Sports have their championship tourneys, musicians have their festivals and competitions, plays have their opening nights—and Model UN has CMUNCE, the Columbia Model United Nations Conference and Exposition. “This really is the jewel of what we do—the highlight of the year,” says history teacher Arturo Bagley, who serves as one of Rivers’s Model UN coordinators and who accompanied the school’s team of eight students to the New York City competition last weekend.

The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is broad and deep, and there are many ways to honor that legacy: Solemnly, thoughtfully, sadly, hopefully. At the annual Rivers MLK Day assembly, held on Monday, student organizers chose to do it joyfully, commemorating the slain civil rights leader through music.

On Friday, January 10, at 7:00 p.m., friends, students, and colleagues will gather in Rivera Recital Hall to bid farewell to RSC string department chair and violinist Magdalena Richter. Richter’s music will be the focus of the evening, as she presents her final public performance before joining a contemplative order of Catholic nuns in Andover, Mass.

The Rivers School community was plunged into mourning this week over the sudden death of longtime math teacher Dan McCartney. According to his family, Dan passed away unexpectedly on Saturday, January 4, as a result of complications arising from his recent battle with a chronic illness.