“I want to have an open and honest conversation with you, about a topic that we in the adult world have launched on you, but haven’t quite figured out how to talk about yet,” began Harry Levant in Hall on January 13. Dr. Levant is the Director of Gambling Policy with the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) at Northeastern University and is an Internationally Certified Gambling Counselor, mental health therapist, and Doctor of Law and Policy. He is also a former gambling addict.

During his talk, Dr. Levant discussed the prevalence of the sports betting industry, which has become not only normalized but also romanticized, due to companies like DraftKings and FanDuel. He distinguished this type of betting from the standard casino or in-person gambling that existed when he was younger. “I am in favor of the properly regulated legalization of sports gambling. I’m for it,” he said, acknowledging it as a cultural pastime that goes back centuries. “However, what we have launched is not properly regulated and is not safe. In fact, it’s an entirely new kind of gambling.” He then demonstrated that access to gambling today is as simple as downloading an app onto your phone.

Before opening the room up to questions, Dr. Levant touched on several noteworthy dangers or tricks hidden in sports betting platforms, such as new offers that are too good to be true. For example, he showed the audience an ad that said a $5 bet would earn the user $300. However, while some might think this is actual money, it is actually just in-game credits that fuel the game’s chase. He also explained how games on your phone with in-store credits are structured to prime users to get accustomed to unlocking rewards and bonuses through progress and playtime.

After the Hall, Dr. Levant spent time with Class V in their Health and Wellness class, discussing some of the parallels between online sports betting and the video games kids begin playing at a young age. He also met with advanced math students in Class I and II, where the boys asked more questions, about prediction markets, game theory applications in sports betting, and about what would make this type of gambling safer. The evening before he spoke with boys in Hall, he also gave a presentation to the Parents’ Auxiliary.

As the Director of Gambling Policy at PHAI, Dr. Levant works to bring about much-needed change in how gambling is regulated and promoted. His department believes that the current state of the industry, with its easy accessibility and aggressive advertising, poses a looming public health crisis, akin to that of cigarettes decades ago. Mr. Levant holds a Doctorate of Law and Public Policy from Northeastern University, and a Master’s in Professional Clinical Counseling from La Salle University. He has testified before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee about the potential public health crisis caused by sports betting, and his work has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and CNN.

“It’s part of my mission to convince you that all of us are mathematical people, by virtue of being human people, and if we could see the human parts of mathematics, we might have a different relationship with it,” began Dr. Francis Su during Hall in the Smith Theater on December 9. Francis Su is the Benediktsson-Karwa Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, and a former president of the Mathematical Association of America. His research is in topological and geometric combinatorics and applications to the sciences, including game theory, voting theory, and the mathematics of fair decisions.

During his talk, Dr. Su encouraged the RL community to seek and value the wonder in math and education, rather than viewing them as transactional, or as a means to get ahead or enter an impressive career. “Think about education as something that forms you—it changes you, it builds your character. It changes your attitudes toward things, and it gives you certain habits of mind, certain dispositions that shape the way you move in the world.”

At the beginning of his talk, Dr. Su performed a card trick during which he perfectly and continuously selected pairs of one red and one black card from a shuffled deck, which he later explained was just a mathematical pattern. From this point forward, both students and faculty were deeply engaged and intrigued, some perhaps seeing math in a new light, as something that can be fun and enlightening. “You are all learning how to look at the world differently through your education,” he said. “You are starting to see things more closely, more deeply, whether that’s a deck of cards and a card trick, whether that’s trying to figure out if someone’s trying to dupe you or take advantage of you, whether that’s being able to look at the beauty of the world and see something wonderful about it. These things make your life richer.”

Dr. Su has a passion for teaching and popularizing mathematics through writing and public engagement. His work has been featured in Quanta Magazine, Wired, and The New York Times. He authors the popular Math Fun Facts website, and three of his articles have been featured in Princeton Press’s Best Writing on Mathematics. From the Mathematical Association of America, he received the 2018 Halmos-Ford award for mathematical writing and the 2013 Haimo Award for distinguished teaching of college-level mathematics. Dr. Su earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin and his doctorate from Harvard University. 

The Founder’s Song rang out through Rousmaniere Hall on November 6, as the entire school joined together to celebrate the founding of Roxbury Latin on this year’s Founder’s Day. After several opening prayers in Hebrew, English, Greek, and Latin, led by selected Class I boys, Dr. Schaffer welcomed the community, providing historical context on the founding of the school and introducing the topic of this year’s Founder’s Day: the history of fire in Boston and the critical service of first responders.

“We celebrate Founder’s Day in November because we know for certain, based on ships’ records, that John Eliot landed in Boston on November 2, 1631,” Dr. Schaffer stated. “We do not know the exact date of the founding of the school, because its earliest records were destroyed by fire caused by a gunpowder explosion in spring 1645.” 

This year, Stephanie Schorow, author and professor of journalism at Boston University, spoke in Hall about Boston’s long history of firefighting and some of the city’s most catastrophic fires. These included the Great Boston Fire of 1872 and the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, which occurred on November 28, 1942, killing nearly 500 people and injuring over 100 more. Though devastating, this fire led to the widespread adoption of life-saving inventions, such as penicillin and lit exit doors, and changed safety and medical practices for first responders forever. 

“That night, doctors and nurses at Boston hospitals worked frantically to save the lives of the hundreds of injured. Doctors tested new burn treatments that proved effective in saving lives. Penicillin, the antibiotic that would transform medicine, was used for the first time on a civilian population, on victims of the Cocoanut Grove Fire. Psychologists would also treat the people who were injured not just in the body, but in the mind, first studies of what we know as post-traumatic stress,” Professor Schorow stated. 

After Hall, the boys, faculty, and staff gathered for the annual all-school photo on the Senior Grass before heading to the Smith Theater for the second half of the day’s events. First, Mrs. Berg hosted a panel of first responders in our parent community, including Beth Rimas P’19 ’26 (Boston EMT), Chris Holt P’29 (Boston PD), and Steve Nelson P’31 (Brookline FD). The panelists shared insights into their careers and the paths that led them to this line of work, as well as personal anecdotes and stories from the job. The boys then had the opportunity to ask their own insightful questions. 

After lunch, Juanita Allen Kingsley—an EMT for over 20 years and parent of two RL alumni—led the school in an informative overview of recognizing and addressing medical emergencies, including cardiac events, anaphylactic shock, and life-threatening wounds. 

Before the completion of another successful Founder’s Day, the school participated in the traditional Founder’s Day Kahoot! trivia challenge. Once again, Mr. Piper emceed this moment when the boys could show off their trivia knowledge and competitive spirit. After two close rounds, Temi Martins Dosumu (II) was crowned—or, rather, plastic fire helmeted—victor.

View photos from the students’ Founder’s Day adventures. 

Over twenty years ago, Roxbury Latin hosted the inaugural F. Washington Jarvis International Fund Lecture, now one of the school’s proudest traditions. The series of lectures is named for the man who, for thirty years, served as Roxbury Latin’s tenth Headmaster. The annual event has brought a variety of distinguished public servants and thinkers on foreign affairs, including former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; homeland security advisor to President Obama, Lisa Monaco; and former Director of the CIA, John Brennan. On October 28, the school hosted its 22nd speaker in welcoming Dr. Chris Miller, bestselling author of Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology, professor of International History at the Fletcher School of Tufts University, and nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Dr. Miller’s area of research focuses on technology, geopolitics, economics, international affairs, and Russia. His lecture specifically addressed the history of harnessing processing power through semiconductors and how society’s pervasive use of microchips impacts today’s economic and geopolitical sphere. 

“Most of you probably don’t spend much time thinking about semiconductors, the tiny computer chips that power everything from your smartphones to the world’s largest data centers,” Dr. Miller stated. “I’d like to suggest to you that you cannot understand the world today without putting computer chips at the center of your analysis.” He continued by emphasizing how most people are ignorant of the complexity and power of something so small and seemingly inconsequential to many. “A processing chip is one of the most complex and sophisticated devices ever produced by humans,” he emphasized. “Can you imagine having a processor chip with 20 billion tiny devices called transistors carved out of a piece of silicon the size of your fingernail?” This statement was met with astonishment and fascination by the audience of students, faculty, and staff. 

Dr. Miller continued to explain how significantly the chip’s increased computing power, and the world’s increasing reliance on the technology—in manufacturing, but also in defense and AI systems—play into international relations and global economics worldwide. An example is the historically allied relationship between the United States and Taiwan, where a single company, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, produces over 90% of the world’s advanced processor chips, smartphone chips, PC chips, and telecoms networks, and 99% of the world’s artificial intelligence processors. 

Dr. Miller is the author of three other books on Russia, including Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia; We Shall Be Masters: Russia’s Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin; and The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR. He previously served as the Associate Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale; a lecturer at the New Economic School in Moscow; a visiting researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Center; a research associate at the Brookings Institution; and as a fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Academy. He earned his PhD and MA from Yale University and his BA in history from Harvard University.

Roxbury Latin offers its thanks—as always—to Jack and Margarita Hennessy for funding the annual opportunity for our boys to hear from such distinguished thinkers on world affairs over the years. Mr. Hennessy is a member of the Class of 1954 and a former member of Roxbury Latin’s Board of Trustees. Throughout their lives, he and Mrs. Hennessy have represented an unusual engagement with other nations and cultures. Throughout their lives, too, they have generously provided philanthropic support so that others might come to know and appreciate various corners of our increasingly interconnected world.