Linden Hall School News

1. Humanities Wing: The renovation of Stengel Hall’s Humanities Wing is well underway and scheduled to be completed by August 15, 2009. The wing will house four new classrooms in which English and Social Studies will be taught.

2. The Chapel has been repainted and is in the process of being recarpeted. A new roof has been placed on the East side.

3. A plan to display campus-wide signage has been contracted out, and these beautiful new additions should be unveiled sometime this summer.

4. Increased Electrical Service is being supplied to the school. The project to do so in the Stable area has been completed, and now additional supply is being brought in to the Castle/Stengel Hall area.

5. Landscaping: the landscaping project at the front of Honeycutt has been beautifully completed, as has the replacement of the steps from the fountain area up to Lyet. In addition, plans for a significant upgrade to our Main Street façade will be completed this summer or early fall.

We currently have 181 students enrolled for this coming year. This is a record high number of students at Linden Hall and is indicative of the considerable number of students from around the world who are aware of the excellence of the Linden Hall program. Despite our considerable popularity, Linden Hall is committed to being a small school; consequently admission to Linden Hall is now highly competitive. On a related note, I should point out that our average class size for this coming school year will be 11, still among the nation’s smallest.

After a very successful introduction of the study of Mandarin Chinese this past year, we have decided to offer courses in both Mandarin I and Mandarin II. In addition, for this coming year, each student and faculty will receive a netbook (small laptop) that they will use in classes and own. To utilize this Netbook Program, the school is installing a new, state-of-the-art wireless Internet system that should be operational next month.

Paige McFarling has joined our community as Director of Development. Paige was previously the Director of Development at another independent school in the mid-West. She is experienced in fundraising, communications, and marketing. We are very excited to have such a talented and experienced administrator join our team.

Linden Hall has had an extremely successful year with regard to hiring. From last year’s Science department, Heather Pasewicz and Matt Carriuolo have decided not to return for personal and family reasons. We thank both for all they have done for our students and wish them the very best. New for this coming year will be:

• Dr. Mary Lanzerotti (A.B., Harvard; M.Phil., Cambridge (UK); Ph.D., Cornell),
• Dr. Stephanie Katz (B.S., Franklin & Marshall; Ph.D., University of Colorado)
• Dr. Manju Prakash (B.S., University of Bombay; M.S., Cornell; M.S. Columbia; Ph.D., Columbia)

These three women will join our returning Science Chair, Dr. Sara Fenske (B.S., University of Michigan; Ph.D., MIT), to form what I believe is the only all-female, all-Ph.D. Science Department in the nation.

by Claudia Prosack

It is very hard to believe that our long awaited trip to Salamanca, Spain, is over. This trip was in the planning stages for over 6 months. Our ’study in Spain’ program began on Thursday, March 19, when our adventurous group of 8 students(Morgan Allen, Sarah Andersen, Christy Davis, Brittany Kosiak, Diana Lavery, Victoria Lee, Sera Park ,and Ellie Rio) and 3 chaperones(Ms. Prosack, Mrs. Conlin and Mrs. Watkins) left from Philadelphia and arrived in Madrid, Spain, the next morning.

Our first stop was at the Valley of the Fallen(El Valle de los Caídos), one hour from Madrid.

This monument is an underground church and tomb topped with a 500 foot stone cross, which can be seen from a distance of 30 miles! It is a monument which honors the dead from the Spanish Civil War. It is also the burial place of Francisco Franco.
We continued on for another hour until arriving in Salamanca. The girls wondered and imagined what their experience would be like living with a host family. And now their dreams would become a reality. Our students were warmly greeted by their home-stay mothers and went to their new home for one week.

Saturday, March 21-The girls made their way to the Sampere Language Institute in order to meet their teachers and to take a placement test. Later that afternoon we had a walking tour of Salamanca including the Plaza Mayor, a masterpiece of Spanish Baroque architecture and one of the most beautiful plazas in all of Spain.

Sunday, March 22-We visited the cities of Segovia and Ávila. Segovia has a large, remarkably well preserved two tiered Roman aqueduct. The city is also home to the Alcázar castle where Queen Isabel promised financial backing for Christopher Columbus’ search of the New World. Ávila is a city famous for its medieval town walls(Las Murallas) and narrow streets, as well as the birthplace of Saint Teresa of Ávila.

Monday-Thursday, March 23-26-The girls attended classes from 9am to 12:30pm. We had afternoon tours of Salamanca, visits to the Cathedrals, churches, museums and even flamenco lessons! We also visited the many buildings of the university. The University of Salamanca is the oldest university in Spain! Today the University of Salamanca is an important center for the study of humanities and is particularly noted for its language studies.

We also took a short walk to the Tormes River and stopped for a photo on the old Roman bridge next to the statue of Lazarillo de Tormes. (this is a book we read in Spanish 3)

The girls received their diplomas on Thursday. It was then time to say good-bye to the teachers, Ester, Alicia, and Esther.

The girls enjoyed some free time in Salamanca to do some shopping, practice their Spanish, and become acquainted with the city! The picture perfect weather of 70° and a clear blue sky enhanced each hour of our stay in Salamanca. Our trip would not have been complete if we did not try some Spanish specialties such as paella, churros y chocolate, and gofres!

Friday, March 27-We left Salamanca and headed to Madrid. After checking into the hotel, we had a fabulous tour of the Prado Museum and saw many works of Velázquez, Goya, and other famous Spanish artists. We continued on to the famous shopping district of the Puerta del Sol and the beautiful Plaza Mayor. Later that evening we attended an authentic flamenco show in the heart of Madrid! It was spectacular!

Saturday, March 28- We traveled to the city of Toledo. It is also known as ‘the city of three cultures’ because Christians, Arabs, and Jews lived together for centuries making their mark on this historic city. Toledo once was the capital of the entire Iberian Peninsula. There are well-preserved palaces, fortresses, churches, mosques and synagogues. The Cathedral of Toledo is the most impressive example of Gothic architecture in the city. El Greco, one of the most famous artists of the 16th century, made his home in Toledo. We were very fortunate and excited to see several of his paintings.

It was back to Madrid to begin to pack and get ready for our departure to the US.

Sunday, March 29-We arrived safely in Philadelphia! We now look back on our trip with great fondness and have memories that will last a lifetime!

¡OLÉ! ¡VIVA ESPAÑA! ¡OLÉ!

This is a relatively new program at Linden Hall. We expect that within a very brief time our results in this program will match those we achieve in our AP program. As a preview of that success, this year our girls averaged a score of 750 (200-800 scale) on the Math Level 2 Exam. This is a test taken by the best Math students in the nation with a United States average score of 644.

The quality of our AP program continues to increase. Using the 1-5 scale of the College Board, where 5 is the top score and 3 is considered college-certifying; our average score of 4.0 in 2008 was a record high for Linden Hall and placed us among the academically elite schools in the nation. If this were not excellent enough, we just received our 2009 results and were thrilled to learn that our average improved to 4.6. This is yet further confirmation that the academic program at Linden Hall is superb.

We are extremely pleased with the progress made by our students and faculty in regard to SAT scores. Beginning with the Class of 2007, each graduating class has set a record high mark for SAT scores. We are extremely proud of the Class of 2009 who reached an average SAT score of 1815. We are also very excited that our Class of 2010 –this year’s rising Senior Class– has already reached an average SAT score of 1835 and we hope that number will climb to the 1850-1900 range by this fall. This current figure places us among the top girls’ schools in the United States and at the top of Lancaster County, PA.

By Linda Gillingham

On Saturday, February 21, Linden Hall sent a team of four mathletes to the Lincoln Chapter of the MATHCOUNTS competition held at Millersville University. Our team consisted of eighth graders Sera Park and Kat Galvis, seventh grader Jillian Silbert, and sixth grader Julia Song. All four of our mathletes’ scores were considered to be highly commendable (at least 23 out of 46 points). Out of the 223 participating mathletes, Jillian ranked 21 and Sera ranked 30. In addition, our team placed eighth out of the 38 teams represented. (We missed receiving a trophy by 0.25 of a point!) Congratulations to all the members of our team for a job well-done!