Missing Out on Milestones

From the Spring/Summer 2020 Peddie Chronicle

For Peddie’s senior class, the pandemic impacted several meaningful milestones. End-of-year celebrations like Commencement and Prom were postponed or canceled, leaving these teens to move onto the next chapter of their lives with no bookend to the high school experience.

The Class of 2020 did not have the chance to say traditional goodbyes or make the most of what should have been their final days on campus. Just a few weeks before the end of the academic year, while under stay-at-home orders, the Chronicle editor spoke with Peddie’s elected class leaders. Luke Marolda, Julia Patella, Bateman Solms, Johnny Sussek and Dennis Zhang described how they came to terms with COVID-19 affecting their senior year and what traditional celebrations mean to them, and advised Peddie’s future leaders.

Editor: What was your reaction when you learned that you would not be returning to campus after spring break?

Luke: At first, it was really tough. Just a lot of confusion. We didn’t really know what to expect. We had such a clear picture of what senior spring was gonna look like. And so having that taken away and no longer knowing what the future was gonna look like was definitely alarming.

Bateman: I don’t know about you guys, but I cry a lot. I started crying. But I think that it was mostly sadness because we’re missing out on the most traditional, fun part of our entire Peddie experience. I haven’t even been here for four years, but I’ve still been so looking forward to all of the different traditions, even just little things that happen like sitting on center campus when it’s warm outside. So I’m just kinda sad that we won’t be able to experience those things as a class.

Editor: How has the transition been to online learning?

Johnny: It was so hard. At least for me. To get out of bed and do that, especially because I’m not at Peddie. But Dr. Hart, my AP Statistics teacher, is the queen of online learning. I think she can teach a college lecture in online learning. She’s so good at it. Also, Mr. Roach is just like …

Luke: Yeah, Mr. Roach, for sure.

Johnny: He does the same thing, Luke. Nothing’s changed.

Luke: [nodding in agreement] Literally, nothing’s changed. We’re just sitting at our desks at home instead of in the classroom together. I’m in a photography class, and the school actually shipped the cameras out to us. So I have my camera right here. It’s been tough getting interesting pictures though, considering every picture I take is of my backyard or my car or the occasional neighbors walking by.

Julia: Speaking of arts classes, chorus has been interesting. Miss Green, our choir director, has really taken the opportunity to expose us to different kinds of musical learning that we don’t get to do during the year because we’re so busy preparing for concerts. When we’re in person, that’s almost all of what we do. I mean, we have so much music to prepare each term. One concert every term and two in the winter. But now that we’re online, she’s been sending us video links to other choirs to listen to and comment on and discuss. I miss being able to sing together, but we’re getting to do some cool stuff that we didn’t usually get to do.

Editor: Aside from your classes, what other activities are you involved in that have been affected by not being on campus this spring?

Bateman: I don’t even know if you can call it a sport, but I was signed up to do “Mindful Movement,” two
days of yoga a week and two days of tai chi a week. I was ridiculously excited to do that because it kinda
sounded fun. That’s definitely been a disappointment.

Editor: Dennis, has it been challenging to oversee a club like PEST (Peddie Environmental & Sustainability Team) while not being on campus?

Dennis: Nothing has really changed for PEST. We get at least 20 kids at every meeting. We’ve been meeting every single week. We organized the virtual Earth Day. We discussed projects that can go on next year.

Julia: Yeah, Dennis. You’re kinda killing it. [group nods in agreement]

Dennis: I mean, nothing that we did before really required us to physically be there except maybe to
plant some plants. Yeah, PEST is still going strong.

Editor: How about sports? Are any of you on spring sports teams?

Dennis: I’m on track. My coach has been offering Google Hangouts every Monday and Wednesday, but
it’s more for sophomore and juniors who want to be recruited. We have a kid in our grade who’s really
fast, Chinedu Okeke. He qualified for Nationals and that got canceled.

Julia: Heading into spring term, I was getting ready to work on the spring play. I‘ve been involved in
theater every term that I’ve been at Peddie. And so this was going to be my last term working in Peddie
Theater. And it was pretty devastating to lose that.

Editor: As senior class leaders, how have you been helping your class stay connected?

Bateman: Instagram is one of my favorite pastimes. [Bateman launched a Peddie2020 Instagram account
this spring.] I think it’s so much fun because we put stuff together that the whole community can see and
kind of create a central message or at least a feeling of togetherness for the class. It’s been a really great place to stay together in a more casual way. I think that’s something that’s missed the most in virtual learning. We don’t get to walk past each other in the hallways and spend time in the dorms together or have that type of casual interaction that we usually would. Yeah, I’ve just loved having Instagram as a way to maintain that.

Editor: How are you and your classmates dealing with the fact that traditional senior events like
commencement and prom have been postponed?

Julia: I mean, it’s difficult for sure. For me it really felt like a light at the end of the tunnel. I mean the work that we put into our classes. And [pause] yeah, it’s really hard.

Luke: Yeah, it’s tough because, as Peddie students, we work extremely hard. Graduation and baccalaureate and prom and senior spring as a whole is kinda the reward and validates all that hard work and just reminds you of how worth it all the work was. And so it’s tough not having that. Everything felt like it was cut short. My last day on campus, I mean, I was complaining about having a physics exam. I would have done things differently if I’d known that those were my last moments … This whole thing kinda threw us all off. It’s definitely been difficult. But we’re our class’s leaders. We’ve been doing a great job at trying to hide that [our disappointment]. And to convey a positive image and just to encourage everyone to say positive.

Bateman: The group of us, especially, we all like to plan. And so I think we all immediately were like, “OK, can we do graduation? Can we figure out what dates are going to work?” We were just in a meeting with Mr. McClellan [Dean of Students] kind of arguing our way into having something at least this summer. I think we all have been putting a lot of our energy into making sure our class still gets something. Because we know how important it is for us to be able to come together.

Johnny: I’m not gonna lie. I mean, we’re angry. Upset. And it comes out in the weirdest moments. We’ve kinda spent four years building a family, and that family is supposed to last until May 24. I did not think about graduation once during my winter term. I thought about the next assignment, the next test, the four exams I had. I did not even think about celebrating. I had NO IDEA. That was supposed to close the book. And it didn’t. That was supposed to be the last chapter. And it wasn’t … So we’re in this in-between moment where we don’t know how to feel, and we don’t know what to do … We were supposed to finish our book together. And we can’t. So it’s just the hardest thing in the world. I don’t feel like this every second of the day. I only do in moments like these.

Luke: It’s so here and there. Sometimes I’ll be in a completely different place. It’s tough. I mean, we have SO much time to think. We have SO much time to ourselves.

Bateman: SO much time.

Luke: That doesn’t help at all. If we were distracted by being on campus all the time or other activities, it would be a little bit different, but we’re not. We’re stuck in our rooms, staring at our ceilings, thinking about everything we missed out on. So that doesn’t help either. But Peddie’s been doing its best to keep us looking forward. As Johnny said, it’s really an in-between stage. I don’t know whether to move on or to stay in the present. I just don’t really know. I’m here still. I’m still a student. But I’m not even gonna come back to campus. It’s tough. It’s definitely tough.

Johnny: The funny thing is, we haven’t had a chance to talk about it. We haven’t even had a chance to express our feelings about leaving to each other. We just took an exam. That was the last time I saw anybody. I was leaving the dorm right after my math exam. I was half in tears because I thought I failed it, and my life was over. That was the last time I was at Peddie.

Dennis: When I learned that I wouldn’t be going back … I have this Peddie flag in my room that I literally,
I kid you not, I just waved it around the house. My parents thought I was crazy. I think it is our obligation, the five of us. If it is a facade, we keep putting it on. Because if anybody should feel patriotic about our class, it should be us. Even if we’re not. We’ve had to have those really hard conversations. We’re deciding if we have ceremonies and who can come and if we’re willing to make that decision between not letting certain kids come because they already have obligations — college, jobs, international boundaries. We have those conversations, and they’re hard, but it’s also kind of what we signed up for. We never anticipated something like this, but I guess this is what leadership should be?

Editor: Do you think that the Class of 2020 will have an even stronger bond now?

Luke: Definitely. You can spark conversations with any member of the Class of 2020, whether they’re members of the Peddie community or some other school around the world. We all share this trauma, which brings us closer together. When we’re 40 or 50 years old, I’ll be like, “Hey, Dennis, remember when we didn’t have graduation? But look at us now. We’ve moved on and adapted, and we’ve grown.”

Julia: What’s interesting is it’s not just the Peddie Class of 2020. It’s the Class of 2020 across all high
schools across the country, across the world. By going on social media and seeing other people’s posts
about it, it’s so weird; it’s really starting to feel like a much bigger community than even Peddie.

Bateman: We aren’t really getting closure. We’re gonna still keep on looking for it. I’ve had a ton of
people reach out over social media. I’ve connected with people who I wasn’t even that close with on
campus. We all have a common experience now. So even if we didn’t know each other super well or didn’t
connect over the same things before, we are all going through this together, and so I think that we’ll be even more connected coming out of it, if that makes sense?

Julia: I’ve been messaging some people that I didn’t really talk to on campus. But we’re having
conversations about this shared experience.

Editor: What message do you have for next year’s student leaders?

Julia: Oh, man.

Bateman: We were just talking about this.

Dennis: Cherish every day like it’s your last.

Luke: Yeah, seriously. If they don’t enjoy their moments, then I’ll come back and enjoy it for them.

Julia: Yeah, cuz we didn’t know at the time that we were having our last moments.

Luke: If I come back to Peddie next year and I don’t see a smile on every single student’s face, then
there’s gonna be a problem [laughing].

Bateman: I think that student government has more power than they realize. We’ve done a lot of things very independently that have been able to be something for our class and that the class has rallied around. And so I think they should realize that outside of trying to make policy changes or trying to argue your way into something in the Faculty-Student Senate, there’s a lot of community influence that you do have and that can be used in really good ways.

Luke Marolda was accepted to Carnegie Mellon University. He was recruited to play soccer at CMU and plans to major in electrical and computer engineering. Julia Patella is spending a gap year studying theater, dance and voice in New York City. Bateman Solms will attend the University of St Andrews this fall, where she plans to major in biology. Johnny Sussek was accepted to Boston College and will likely major in English. Dennis Zhang begins a pre-med track at Columbia University this fall.