When strolling through campus over the past week and a half, students saw hallways and corners decorated with installations created by the Class of 2025. Each mentorship used their creativity to install an interactive display to reflect their journey at Archer.
Twelfth grade Dean of Culture, Community and Belonging Casey Huff planned the creation of these exhibitions during the first semester. She said she wanted to launch this project, called Memory Lane, to replace senior student-led conferences — an assignment used for reflecting on the students’ current year. She arranged, organized and assigned a theme to each mentorship, such as friendship, tradition and gratitude. Each mentorship created a display based on their assigned theme, including both a visual and interactive element.
“[Student-led Conferences] are either loved or hated in this community, but I think that the process of reflecting on your year, on your journey, is really important … Seniors are in a really unique position to look backwards on their entire time at Archer as they are on the cusp of moving on from this place,” Huff said. “I don’t even remember how it came together, but the idea of a memory lane with stops for each mentorship [was created].”
Huff said the goal was to finish these displays by Wednesday, May 14, so mentorships in other grades would be able to see the finished products by Thursday, May 15. The hope was that when parents were at Archer for Senior Week events, such as dessert night and senior recognition, they would be able to walk through and take a look, too. Huff said each mentorship used their unique passions and skills to create their display.
“[Mike] Carter and the Inventeam always take their crafting projects to the next level with 3D printing. So, of course, [the] Carter mentorship is going all out. And then we have the Robertson mentorship, who won door decorating. They’re very, very crafty,” Huff said. “I think [the project] very much speaks to the personalities of each mentorship group.”
Senior mentor Mike Carter said the process was both difficult and rewarding. He said one of the things he enjoyed was seeing how the project grew beyond the planning stage and how his mentorship collaborated with one another. His mentorship was assigned the theme of tradition; their interactive aspects included flower crowns and a clothing rack in correspondence to Archer’s uniforms.
“They felt the biggest [tradition] was the Maypole because that was something that from both sixth grade, when you get to do the dance, to senior year, when you get to put it up, kind of bookends the experience,” Carter said. “I think that’s why they wanted to do the clothes rack, and then the interactive crowns, because they remembered that just so fondly from sixth grade.”
Senior mentor Bethany Neubauer said she loved the interactive elements to the project. Despite the anxiety the end of the year brings, Neubauer said she hoped both the seniors and viewers of the displays would remember the importance of their journey at Archer.
“It is always a challenge to pull things off at the end of the year … I think just staying motivated at times when people are like, ‘Can’t we just have the 30 minutes to study for this test that we have?’ is always tough,” Neubauer said. “But it was just fun to see them all working together.”
Huff said she wanted this project to be fun and unique and reflect the seniors’ journey at Archer, no matter how long or short. She said she was worried that because the seniors are so busy, they might not fully realize that they are truly leaving Archer.
“They have spent a good portion of their lives here, so [I wanted] to really take that in and honor that journey that they’ve been through,” Huff said. “I hope [the project] is one way for [the audience] to honor and celebrate the senior class, but also to think about their own journey and what lies ahead for them … It’s a good way for everybody to pause, reflect and both simultaneously look forward and backward.”
