This spring, WRA will experience a spectacular moment (over 3 minutes, actually!) as it sits in the path of totality for the solar eclipse. WRA has announced the “Written in the Stars” scholarship contest to celebrate the celestial event and provide full boarding tuition to an incoming student.
The winner will be announced on eclipse day, April 8, 2024, which is also when the school will kick off its Bicentennial Celebration, an apt homage to “Lux et Veritas,” or Light and Truth. The run-up to the Bicentennial in 2026 will include two years of reflection and celebration. The scholarship is an element that proves the perennial generosity of those connected to Reserve.
Inspired by the U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s partnership with NASA and her penning of “A Poem for Europa” (shared below) that will launch into space inscribed on the Europa Clipper in October 2024, an anonymous donor approached the school in the summer of 2023 with a challenge: find a student curious about the beautiful collision between art and science. Applicants will be asked to prepare a project that creatively expresses the theme “light and truth” using any medium of their choice – fine arts, music, dance, graphic design, poetry, coding and beyond!
Head of School Suzanne Walker Buck P '24 says, “Science and art, and the blurred line between, often perform a captivating dance that provides inspiration and possibility. The Written in the Stars contest was inspired by this magic, creating an opportunity to celebrate light, truth, art, science and education. We are deeply touched by the thoughtfulness, selflessness and generosity of these visionary donors.”
The donors shared, “The remarkable and uniquely human collision between art and science inspires everything from quiet awe to impassioned action. WRA is a place that encourages joy and wonder across every discipline, and affords students resources that often change the trajectory of their lives. We are thrilled to be able to provide this opportunity to another stellar student in a Reserve community that we treasure.”
The contest is open to all domestic boarding applicants new to Western Reserve Academy beginning in the 2024-25 school year. Full contest details are available at www.wra.net/stars.
IN PRAISE OF MYSTERY: A POEM FOR EUROPA
By: U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón
Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we
pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.
Still, there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.
We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.
And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,
each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.
We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.
