Features: Representative Profile

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Mr. Lee

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Features: Representative Profile

This piece will be a personality profile of a person who is in some way typical of a larger group or social issue. One example might be profiles of six people who lived through the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima as a way to illuminate the dangers of both war and nuclear weapons. Another is a profile of a random 10-year-old who has a cellphone as a way to illustrate what it’s like to grow up today.
You can choose whomever you would like to profile, although it can’t be a family member, a close friend, or (unless you get permission from the student and parents ahead of time) a Newton South student.
Profile subjects should:

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  Be representative of a larger group or issue. For example, a mother on welfare could be representative of the larger issue of poverty.
  
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  Be willing to let you observe them in two different contexts in December for at least an hour for each.
  
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  Be willing to allow you to spend a day shadowing them later in December (you will likely miss school for this assignment).
  

Your assignment will be worth approximately 40% of your Term 2 grade.

It should be 1,200 – 2,000 words in length.
The steps and tentative due dates (complete the following by the date):
Fri, 11/20 – Submit proposal of three subjects and broader groups/ideas to Google folder

Mon, 12/01 – Observe and/or interview subject at least once

Fri, 12/22 – Shadow subject for a full day, submit notes to Google folder

Wed, 01/03 – Rough draft due; bring to class for peer conference

Fri, 01/12 – Profile final submitted to TurnItIn
It should include:

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  An angle that can be summed up as one statement
  
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  Research and data to contextualize your subject
  
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  Interviews with your subject and at least two other individuals
  
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  Multiple anecdotes that function to flesh out the contours of your subject
  

Student Sample #1 – 1,300 words
Upon arriving on the campus of Wellesley College, I first enter the Stone-Davis residence hall, the one that’s rumored to offer the most edible food out of all 14 halls. Narrow corridors, a dull dining hall, and some ugly furniture — there’s essentially everything you’d expect in an old college dorm building.
The signs on the bathroom doors, however, aren’t so typical: ”Wellesley” and “Non-Wellesley.”
Bridget just chuckles at my raised eyebrows, calling the signs a “classic Wellesley thing.” She assures me that there aren’t very many of these “classic things” — at least not as many as all the “Non-Wellesley” people think there are.
“Not everyone here’s a lesbian, a crazy feminist, or a lonely, socially deprived girl that is desperately hoping to find a boy in her life. It’s just kind of a … different social atmosphere and scene. Yeah, that exists, I promise,” she says. She continues as if to clarify. “No, no, not a bad different at all.”
Bridget Walsh, currently a sophomore at Wellesley College, studies neuroscience and music performance as a double degree major. The tall, lean, Texan blonde comes from a family of five, which includes her two younger brothers who both attend all-boys high schools. So, it came as no surprise when her parents supported her decision to enroll at a women’s college. Besides, Bridget had never been very close with the guys at Westlake High School; how different could it possibly be?
Apparently, quite different.
“Being in an entirely woman’s environment, there’s just a lot less pressure to always be right and if you’re wrong, to not say anything,” she says, referring to her German class in which she constantly makes “stupid and dumb mistakes” that she’s able to easily brush off. But she goes on to say that this isn’t exclusive to the classroom. “I think that being at Wellesley for long enough, … you generally just go into all environments with more confidence and certainty about yourself and your choices.”
According to Rodolfo Alvarez, a sociology professor at UCLA, Bridget’s experience is no coincidence, given the core values of women’s colleges across the country. “Women’s colleges place a higher value on women’s career accomplishment and encourage their career aspirations by developing their self-confidence,” he wrote in the Journal of Higher Education.
While Alvarez notes that the atmosphere in the classrooms and the attitude of professors likely contribute to the development of this self-confidence, Bridget credits her most recent boost in confidence to the latest development in her social life: her acceptance to her rather selective Society. No, not a sorority; in fact, she takes offense when people think she’s referring to a sorority because “societies are way classier.” She adds that she would never even think about joining a sorority, but if I’m being honest, I can’t really tell the difference between a sorority and a society.
This past fall, she decided to rush “tee” the Agora Society, a group of 30 some girls whose focuses are politics, social justice, citizenship and sisterhood. But she tells me that that’s merely an official description since each Society needs some “pillars” in order to be approved; the group is really just a tight knit circle of girls “looking for some intellectual discussions and a lot of holiday festivities and dinners.”
Within the Agora Society, Bridget is a part of the small group that is responsible for planning the Society’s winter social, and the girls are discussing various details of the event — including their partnership with Tufts University and Brandeis University.
“We actually have plenty of chances to socialize with guys because of these partnerships,” she explains and elaborates on her few close friends whose boyfriends attend these neighboring schools. “I mean, it’s nice that there’s not always this pressure to be seeking guys because it’s just not something I’m interested in right now, but I think people don’t realize I do get to spend my weekends hanging out with guys — if I want.” She calls everything — dating, drinking, smoking, “teeing” Societies — a “personal choice without pressure” at Wellesley.
Jane Walsh, Bridget’s mom, says she anticipated such an atmosphere, which she thought would well suit Bridget. “My sons have said similar things about their high schools. It’s not like they’re going to an environment that’s void of x, y, and z. All those things exist — just in different forms,” she says. “Bridget’s always been good about choosing and staying true to what’s important to her, so I’m not surprised that she’s fitting in so well.”
Certain things, however, aren’t a choice — even at Wellesley; everywhere on campus, students are beginning their cram sessions for their upcoming finals. Bridget, however, likes to study with her Society sisters at the off-campus Starbucks, and today is no exception.
One of the baristas recognizes them because they come so often, calling them the “Wellesley girls.” As she orders a tall hot chocolate, her go-to drink, the seemingly new barista asks, “You go to Wellesley?” Tossing her long, blonde hair back, Bridget just laughs as if she’s heard this many times before.
She grabs her drink and heads over to her friends who all pull out their laptops and notebooks as if to begin a group study session. I’m suddenly confused, because she had just told me none of them had mutual majors. “Last time we came, I hardly got anything done,” she admits. “This is just an excuse for us to catch up really.”
Her closest friend in this group of Society Sisters is her roommate, Madeline Whitesell. The two of them met online during roommate shopping season before freshman year and have been best friends ever since (luckily because they had both lied about being organized, clean people). The two of them have a lot in common: their cereal preferences, their sarcastic humor, and the bags under their eyes.
“Madeline, we should have slept earlier last night,” Bridget greets her roommate as she sips her drink.
“Oh please, B, you’re the one who wouldn’t stop asking me what I thought about the whole thing, and I was just being polite by continuing the conversation,” Madeline responds with a cheeky smile.
No, Madeline wasn’t looking to ‘B’ for the approval of a guy at 2 in the morning. Madeline had briefly brought up the UVa Rolling Stone issue that her ethics class had discussed, and the topic had quickly turned into a two-hour conversation that neither had expected. “Obviously not all of our conversations are like that serious,” Madeline says, “but Bridget and I can talk about just about anything for hours on end.”
Bridget tells me her relationships with her high school friends were quite similar. She has never been the type of girl who surrounds herself with a huge circle of friends; rather, the introvert she is at heart, she prefers keeping just a few very close.
“I always thought it’d be harder to make close friends at a women’s college because of all the drama that usually happens [among girls]. Turns out there’s not that much drama without boys in the equation,” she laughs. “I’m sure it’s not as simple as co-ed versus single-sex, but it’s so easy to develop really deep relationships with a whole bunch of people here because there’s no superficial crap to get past before actually having real conversations.”
But people like Sheri R. Levy aren’t so convinced. Levy, a psychology professor at SUNY Stonebrook, believes that these ‘deep relationships’ don’t go so far when they’re limited to one gender. “[Gender-segregated environments] limit children’s opportunities to develop a broader range of social behaviors and attitudes. Positive and cooperative interaction with members of other groups is an effective method for improving intergroup relationships,” she wrote in her book, Intergroup Attitudes and Relations in Childhood Through Adulthood.

To this Bridget just says, “Really? That’s kind of insulting.” After a brief pause, she goes on.

“Yeah, this whole all-girls thing isn’t for everyone, and yeah, there are some untraditional things that happen around here. But I know I made the right decision with Wellesley because I’m happy I’m here. Don’t you want to at least consider applying here?” she asks, grinning.
I’m a little tempted.
Student Sample #2 – 2,400 words
Rabbi Eric Gurvis arrives at the Harvard Club of Boston on a chilly Saturday evening in December. He greets the groom’s immediate family, whom he has known for seventeen years, while he pats his suit pockets, searching for a kippa.
“I must have dropped it in the car,” Gurvis tells the Goldings as they make their way up to the third floor, where they join Laurence—the groom—and await Cynthia—the bride—for the signing of the ketubah.
This is the second simcha that Gurvis is presiding over today. Earlier, he led the Bar Mitzvah service of Max Goodwin at Temple Shalom of Newton and he led a Torah study session prior to that.
Cynthia enters in her veil and white dress as the immediate family stands in awe. Though this is a second marriage for both the bride and groom, moments like this are always sentimental. Gurvis sits down at a table in the center of the room as witnesses look on and explains the significance of the ketubah. According to Jewish tradition, Laurence and Cynthia will be officially married in the eyes of God once this marriage contract is signed, Gurvis says.
The ketubah is signed, photographs are taken, and Mr. and Mrs. Golding descend to the second floor with the wedding party for the ceremony.
At the ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Golding stand under the chuppah, the wedding canopy—made from Laurence’s grandfather’s prayer shawl—which Gurvis tells the guests symbolizes the couple’s first home. The pair says “I do,” Laurence breaks a wine glass, and Gurvis invites everyone to join together in saying “Amen.”
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Rabbis lead services—baby namings, b’nai mitzvah, weddings, and funerals—for members of their congregations and the Jewish community. But most people do not know what constitutes an actual day in the life of a rabbi.
When we think of rabbis, we may often resort to a picture of an old man with a long gray beard, wearing a kippa and a tallis everywhere he goes.
Though Rabbi Eric Gurvis may have a graying beard, neither he nor any rabbi tends to fit this mold. The rabbinate consists of men and women, young and old. According to Gurvis, no two rabbis nor any two days are alike.
“There really isn’t a ‘typical’ day,” Gurvis says. There are events that usually happen for Gurvis on a weekly basis, such as a staff meeting on Tuesday, Shabbat services on Friday, Torah study and b’nai mitzvah services Saturday, services for the religious school students on Sunday morning, and a day off on Monday. Beyond that, it depends on the day.
Ellie Goldman, director of youth engagement at Temple Shalom, explains that congregational rabbis regularly work 70-80 hours per week, often running from one meeting to the next. “The work is so varied,” she says. “It is day and night, and all over the place.”
On this January morning, Gurvis arrives at Temple Shalom, a reform synagogue in West Newton, at nine o’clock in the morning. It’s a Tuesday, his first day back after the holiday vacation and he only has a few items on his schedule. It’s shaping up to be a quiet day at the office.
Gurvis’ office itself lies far beyond the mahogany walls lining the inside of Temple Shalom. One door leads to a long hallway, where I pass Gurvis’ secretary and a few other members of the Temple staff. The last left in the hallway is Gurvis’ door, which is almost always open.
In some ways, his office appears just as one would picture a rabbi’s study-- shelves upon shelves of Jewish literature (from Jewish law to prayer books to the land of Israel) topped off with two shofars and a stack of kippot on a nearby desk. Photos of his wife Laura, and his four children, biblically named Benjamin, Sarah, Aaron, and Jacob line one bookshelf.
But there are also elements that suggest that Gurvis does not have such a serious profession. A Taylor guitar, which Rabbi Gurvis often plays at services, rests in its case on a chair in one corner. Above the chair is a framed collection of ticket stubs from baseball games in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Cleveland during the 2004 season. These come from a cross-country trip Gurvis took with his oldest son Benjamin during a summer sabbatical.
“Baseball is a big part of my life,” Gurvis says. “It’s something I shared with my father growing up and it’s something I’ve shared with all of my children as they’ve grown up.”
When Gurvis and Ben returned from their trip, then six year old Jacob asked, “are you going to do that with me when it’s my turn?” So in 2014, ten years after his first journey, Gurvis traveled the country again with his youngest son. Rabbi Gurvis wants to make another memento box for that trip, but online tickets don’t make for as great of souvenirs as the ticket stubs.
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“Good morning Rabbi Abrasley,” Gurvis says to the new assistant Rabbi Laura Abrasley as she passes by the open doorway on the way to her office. “Good morning Rabbi,” she cheerfully replies.
“We don’t usually call each other ‘Rabbi,’” Gurvis tells me. “It’s an ongoing joke. She spent the first three months [saying], ‘good morning, boss.’”
Gurvis has been the “boss”—the senior rabbi—at Temple Shalom of Newton for 17 years. He began his career 33 years ago in New York City, before becoming a senior rabbi in Jackson, Mississippi. Three of Gurvis’ children were born in Jackson, where he claims “there were approximately 500 churches and my synagogue.”
Wanting to ultimately raise the children in more of a Jewish context, the Gurvis family moved to Teaneck, New Jersey. Kosher pizza places, bakeries, butchers, and delis lined the main street of Teaneck, a stark contrast from even the relatively dense Jewish population in Newton.
After eight years in Teaneck and another child, Gurvis was recruited to be the senior rabbi at Temple Shalom. In Newton, where Jews make up one-third of the population, Gurvis isn’t the only rabbi in town, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t busy.
According to Gurvis, things can pop up all the time when you’re a rabbi. This is a slow day for him, with only a few meetings scheduled and a lesson he needs to prepare for a class he is teaching at the temple tomorrow. Other days, he can be working from eight in the morning until ten at night and still get “nothing done.”
“There are days where I literally run breathless,” Gurvis says. “There are days where I eat lunch at four o’clock or five o’clock because I forgot to take time or I couldn’t slow down to take time.”
This is not to say that Gurvis did not accomplish anything on those days. He gets a lot done, but those items were not originally on his to-do list. For instance, Gurvis’ day might be interrupted because he must speak to a person in need or visit someone who is sick—pastoral work. Funerals are relatively last minute in the Jewish tradition, so they too can, unfortunately, pop up suddenly on Gurvis’ calendar.
Rabbi Neil Hirsch, a former assistant rabbi at Temple Shalom and current senior rabbi in western Massachusetts, echoes the volume of pastoral work that fills the days of a rabbi. “That sort of stuff doesn’t appear in sermons,” Hirsch says. “I don’t put it up on billboards, but that’s what I spend a lot of my time doing.”
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Some days can be exhausting, physically and emotionally, for Gurvis. After all, he is human. This is why Gurvis traveled with his family to his second home in the Berkshires for much of the vacation week. So that he would return refreshed for the new year. “Because I had a few days of a break, consecutively and relatively quiet, I’m feeling like the battery is pretty charged,” Gurvis tells me as he reclines in a swivel chair at his desk, hands folded, awaiting his 9:30 appointment with the temple’s executive director, Maureen Campbell.
He repeats his story about his relaxing vacation week to Campbell and adds that he turned off his email as well to give himself a full break. Then Campbell takes notes while they discuss topics such as the temple budget, an Israel trip, b’nai mitzvah request forms, and Purim. In many ways, it feels like a meeting at a normal nine-to-five company.
From here, Gurvis and Campbell move to the conference room for the senior staff meeting, which includes the directors of preschool, youth, and teenager education, the cantor, and another assistant rabbi. Abrasley, however, is absent for the meeting as she presides over a funeral in the morning.
They begin the meeting by sharing what they did over their winter vacations. Gurvis details his time in the Berkshires. “It was nice, it was quiet,” he says. “But we did power-watch the first two seasons of Downton Abbey on DVD.”
After everyone shares, Gurvis reads a brief spiritual story about inspiration. Then the discussion moves to issues with a database that the synagogue uses. Not even Temple Shalom is immune from technical difficulties. They do not fully resolve the issue, but begin planning other activities at the synagogue, such as Abrasley’s installation later in the week and the Purim festivities in March. When the meeting ends at noon, Gurvis checks in with his secretary to see if he has any messages.
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“I think most people assume that rabbis lead services, write a sermon once a week and that’s it,” Ellie Goldman tells me. “[They] don’t understand what fills the days.”
During the meeting, Gurvis’ secretary had received a call from a troubled mother in a distant state who needed someone to talk to. The woman’s daughter, who lives in Newton, is severely depressed and needs attention. Calmly, Gurvis answers his desk phone and talks the mother through the situation. He offers help from himself and his colleagues and also refers a therapist for the daughter.
The call may seem like a wake-up call during a previously slow day, but Gurvis, as always, is prepared for anything.
“There is a certain amount of unpredictability,” Rabbi Hirsch says of the rabbinate. “But I anticipate that that would be true for any profession, in different ways.”
“You never know who’s going to stop by, who’s going to want to chat and what they’re going to want to chat about,” Hirsch says. “You learn to expect the unexpected.”
Gurvis keeps a schedule on his computer for his appointments, for preparing to teach, and for his own writing. He also leaves free space, knowing that pastoral work—the most important interruption of the day—could pop up at any time. Though it may sidetrack Gurvis from other things, he says “the interruptions are my work. That phone call is part of what I do.”
Rabbi Abrasley returns to the synagogue from the funeral shortly after Gurvis’ phone call. He introduces me and jokingly tells Abrasley that I am here to write a “scathing” report on the rabbinate.
“I’m sure,” Abrasley responds. “The ‘thrill a minute’ life of a rabbi.”
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When he needs a change of scenery, Gurvis spends time at Cafe L’aroma, a nearby coffee shop he dubs his “branch office.” When he needs to concentrate, he often listens to music. He also meets with various colleagues on a regular basis for mutual support, “because no one really understands what we do except other people that do what we do.”
It’s not an easy profession.
“The rabbinate, especially around pastoral work, is an emotional job,” Rabbi Hirsch says. According to Hirsch, rabbis must make sure to take great care of themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. “If any of those things aren’t quite working, then how can I be fully present for somebody else?”
One item on Rabbi Gurvis’ schedule is called, “five minutes.” It’s a time he sets aside to close his eyes and do a breathing exercise as meditation, though Gurvis admits that he does not honor the time as often as he should. “I haven’t done it once in the two months it’s been in my calendar,” he says. “My secretary keeps asking me ‘what is that?’ I say, ‘When I finally do it, I’ll let you know.’”
One way Gurvis does keep cool is integrating bits of humor into his profession, when appropriate. Quips about the slumping Red Sox, the weather, or a mediocre film adaptation of the story of Noah’s ark can surface in his sermons from time to time. “Life is really serious stuff and we live with really serious issues,” he says. “That doesn’t mean that everything has to be austere.”
“It’s not that I’m trying to be a cut-up, not even at all,” Gurvis says. “I’m just trying to be a real human being.”
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In a field filled with mensches (people of high integrity and honor), colleagues and family alike say that Gurvis stands out from the rest.
“I don’t think there are many people that care as much as [my father] does,” says Jacob Gurvis, the rabbi’s 18 year old and youngest son.
“It’s not easy being a rabbi,” Jacob adds, “but it’s really incredible to see the passion and the care that he has for his job and the people he works with and the people he gets to help through their lives.”
Despite serving as the head of a large congregation, Gurvis does not like to delegate his relationships or work. “I can’t accept [it if] I don’t go visit people,” he says.
Ellie Goldman praises Gurvis for his dedication to availability. “Rabbi Gurvis will say his door is always open, but he really means it,” she says. “If he’s in the building and I have a question about something big or little, he always has time.”
“He’s an exceptional and humble rabbi, and really dedicated to what’s best for the community,” Goldman says. “Which may or may not be what’s best for Rabbi Gurvis.”
Rabbi Hirsch lauds Gurvis’ dedication to teaching and commitment to serving congregants after learning under his tutelage for years as an assistant rabbi.
“Once you’re in with Rabbi Gurvis, you are one of his for life,” Hirsch says. “If you called him up and said ‘let’s get a cup of coffee,’ he’d say ‘let’s go tomorrow.’”
Hirsch says this trait, one that not all rabbis possess, comes naturally to Rabbi Gurvis.
“If you don’t care then this is not the profession for you, and he definitely, definitely cares so much,” his son Jacob says. “It’s really kind of inspiring.”