Student Life Office Works to Sustain Student Culture

From the top floor of the Main School Building, Associate Head of School for Student Life and Language Teacher Amie Creagh and Assistant Athletic Director and 10th Grade Class Dean Drew Philie answered the question, “What are the top three things stolen on campus?” 

“Bikes, Scooters, Food,” responded Mr. Phillie. “Food, Scooters, Bikes,” said Ms. Creagh, rearranging the order of the short list. 

Stolen items on campus have been a longstanding issue, from unlabeled food being up for grabs to electric scooters suddenly going missing from charging ports. Many students have expressed their frustration with their belongings getting stolen on campus, especially when the stolen possession in question is what is used to get from class to class. In Layla Abdi ’28’s case, it was first her friend’s bike then her own bike from the outskirts of HS, after being unlocked for only one night. 

 “The first instance, I was using my friend’s bike, and I’ve been using it for a couple days, but she didn’t have a lock on it, so I parked it discreetly behind my building so that no one would take it,” she explained, adding, “It ended up one day that I really needed to park it in the front of my building because I had to go in and I kept it there the entire day.” After finding out that the bike was stolen, she eventually found it outside of the Athletic Complex. It was left broken, and still is, making the bike completely unusable. 

“It’s not that bad this year because Shipping got moved to the Chen so we have security cameras,” said Mina Hata ’29, “but it might still happen from time to time.”

Stealing anywhere says a lot about any community as a whole. At the Academy, community remains a central part of the overall culture, Ms. Creagh and Mr. Philie described—but stealing disrupts the core value of trust shared around campus. “I think that we have a pretty trusting community. I think if you look at this place in comparison to maybe other boarding schools and college campuses, this is a place where we know each other here,” Mr. Philie said. 

He added, “That said, I think we’re seeing that less and less, right? And so, we make it a big point to talk about these things at our school meetings, and on a daily basis, which I think are good reminders for our students as we share the same space and we’re part of something bigger than ourselves.”

He brought up the point that Deerfield students are living in a shared environment, one that requires students to be conscious of their choices and how they affect the ones around them. As Ms. Creagh pointed out, “It’s when you’re thinking ‘this thing’ is more important to you than anybody else. ‘I need to get to class so I’m going to take that scooter, I'm putting myself above everyone else at this moment.’” 

Today, however, she feels that the overall student culture overpowers instances of stealing. “Those rare moments of ‘self-first’ are kept at bay by the thousands of kids making thousands of decisions to create the culture we have now,” she said, adding, “I hope a kid who steals something, recognizes that they are an outlier and that they feel somehow, like, ‘Wait a minute, this thing I’m doing here is not helping me build the culture I want to live in.’”

The SLO members emphasized the importance of students not just living in the culture they want to be in, but actively contributing to the creation of it. They described that stealing might be convenient for students when they're running a bit late for a class, but there might be someone else affected later.