Student Groups & Clubs

Student leaders: Kalika Ivaturi and Will Friebel
Sponsor: Carrie Dodson-Ching
Mission: Amnesty International is a global organization focused on advocating for human rights. Our club focuses on advocating for humans rights and raising awareness, especially for campaigns that don’t get talked about as much such as asylum seekers, indeginous peoples, freedom of expression, and more.

Student Leaders: Ainsley Heidbreder, Liam Johnson, Callie Kaplan, & Sophia King
Faculty Sponsor: Margaret Bahe
Mission: To educate the Burroughs community about anatomy by participating in (or watching) hands-on dissections of various specimen.

Student Leaders: Amaan Banga, Callie Kaplan, Ava Kennard, Meredith Luhmann & Ria Mirchandani
Faculty Sponsor: Deena Goran
Mission: To allow students to learn about potential careers and opportunities to further their understanding of different areas of the biomedical sciences through speakers.

Student Leaders: Rahul Jasti, Ziyaad Raza & Eric Sauter
Faculty Sponsor: Jim Holmes
Mission: To educate Burroughs students on business ideas and topics.

Student Leaders:  Reilly Dillon, Reza Mofidi, Jacob Plax & Andrew Wang
Faculty Sponsor: Mark Smith
Mission: To teach and foster the love of chess and to compete in the Gateway Chess League.

Student Leaders: Arushi Katyal & Sofia Kisner
Faculty Sponsor: Avery Springer
Mission: To share the Classics with the wider school community and provide students of the Classics with enriching activities.

Student Leader: Eli Front
Faculty Sponsor: Rob Bisch
Mission: To provide a place for exploration and understanding of computer science topics for the student body.

Student Leaders: Thomas Dobbs, Katherine Holekamp & Isa Rosario-Blake
Faculty Sponsor: Mark Smith
Mission: To inform the student body about current events and to discuss the issues of the day.

Student Leaders: Graham Brown, Ollie Brown, Sam Ilivicky & Michael Turza
Faculty Sponsor: Jud Dieffenbach
Mission: To fuel interested students with the necessary conversational, public speaking and self confidence skills for one's future endeavors through the art of debate.

Faculty Sponsor: Deena Goran & Tracy Walther
Mission: To foster an appreciation for the environment by organizing events within and around the JBS community and helping JBS to become a more sustainable community.

Participants: Applications due in October 
Faculty Sponsors: Shannon Koropchak & Andy Newman
Mission: To promote the debate of and collaboration around complex international issues in accordance with the United National and the Sustainable Development Goals. We hope as well to work toward the resolutions of these lofty goals at the local level.

Student Leaders: Julius Hollander-Bodie & Chris Perez
Faculty Sponsor: Jason Taff
Mission: To allow high schoolers to do math in a unique way outside the classroom via math competitions and general exploration.

Student Leaders: Ayomide Ajakaiye & Alexander Doty
Faculty Sponsor: Carrie Dodson-Ching & Aaron Dowdall
Mission: To ensure an understanding of Model United Nations (MUN) among 7th and 8th graders.

Student Leaders: Graham Brown & Eric Sauter
Faculty Sponsor: Jim Lewis
Mission: To teach students how to be an attorney in court, and to prepare a team to compete in the Missouri Mock Trial Tournament.

Student Leaders: Thomas Dobbs, Nathaniel Doty, Katie Holekamp, Yara Levin & Katie Xu
Faculty Sponsors: Shannon Koropchak & Andrew Newman
Mission: To find currently-existing initiatives at JBS and the outside community and connect them to the Sustainable Development Goals set forth by the UN. 

Student Leaders: Koan Morris & Andrew Wang
Faulty Sponsor: Glenn Dutch
Mission: To participate in the FIRST® Tech Challenge (FTC) robotics competition. FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded to inspire young peoples' interest and participation in science and technology. It provides unique opportunities for students to apply science, technology, engineering and math-related concepts and skills by competing in the FTC robotics program.

Student Leaders: Rahul Jasti & Isa Rosario-Blake
Faculty Sponsor: Jon Bang
Mission: To have students engage in a role-playing activity based on the operation of the United Nations by drafting resolutions, discussing assigned topics on current world events and voting on proposals. Participants will hear guest speakers and become knowledgeable about writing resolutions and planning debate procedures. Students from St. Louis area schools engage in three sessions of this Model UN at which time resolutions are heard, debated and voted on.

Student Leaders: John Butka, Rahul Jasti & Sophia Park
Faculty Sponsors: Dan Barton & Eric Knispel
Mission: To engage students in hands-on engineering and to increase environmental awareness.

Student Leader: Ria Mirchandani
Faculty Sponsor: Drew Battles
MIssion: To promote the exchange of ideas and stories in the JBS community through engaging talks, meaningful discussions and new learning opportunities.

Student Leaders: Udonne Eke-Okoro, Yara Levin,  Abby Philpott & Lily Walther
Faculty Sponsor: Carrie Dodson-Ching
Mission: To parallel the UNICEF mission to empower youth to be effective global citizens and help the world's most vulnerable children. JBS UNICEF will educate, advocate and fund raise to help at-risk children around the world.

Student Leaders: Thomas Dobbs & Phoebe Philip
Mission: To discuss conservative views and issues both specific to JBS as well as the US and world and to possibly present and help the JBS community get a better perspective on what we believe. We will hold meetings with both specific and open discussion topics. 

Student Leaders: Vivienne Lu, Anyi Sun & Katie Xu
Faculty Sponsor: Julie Shimabukuro
Mission: To increase awareness of Asian culture, country by country, through the study of the history, language, art, religion, music and food, and to help students gain a better understanding of how race and ethnicity inform identity.

Student leaders: Lizzie Wagner, Milah Padda, Andy Zhang, Audrey Pinson
Sponsor: Nicole Randall
Mission: Aims to be a forum for low-pressure discussion about identity and other diversity-based issues.

Faculty Sponsor: Martha Fischer
Mission: To instill the joy of living through the advancement of community. We believe that it is an integral part of education during these formative years to cultivate character and compassion by productive interaction. Welcoming all, regardless of background or opinion, Diversity E.T.C. strives to serve as a clearinghouse for ongoing, open discourse, with the goal of encouraging affinities within the Burroughs community. Functioning to enhance learning through formal meetings, informal conversations and planned activities, we are always striving to promote awareness and enrich consciousness.

Student Leaders: Charles Martin, Temi Ogunremi & Nina Zhu
Faculty Sponsor: Babeth Dyer
Mission: To educate and engage the John Burroughs community on the breadth and beauty of Francophile history, culture and politics.

Student Leaders: Madeline Dornfeld, Leila Fischer, Katie Holekamp & Kate Smith
Faculty Sponsors: Ashley Edgerton & Jessica Hunt
Mission: To promote gender equity, spread awareness and work to create solutions to prevalent gender issues in our community through public outreach and events within Burroughs.

Student Leaders: Thomas Dobbs & Ali Zolman
Faculty Sponsor: Pete McKeown
Mission: To deliver transformative educational programs that foster global pluralism, collective leadership and environmental care that help students and teachers become fully engaged citizens of the world.

Student Leader: Isa Rosario-Blake
Faculty Sponsor: Maria Cohen
Mission: To promote the study and appreciation of the culture of Spanish speaking countries.

Student Leaders: Katie Gelfman, Sam Ilivicky
Faculty Sponsor: Tim Baker
Mission: To inform the student body about Jewish culture and to create a safe and welcoming community for those who want to learn more.

Student Leaders: Ayomide Ajakaiye, Sarah Ding, Janae Harris & Meera Wolfgram
Faculty Sponsor: Jennifer Kinney
Mission: To provide a place where people of all different backgrounds and identities can come together to have a safe and constructive conversation.

Student Leaders: Evan Harris, Jacquelyn Harris, Jillian Mays & Molly O'Brien
Faculty Sponsor: Andranique Harrison
Mission: To support discussion of issues relevant to the intersection of race and socioeconomic status, engaging in "revealing" activities that highlight inherent privilege, or lack thereof, by virtue of one's race of socioeconomic status.

Student Leaders: Will Friebel, Claire Harkins & Tamar Kreitman
Faculty Sponsors: Ellie DesPrez & Jennifer Jones
Mission: To represent the LGBTQIA+ community in an effort to increase awareness of and safety for Gender and Sexuality Minorities (GSM) in the Burroughs community. This is done by spreading information about various gender and sexuality identities through meetings, assembly speeches and events, as well as promoting response to any issues which may infringe upon the rights of those who identify as a GSM.

Editors-in-Chief: Isa Rosario-Blake, Katie Xu & Nina Zhu
Faculty Sponsor: Daniel Harris
Mission: To create a publication in the 'zine style, focusing on creating meaningful and respectful conversation among members of the JBS community on the topics of diversity and inclusion. It is a publication that is submission-based and includes all types of artistic expression.

Student Leader: Rahul Jasti
Faculty Sponsor: Carrie Dodson-Ching
Mission: To promote religious literacy on campus and challenge assumptions on religion through talking about experiences and engagement with other clubs.

Student Leaders: Evan Harris, Eleanor Hohenberg,  Ava Kennard, Ellie Strahorn & Liam Taylor
Faculty Sponsor: Sally Kilbride
Mission: To aid and ease the navigation of kids under twenty-one through the world of middle/high school and the stress and/or mental obstacles that may be encountered along the way.

Editors-in-Chief: Ava Kennard & Kate Smith
Faculty Sponsors: Mike Gesiakowski & Sorsha Maness
Mission: To have students work together from the beginning of the school year through March to produce a traditional yearbook called the Governor. Under the direction of the senior editors-in-chief, students are responsible for page layout, design, writing, editing and photography. Students work together during open meeting times and individually to complete these tasks.

Editors-in-Chief: Teddy Gillanders, Sam Ilivicky, Evan Wang & Parker Williams
Faculty Sponsor: Aaron Dowdall
Mission: To humorously engage the student body.

Editors-in-Chief: Udonne Eke-Okoro, Lauren Keeley & Michael Tu
Faculty Sponsor: Andy Chen
Mission: To promote visual arts and creative writing while collecting pieces for the annual publication of the student literary magazine, The Review. We host regular meetings to review nominations, which are open to all grade levels. In addition, The Review sponsors the annual Review Preview, a music and spoken word festival.

Editors-in-Chief: Hana Ilahi, Story Kummer, Molly Magarian
Faculty Sponsor: Jill Donovan
Mission: To nurture and help showcase the creative writing and art of middle school students. Participants support each other as writers in after-school creative workshop gatherings, and help to edit and lay out the literary and art magazine Works in Progress: An Anthology of Middle School Creative Work at Burroughs.

Editors-in-Chief: Kendall Allen, Graham Brown & Thomas Dobbs
Faculty Sponsors: Allison Roberts & Megan Zmudczynski
Mission: To be a beacon of independent journalism and critical thinking at Burroughs. Our members will ask questions to spark candid, respectful conversations about topics both within our school and the global community and report about them accurately. We will not stop in our pursuit of objectivity and will be the microphone that amplifies student voices.

Faculty Sponsor: Imani Harris
Mission: To welcome students from any grade who have an interest in being a leader and friend to students who attend Aim High. Our mission is to provide assistance and leadership through monthly planned activities.

Student Leaders: Sophia King & Natalie Richter
Faculty Sponsor: Ashley Edgerton
Mission: To educate the JBS community about animals in need and help animals in our community.

Student Leaders: Ayah Hamed & Yara Levin
Faculty Sponsor: Marni Dillard
Mission: To provide assistance to people living with ALS throughout the St. Louis area. While in the homes of patients, students perform household chores that are difficult for people living with ALS. The club also raises money to help fund ALS research and participates in community-wide events that raise ALS awareness.

Student Leaders: Owen French, Meredith Luhmann & Sam Ilivicky
Faculty Sponsor: Peter Tasker
Mission: To support basic human needs, projects and organizations around the world through fund raisers and raising general awareness.

Student Leaders: Simran LaBore, Dev Nayak, Liam Taylor, Lily Walther & Nina Zhu
Faculty Sponsor: Laura Fogarty
Mission: To enable Burroughs students to help people in other countries by providing micro-loans to assist individuals around the world in growing small businesses. We focus on supporting single women building their independence. Burroughs students will raise money, then choose the people, causes and businesses they want to support.

Student Leaders: Hannah Nelson, Vanessa Polk, Ellie Skale & Alina Tekwani
Faculty Sponsor: Paul Salomon
Mission: To serve as an interest group for students in the Burroughs community who like to create things, to increase interest and awareness about the MakerSpace and provide educational sessions and to provide disadvantaged students from the broader St. Louis area with the the opportunity to access the Burroughs MakerSpace.

Student Leaders: Each activity is chaired by a different set of student leaders
Faculty Sponsors: Jill Donovan, Ashley Edgerton, Jim Holmes, Sally Kilbride & Meghan Rathert
Mission: To promote social consciousness, cultivate relationships, foster empathy, and inspire lives of civic responsibility by compassionately engaging with the greater St. Louis community through volunteering and service

Student Leaders: Sam Ilivicky, Beckett Tasker & Michael Turza
Faculty Sponsor: Pete McKeown
Mission: To serve others in need through cultivating the communities of sports.

Student Leaders: Madeline Dornfeld & Ria Mirchandani
Faculty Sponsor: Drew Battles
Mission: To connect students with the Burroughs staff and facilitate staff appreciation through planned student events and deeds.

Student Leaders: Ollie Brown, Sam Ilivicky & Lilly Williams
Faculty Sponsor: Jerry Estes
Mission: To engage the JBS community in various cloud/sky appreciation activities, creating a group setting for all JBS ages to convene and appreciate the world around us.
 

Student Leaders: Josh Antony & Rohan Kumaran
Faculty Sponsor: Clayton Bury
Mission: To provide a casual environment for people who like to tell jokes, perform skits and practice comedy to meet and build on their skills in public speaking, comedic acting and writing and delivery of jokes.

Student Leader: Andrew Wang
Faculty Sponsor: Paul Salomon
Mission: To serve as a welcoming environment to promote awareness and increase participation in board games and a variety of other different media that are less popular. We strive to be inclusive in our activities, and, above all else, to simply have fun.

Student Leaders: Sara Cao, Audrey Pinson & Nina Zhu
Faculty Sponsor: Kim Bouldin-Jones
Mission: To foster a sense of community and diversity, while also creating a stress-free, creative outlet for students through music.

Student Leaders: John Cordia, George LaVigne, Charles Martin & Owen Sheehan
Faculty Sponsor: Jerry Estes
Mission: To have fun while supporting the community.

Student Leaders: John Abbott, Owen French, Meredith Luhmann & Beckett Tasker
Faculty Sponsor: Jud Dieffenbach
Mission: To create unity throughout the student body, increase school spirit and expand student involvement within school sporting events.

Student Body President: Eleanor Hohenberg
Faculty Sponsors: Kate Grantham & Maria Russell
Mission: To direct student organizations and help establish an understanding between students and other branches of the JBS community. It creates an atmosphere and a forum for the open discussion of school problems. Congress helps define and implement the JBS philosophy and is the main student vehicle to initiate change within the school. Past activities include the Holiday Drive for the Hundred Neediest Cases, Dance Marathon, Movie Night, Commons Café and Field Day. All meetings are open to the student body. The Student Congress is comprised of the president of each class, Chief Justice of the Student Court, Student Body President and an appointed secretary.

Chief Justice: Leyla Fern King
Faculty Sponsors: Pete McKeown & Kate Ward
Mission: To hear cases arising from alleged violations of school rules. The Student Court is composed of ten students, including a chief justice, two seniors, one junior, one sophomore, one freshman, one eighth grader, two bailiffs and the court secretary. The Student Court offers the community unique opportunities for learning and developing fostered responsibility. The court meets every Friday morning to establish punishment for certain crimes, discuss and process more than 500 cases a year and demonstrate some sophisticated judgments and creative punishments.