Lauren Repke ’15: Assistant Head of School Cathy Hall recently announced that this year would be the launch of Episcopal’s Speaker Series. The series draws from a diverse set of speakers and is intended to present students with a variety of perspectives from people across differing backgrounds with individual talents.
The speakers that will be participating in the series are carefully selected in order to “draw out different view points to provide a variation of angles for students to consider,” explained Hall. Each speaker is selected from nominations generously given from EA alumni, parents, and faculty. Hall reflected that here at EA “we have a networked community with access to tremendous people that we often do not take advantage of”.
In addition to the lectures provided by guest speakers, students are given the opportunity to participate in smaller leadership seminars during lunch blocks in order to further discuss the speakers’ background and viewpoints. The administration chooses volunteers via a lottery system and enables each student to participate in one seminar each year. This experience permits students to ask questions and have more intimate dialogue with the selected speaker.
In the first leadership seminar, Gerald Corrigan discussed his time and work at Goldman-Sachs, spoke about being the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and outlined the qualities of what makes a good leader. Matt Blommer ’16 noted, “Mr. Corrigan is an extremely accomplished man who I was honored to meet and have additional conversation with in the Leadership Seminar. This seminar allowed us to learn more about his achievements, how he developed into the man he is today and his thoughts on leadership.”
For some students, the Speaker Series offers an exciting opportunity to expand their viewpoints. “On the Mainline we are sometimes narrow minsded, so I think hearing from speakers of different backgrounds will be very eye-opening,” Ali Rushton ‘15 commented. On the other hand, there are students that are unable to understand how the Speaker Series will differ from the speeches we hear in chapel every other day. Initially, Tara Boyle, Senior Warden of the Vestry, was apprehensive about the idea of the Speaker Series.. However Boyle stated, “The content of the speeches that the Speaker Series provides is less faith based, and more secular, making it appropriate to have outside of chapel.”
Hall said that the schedule for the remaining speakers of the 2014-2015 school year is currently being finalized. Within the next few weeks students and faculty should know whom to expect for the remainder of this school year.