Nina Stavropolous ’17: One unique aspect of Episcopal is its vast network and connections to accomplished individuals around the world, specifically alumni, who are able to interact with and speak to EA students. Whether it is a chapel speech, a classroom presentation or an internship, students are given the opportunity to meet a diverse group of talented people and prepare themselves for real life experiences.
Keeping connected with Episcopal alumni is a crucial part of broadening EA’s network and providing key speakers at the school. Stephanie Ottone, Assistant Director of The Episcopal Fund & Alumni Programs, explained the importance of alumni to the school and what Episcopal does to keep them involved with the community. Ottone emphasized, “The biggest event each year is the Alumni weekend where every five years each class will celebrate a reunion. They come back and have a dinner with their class and Episcopal puts on programs for them to attend.” Episcopal also hosts regional events to update the alumni on the happenings of the Newtown Square campus. Ottone stated, “Bruce Konopka, the Director of Alumni Programs, is doing an event in Washington DC where we invite all of our alumni in that area to come and listen to Dr. Locke talk about what is happening in the school.” There are also events like this in New York and Boston each year, and the alumni office sends out Episcopal newsletters to alumi via mail or email.
By keeping up to date with alumni, Episcopal can provide the students with the best and most relevant speakers possible. “Recently Bill Doherty, Director of Communications, created an article regarding the twenty under thirty alumni where he picked twenty alumni under the age of thirty who are doing interesting things in their careers or in college,” Ottone noted. “Whenever we read something interesting about our alumni we try to put them out to the community for people to know what’s going on.”
Photo Courtesty of Stephanie Ottone
Although Episcopal commonly reaches out to these alumni, on occasion people within EA’s network will contact the school themselves. Often times, if someone happens to be in the area, they will ask if Episcopal needs a speaker. Ottone commented, “It’s a delicate balance to try to strike between making sure the alumni has something pertinent to say in a class and that the teacher has time to feature that person.” Reverend Squire often reaches out to the alumni office if he feels an alumni has something to say relating to the chapel theme or faith in general. For example, every year on Veterans’ Day an alumni veteran comes to speak in chapel. This year’s speaker, Jim Wheatley ’51, also spoke to Upper school history teacher Max Kelly’s War History class. Ottone further stated, “During J-term many alumni came to Episcopal to do speaking engagements with the students or host them at their place of business.”
Regarding speakers that address the chapel audience, Reverend James Squire said, “It is amazing how deeply Episcopal Academy connections go but I wouldn’t say it comes from all one group whether it is alumni, parents, or students.”
From time to time alumni will also contact Episcopal about open job positions or internships that they would love to be filled by an EA student or another alum. To help them with this, there is an online portal for Episcopal alumni where they can search the database to look for other alumni in a particular industry. When asked about the importance of the alumni to our school, Ottone commented, “They are our history and they have a lot of institutional knowledge about what is going on at Episcopal, but they also have knowledge about what is going on in the world and they are very helpful in sharing real life examples about what students are learning.”