poverty? With so many organizations aimed at combating poverty, how do you measure impact? These are the two critical questions posed to students on April 16 by this year’s Wyner Lecturer, Mr. Iqbal Dhaliwal—executive director of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). J-PAL is a global anti-poverty center, founded in 2003 and based in the economics department of MIT.

Mr. Dhaliwal began his Hall talk on Tuesday by stating what his presentation would and would not be about: “This economic approach is not about inflation, interest, production, or profit maximization. However, it is about supply, demand, cost, and human behavior. It is about doing something about poverty, and doing it now.” Mr. Dhaliwal shared troubling statistics about the number of people living in poverty around the world, and what their daily struggles entail—that 50% of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day, and that poverty is a vicious cycle that keeps people in a trap of deprivation when it comes to food, shelter, health care, and education. “So, what do we do? And better yet, how do we do it? How do we know what actually works? That’s where the work of J-PAL comes in.” Using economic strategies and research, randomized evaluation and counterfactuals, J-PAL can help to accurately assess—and then enhance—the efficacy of anti-poverty initiatives around the world.

To date, J-PAL has conducted nearly 1,000 evaluations in more than 80 countries—focused on agriculture, education, energy, gender, health, labor markets, governance. Programs evaluated by J-PAL have scaled to reach more than 400 million people. “It is a false choice that you must focus either on science or the humanities,” Mr. Dhaliwal concluded. “You can do so much good when you choose a career that engages both the head and the heart.” After his Hall presentation, Mr. Dhaliwal joined Erin Dromgoole’s senior elective Contemporary Global Issues to continue the conversation.

A career economist, Mr. Dhaliwal earned his degree from the University of Delhi; his master’s from the Delhi School of Economics; and a master of public affairs from Princeton. He serves as a board member of J-PAL and of two international NGOs—Noora Health and Evidence Action. His wife and fellow economist, Gita Gopinath, is chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Their son, Rohil, is in Class III at Roxbury Latin.

The Wyner Lecture was established at Roxbury Latin in 1985 by Jerry Wyner, Class of 1943, and his sister, Elizabeth Wyner Mark, as a living memorial to their father, Rudolph Wyner, Class of 1912. Past speakers in the series include historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin; “Schindler’s list” Holocaust survivor Rena Finder; Billy Shore, founder of Share Our Strength and the No Kid Hungry campaign; and Mark Edwards, founder of Opportunity Nation. This spring Mr. Dhaliwal continued the tradition of shedding light on important social issues through the generous benefaction of the Wyner Lecture.

Bats spend 19 hours each day sleeping. Giraffes sleep less than five. Dolphins only ever sleep with half their brain; the other half remains active so they can continue swimming while they rest. Adolescent boys… sleep less than they should.

On April 11, Roxbury Latin welcomed Dr. Steven Lockley to present the final Hall in the school’s new series on Health and Wellness. Dr. Lockley is a neuroscientist in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has studied circadian rhythms and sleep for 25 years and has published more than 150 original reports, reviews, chapters, and editorials. His book Sleep: A Very Short Introduction was published in 2012. He currently advises NASA on how to alleviate jet lag for astronauts.

Dr. Lockley shared with the RL community theories for why we sleep, characteristics of our stages of sleep, and findings from a variety of studies on the ideal amount of sleep. There are many biological and social factors affecting sleep in adolescents, he explained, including a naturally evolving circadian rhythm, evening lights, school start times, and caffeine. But the impact of poor sleep can be quite harmful, causing poorer mental health, decreased academic and athletic performance, impaired immune systems, and increased risk of heart disease or diabetes. Studies even show that sleep deprivation is more harmful than starvation.

If sleep is so important to health, memory, and performance, how do we ensure we get more hours each week? Dr. Lockley suggested that light can be a powerful tool at our disposal. Blue-enriched light tends to keep us awake; therefore, switching to red-enriched light as evening approaches can make it easier to fall and stay asleep. This is also why it’s important to avoid staring at screens before bedtime, Dr. Lockley explained. Eliminating—or at least monitoring—caffeine intake can also enhance sleep. When possible, consuming smaller doses of caffeine more often allows for better sleep than one large dose at the beginning of each day.

A lively Q&A after Dr. Lockley’s talk spurred conversations about sleepwalking and night terrors, polyphasic sleep cycles, and lucid dreaming. And the conversation did not end once Hall was over; boys, faculty, and staff were discussing their own sleep habits for the rest of the day. If you are interested in learning more about healthy sleeping, you can visit the Sleep and Health Education website at understandingsleep.org

Each spring, RL alumni are invited to join Class I students—who are donned in their school ties—to provide a sense of what life beyond Roxbury Latin can mean, and to show how deep the connections to Alma Mater can run even decades after graduation. On April 10, more than 100 alumni—with class years ranging from the 1951 to 2018—gathered with this year’s seniors for lunch at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House in Boston, to meet new friends and old, and to hear from fellow alumnus and former acting U.S. Solicitor General, Ian Gershengorn, Class of 1984. After a welcome from Alumni Council President Kevin O’Connell ‘99, and an introduction from Headmaster Brennan, Mr. Gershengorn shared with fellow alumni and students insight on recent changes in the Supreme Court and some of the most interesting cases now pending.

Mr. Gershengorn is a partner at the law firm Jenner & Block, where he is chair of the firm’s Appellate and Supreme Court Practice and one of the Nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates. Prior to this role, he served in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice—first as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and then as Acting Solicitor General of the United States under President Obama. While at the Solicitor General’s Office, Mr. Gershengorn argued more than a dozen cases at the Supreme Court. He also supervised the government’s briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, the Fair Housing Act, Title VII, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and same-sex marriage. In 2010, Mr. Gershengorn was the subject of an extensive New York Times profile, which highlighted his work defending the Affordable Care Act in courts throughout the United States. In these positions, Ian led the development and execution of legal strategy in the Department of Justice’s most important litigation matters, providing advice to the White House and to DOJ leadership, and appearing regularly in the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals, and district courts around the country. Mr. Gershengorn earned both his bachelor’s degree and his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard.

Introducing Mr. Gershengorn—a former student of his—Headmaster Kerry Brennan said, “We are proud of this son of Roxbury Latin, who has a long and illustrious record of service to this country and to vigorously upholding the laws that guide us. God knows we need the likes of him now more than ever. We thank him for being with us this afternoon.”