In a joint initiative, Prefect Council and HW Venture announced the creation of The Quad, a platform designed as an online hub for students to access and sign up for upper school events, in an email to the student body April 28.
With the input of these two groups, Aariz Irfan ’23 developed the website as a way to combat the lack of social interaction during the quarantine period. The website is intended to simulate the upper school quad, the main hub for students on campus.
Prefect Council’s master schedule, a running calendar of all organized virtual activities, inspired the creation of the new website, The Quad Team leader and HW Venture head Amaan Irfan ’21 said.
“At the start of quarantine, the HW Venture team realized that the community would be lacking bonding, so we first came up with many ideas and asked the Prefect Council to perform them,” Amaan Irfan said. “We realized that the [master schedule] wasn’t very interactive, so we came up with the idea for an online platform instead.”
Additionally, Head Prefect Michael Lehrhoff ’20 said that the prefects decided to contribute to the website because of their previous success in organizing online activities during quarantine.
“Knowing how passionate students and faculty are about their extracurricular interests, we all realized that, though we cannot see each other on campus, we can still engage with our friends and peers through online media,” Lehrhoff said. “Given the past success of our spring break online extracurricular classes, activities and events, there was no doubt that we wanted to create a more robust, dynamic website for students and faculty to stay connected.”
The Quad allows students to sign up for school activities, receive notifications about school events and indicate interest in upcoming activities in the school community. Students can also create and post their own events through a Google Form request sent to Prefect Council.
Olivia Smith ’21 said she enjoys the simplicity and structure of the website.
“It seems like a great place to easily see all the upcoming activities at school in an organized way,” Smith said.
Lehrhoff said he hopes to grow the platform in the future and revise the website based on the student body’s needs.
“In the future, we plan to expand the number of events and types of events, everything from round table discussions to teacher lectures to game nights,” Leheroff said. “After launch, we will be reaching out to ask for feedback on events, as well as the platform’s design, so that The Quad best serves the needs of our community.”
