Senior Prefect Burk encourages CGA students to slow down and ‘Let it Be’

March 10, 2023

Lucy Burk ’23, Culver Girls Academy’s third rotation senior prefect, encouraged classmates to slow down as graduation nears and pay attention to and recognize what is important around them.

“Some days are definitely harder here at Culver, but you just have to let yourself have a bad day. If bad days didn’t exist, what would a good day look like?” Burk said during the transition ceremony on Sunday. “Appreciate and soak in every feeling, happy or sad or whatever, and just exist. Let it be.”

As the second rotation of CGA’s 2022-2023 school year came to an end, transitioning from McKenna Littleton ’23 to Burk ’23, it marked a new chapter in hopes of ending the school year in strong spirit.

For those who were not familiar with the third rotation senior prefect, Burk is a four-year senior from Indianapolis. She has two brothers, Nate ’21 and Sam ’25, and her mom, Meg, graduated from CGA in 1991. She has been part of Dancevision for the past four years and one of her favorite moments was the ringing ceremony that she experienced her junior year.

As someone who is quite familiar with Culver because her grandfather, Mark Dinwiddie Sr. W'63, attended Summer Naval School and her mother is a CGA alumna, she constantly heard about Culver. She and her brothers would make fun of their mother because of how much she preached about Culver being a special place and how she developed lifelong friendships there.

“However, as I look out into the audience tonight, I for once understand what she is talking about,” she said.

Building on her background in dance, Burk described the feeling of “not realizing what you’re doing” when she is performing on stage with the realization that she will never complete a particular phrase of choreography in this particular lighting with the same audience at a particular time. That helped her to come to appreciate those who she is surrounded by and the environment that she is in.

This realization inspired Burk’s theme for the third rotation, “Let it Be.” She came up with the idea recently after the song by The Beatles popped up on her playlist. She said she wants the girls to “take time and reflect on the year while living in the moment.”

She also encouraged them to acknowledge everything that they had accomplished and to celebrate their differences.

By being the third rotation senior prefect, she hopes to implement “class-bonding activities by taking advantage of the warm weather” and to embrace the concept of the ephemerality of Culver journeys that allows girls to carpe diem.

Burk said that, inspired by Littleton’s weekly reflections, she plans to create a shared playlist that would let the students collaborate and reflect on songs throughout the rotation as a remembrance to the friendships and community that Culver had built while the seniors got closer in their final 91 days.

Just like approaching a song for the first time, Burk wished for CGA students to not only listen, but to genuinely hear it.