Dan vs. Professor Dan Ackerman Greenberg

Dan vs. Mr. Titelbaum. An epic showdown between the junior class and the math department. A crowd gathers around the table as Mr. T and I set up for the final point, the point that determines who will advance to the finals of the first-ever CPS all-school ping pong tournament. Though I lost the game, the ping-pong table and subsequent tournaments have proved overwhelmingly successful. It may sound strange, but the success of the ping-pong table helped motivate me to run for student council and eventually become student body President.

During my sophomore year, I began to notice that our school, though small, was split into cliques. I decided that buying a ping-pong table might bring our school together. I ran the idea past the Dean of Students, presented it to student council, and asked for funding. After almost a month of debate, the idea was approved and I bought the table. It was an immediate hit on campus. Within the first week, I set up a tournament, and quickly began to see an improvement in the general sense of community on campus, as students and faculty began to interact in the context of ping-pong. Athletes were setting up tournament games with math whizzes, teachers with students, freshman with seniors; the table and...