Do Seniors Still Care About the Leadership Positions That Got Them Into College?

Giuseppe DiMassa, Jack Anderson, and Sacha Smith (Left to Right)

After almost four years of being beacons of leadership, delivering exemplary Talking Leaves, and challenging the mind, nurturing the heart, and celebrating human dignity, the Class of 2024 has found itself in the throes of senioritis. As Editor-in-Chief of The Barefoot Times and a member of the graduating class myself, I have certainly been neglecting my duties. So I’ve been wondering: now that the seniors have been accepted into college, is our school going to fall apart? To get to the bottom of this question, The Times asked some of the seniors who hold top positions of power how their work is progressing, if at all. 

Giuseppe DiMassa ’24, who will attend Yale University in the fall, has been an active member of the Debate Team since freshman year, Team Captain in sophomore, junior, and senior years, and has become the Sequoyah Debate poster boy. Many credit him for turning the debate team into the championship-winning group that it is today. Before Yale, DiMassa was debate. He explained, “Before I got into college, my role with the debate team was extensive. I functionally co-led the team alongside Omari [Averette-Phillips], who was the coach, so we shared responsibilities for planning, logistics, and tournaments. We helped students with research, topic preparation, and direct cases. I provided a lot of feedback on a lot of arguments and I also was primarily responsible for running the meetings.” It is apparent that DiMassa put serious time and care into Sequoyah Debate… or at least until December 18. He ended this long list of commitments with: “I no longer do that.” When he was elected Captain for his senior year, he included a clause in his contract saying that “after I submitted my last college application, I would officially resign as debate team captain.” So, was he just doing it for his Ivy League quality college application? The answer is we may never know. If DiMassa was merely pretending to be passionate about debate this whole time, he would certainly be a very good actor. Perhaps he has been overcome by an uncharacteristic spell of laziness—you never know what a Yale acceptance will do to a man. However, I have heard rumors that DiMassa has done significant work assisting the future leaders of Sequoyah Debate, despite his newfound lack of official recognition for it. Maybe his stepping down was not an act of laziness or proof of fraud, but a gentle way of transferring power. 

Sacha Smith ’24, Chair of the Student Activities Committee, added some revealing insight to my performative-leadership-positions theory. Smith has been a member of the committee since his sophomore year and became chair at the beginning of his senior year. He was responsible for spearheading the planning of homecoming and winter formal before being accepted to college and Prom afterward. According to Smith, Prom was “one of the biggest successes in Sequoyah’s history.” This was said with such an air of extreme confidence that I had reason to be wary, so I asked Smith about his college application. Smith will be attending Colorado College and confirmed my suspicion that his role as chair positively impacted his application. “I wrote essays about it and it showed growth throughout the years,” he stated, “how I started out as someone shy and then came into a big leadership position and planning all the school dances.” I asked him if he took up this leadership role because he thought it would help him get into college or because he actually cared about it. To this, Smith replied: “It’s a mix of both.” Finally, some honesty! The college application process is so reductive it forces applicants to milk any possible display of excellence. 

Jack Anderson ’24, who will be attending UC Santa Cruz and is currently Editor-in-Chief of Seco Literary Magazine, shared a very different perspective than DiMassa and Smith. Seco is one of the only responsibilities Anderson hasn’t been neglecting since getting into college. Anderson joined Seco in junior year after their previous stewardship was shut down and became chair and Editor-in-Chief senior year. Anderson described their initial enjoyment of Seco, noting, “No shade to the stewardship program, but the past two years really felt like I hadn’t done anything. I really liked Seco because there was an actual task we were completing.” This year, Seco will be releasing two issues of the magazine. Anderson has been setting big goals like this for their committee, observing, “I think that’s a big part of helping motivate myself at the end of the semester.” And although Anderson claims that “Seco was never about getting into college,” they also admit that senioritis has set in, stating, “It has taken me about a month to format this new issue.” 

I think it is fair to say that, after almost four years of being passionate leaders (and perhaps passionate college application activities list crafters), the seniors have decided to slow down their rampant domination of Sequoyah School. Looks like the time has come for the freshman, sophomores, and juniors to fill some very large shoes.