The Great Locker Debate
September 7, 2016
As another year begins here at Marymount, the Class of 2017 noticed an unprecedented number of changes to traditional components of student life. Students were shocked upon hearing the news about banned club sweatshirts, the replacement of our original pleated skirts with skorts for incoming students, and the remodeling of the library, which has resulted in an extreme lack of study spaces on campus; however, the most impactful surprise was the dismantling of the traditional locker system.
Marymount has traditionally been comprised of locker areas for each class, but this year a new system assigns every locker in the school alphabetically, assumably to accommodate the remarkably large new freshman class. In this new system, students’ ability to commune with classmates from their respective grades when they go to their lockers was eradicated. Additionally, some seniors, who have waited their first three years at Marymount for the most convenient lockers in front of Butler, have been assigned to lockers in Freshmen Courtyard.
The seniors view this change as the stripping of a special rite of passage. In the footsteps of every class before them, the Class of 2017 used lockers in Freshman Courtyard when they were freshmen and behind Butler when they were sophomores and juniors. However, upon finally reaching the culmination of their Marymount careers, many seniors were designated to the same lockers used as freshmen. Many seniors have opted not to use their lockers at all because it is inconvenient to have their books located so far from senior courtyard, where they almost always sit.
In addition, the change has led to confusion about and a breakdown of the traditional seating patterns at Marymount. Each class maintains their own courtyard, which were generally convenient to the prior locker system; though these courtyard designations are technically unofficial, they are a well-known tradition that fosters class spirit and bonding, especially during lunch times when the whole grade is in one area. Although the Class of 2017 is extremely excited to welcome the class of 2020 to the Marymount family, it is anticlimactic to have finally earned the right to sit in Senior Courtyard and use the senior lockers only to find that underclassmen are enjoying the same privileges. In turn, if underclassmen enjoy these privileges so soon into their high school experience, they won’t get to experience the same excitement and anticipation towards the simplest pleasures of senior year.
Teresa Dickey • Sep 11, 2016 at 7:48 pm
Ms. Leipzig makes an excellent point about the power of traditions in developing a sense of community and bonding. I completely understand her feeling that a traditional senior “privilege” has been undone just as she and the class of 2017 come to claim it. So many of the changes listed early in this piece made me think: we are definitely shifting in a variety of ways and each of those changes impact the girls in a variety of ways. I am sure the class of 2017 wonders – “why us?” Why couldn’t one or even two of those changes come at another time, a later time, a different time? Why did “we” have to be on the forefront of this change? As someone who has seen a few changes, may I suggest a metaphor to help us all “sail” through these changing times together: Learn to surf the wave. Riding the crest of the wave guarantees you don’t get crushed in the whitewater, because once change starts, little old me can’t stop it! So embrace the change. Paddle toward it and make it work for you. Find the positive: reach out to the students around you and introduce yourself. Seniors I call on you to lea the way. As we begin your final year with us, you need to ask: What kind of Marymount do you want to leave behind? You realize how you treat the freshmen will trickle down into the next four years. Personally, I like this decision to change the locker distribution. I think it could create a new synergy in our school. Redistribution means an integration of the classes. It speaks both to this year’s goal of finding community through diversity (how much more diversity can we create than by mixing up the most rigid “class” barriers you can find – high school), and it speaks directly to our core mission. For all to have life and have it to the full” we must choose change. In order to achieve equity there has to be change. In order for Marymount to do what’s best for the longer vision of the school, we must accept that changes will happen on our watch.