In an exclusive interview with The Record, all-school presidents Serena Nam ’26 and Dwyer Illick ’26 outlined their goals for the 2025- 2026 school year, including plans to improve the school’s culture and build a more inclusive community.
In their opening remarks at Convocation, the pair encouraged community members to focus on “bucket filling,” which many listeners were familiar with from the children’s book by Carol McCloud, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? Nam said, “We want to focus on uplifting one another. For us, that looks like encouraging everyone to show up for each other.”
The pair also said they would also like to focus on helping students become more active in the life of the community. “When we moved to the FFC, there was a huge drop in club attendance and club activities overall. We want to get people out of their rooms as much as possible,” said Nam.
A number of the changes the pair have championed for this year are in service of this goal. Notable among these changes is the move to change 8-9 p.m. free time from Wednesdays to Tuesdays. Illick said, “We hope that moving this time to Tuesday will let people spend more time out in the community, because Tuesday is a night when we all have less work.”
In order to facilitate the active community they hope for, Nam and Illick have planned multiple events to get the student body engaged outside of academic life. On September 9, during the first Tuesday night free time, they brought back the “Fair Hotchkiss” dorm sing-off. The event was well- attended, with most of the student body present. The competition ended in a tie-breaker sing-off between Tinker and Flinn, with Flinn coming out on top.
In a joint effort with student band MB140, the co-presidents are planning a “Back to School Bash” on the night of Saturday, September 20. Students and faculty members will perform six songs and WKIS will perform a set.
Dwyer and Illick are also planning a dance on Saturday, October 18 to celebrate the school’s founding. “We want everyone to be able to come together to celebrate the school on the anniversary of the first day of class,” said Illick. When the new dining hall reopens, they are looking forward to hosting another dance to celebrate the new space.
Beyond social programming, the pair wants to expand other opportunities for students. They hope to reintroduce on-campus driving lessons, to be offered on Sunday mornings. These in-person classes would be paired with virtual classes, which would allow students to take their road tests and get their licenses during the school year.
In addition, the pair also hopes to change the tradition of hanging the honor roll list publicly in the main hallway. “We see it as a symbolic change to take some of the emphasis off of academic competition among each other,” said Nam.
Finally, they want to allow more room for student voices to be heard. Holding weekly Stu-Facs is a priority for the pair; the meetings will be held on Monday nights from 7-8 p.m. “The power Stu-Fac gives students at Hotchkiss is unique among our peer schools,” said Illick.
Students can reach out to the co- presidents through their POTHS (Presidents of the Hotchkiss School) Instagram or at their open office hours in the FFC. Illick said, “We just want to be a source for people to experience all that Hotchkiss has to offer.”
