Friday, April 10, 2009

Michael Scognamiglio wins national award for Niswarth poem

Michael Scognamiglio '10 has won a national award for his poem, Young Girl at Temple, which he wrote during the Niswarth program. He will be recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers at a ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York City on June 4th, 2009. There were over 140,000 works of art and writing submitted in this competition and Michael won a silver medal in the poetry category.

The Alliance for Young Artists and Writers was founded to recognize the important contributions teen artists and writers make to the cultural landscape of the United States and beyond. The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are the nation's longest-running, largest, most prestigious recognition program for creative teenagers in grades 7-12.

Congratulations, Michael!

To read the poem, scroll down and read the blog entry from September 29, 2008.

Niswarth documentary - press release by Phillips Academy

Tessa Pompa ’08 may now be a freshman at Stanford, but her memories of the slums of Mumbai, which she visited while still a Phillips Academy student, are never far behind. It was just last summer she found herself in India’s largest city, scrubbing filthy concrete floors with monsoon water as gleeful toddlers skidded on their bellies through the muck. Pompa not only cleaned the hallways, she managed to film that moment—and many others just like it—for her 20-minute documentary, titled “Niswarth 2008.”

Click here to the entire story and documentary:

Monday, January 19, 2009

Does Community Service Really Change Anything?

Raj Mundra, Director of the Niswarth program, has recently written an op-ed piece, "Does Community Service Really Change Anything?" that was published in the Christian Science Monitor.  The link: