Open Gates/Alumni House Trip to New York City Confirms WA’s Core Values
Nine Worcester Academy students spent part of their Spring Break (March 8-11, 2009) in New York City. The trip was the first of its kind: a partnership between the Open Gates program and the Academy’s Alumni & Development Office. The students met with distinguished WA alumni at the Wall Street Journal (Adam Najberg ’86), the New York Stock Exchange (John Bowers ’86), “Dan Rather Reports,” (Kara Engdahl MacMahon ‘93) and the Museum of Natural History (Dr. Daniel Gezari ‘61). Through the Academy’s excellent alumni connections, students had exclusive opportunities and “behind-the-scenes” access in the worlds of finance, print/internet journalism, television journalism, and astrophysics/scientific research. The group spent more than an hour with traders and specialists on the floor of the NYSE, watched a segment of Marketwatch being filmed in the newsroom of the Wall Street Journal, sat in newsman Dan Rather’s office, and watched the editing process of an upcoming episode of Dan Rather Reports. They also viewed the planetarium show at the famed Haden Planetarium in the company of a world-renowned astrophysicist. (Click on the names of the alums above for more information.)
The group also had a formal dinner with nine recent alumni who work or attend college in the New York City area. During the dinner, these accomplished alumni shared their experiences moving from the Academy to college, and on to graduate school and careers. Freshman Corey Gaston, sophomores Len Kaminski and Michael Prentice, juniors Tucker Myhre and Kohaku Aoki, and seniors Catrina Doxsee, Andrew Fan, Kelsea Hanks, and Rongpei (King) Wang certainly spent a busy four days. The itinerary also included dinner and a night of music by Dr. Lonnie Smith’s jazz quartet; a Broadway production of the Phantom of the Opera; a tour of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Federal Hall (where President George Washington was first inaugurated); sightseeing, and shopping.
However, what made this trip truly special was the interaction between the students and these highly accomplished Worcester Academy alumni. Spending time with highly successful professionals who have “achieved the honorable” in their professions was inspirational to our students.
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“As one of the senior editors of the Vigornia, it was especially interesting to witness the inner workings of a professional paper…It was also great to see how the WSJ has been making the jump to the digital world…this gave me some great ideas to try with the new Vigornia website,” wrote Catrina Doxsee ’09 to Adam Najberg ’86.
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It should come as no surprise that each of the four alumni who hosted the Open Gates visits spoke passionately about the importance of Worcester Academy in shaping their professional and personal successes. Each confirmed the core values of the school–academic rigor, the ability to solve problems creatively, the value of hard work and discipline, and the importance of living an honorable life, particularly when it came to confronting the challenges of the 21st Century. When asked about their advice to young, college-bound students today, they responded with a set of attributes and habits of mind that sound very much like the new Core Values of the Academy. Adam Najberg, Senior Editor of the Online Division of the Wall Street Journal, said that when he hires new journalists right out of college, “The first things I look for are: can you write well, can you think, and can you solve problems?” John Bowers, head of John Bowers Securities on the New York Stock Exchange summed it up in one word: adaptability. Adaptability is the essential trait one must have to be successful on the NYSE to have survived there through enormous changes that have occurred there over the past 10-15 years—and are key to being successful in the future. Kara MacMahon, a producer with Dan Rather and winner of an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Interview” on CBS’s 60 Minutes, listed the ability to engage in research, work generously and cooperatively as part of a team, “and the ability to put complex puzzles together, to organize conflicting and complex information” as must-have skills in her field. Dr. Daniel Gezari, a 30-year veteran of NASA and consultant and resident researcher at the Museum of Natural History, embodied one clear and overriding habit of mind: question everything. Dr. Gezari made students aware of the tenuous nature of scientific theories, the importance of doubting and testing any hypothesis, and the importance of continuing to be a learner throughout one’s life.
Write well, think, solve problems, research, work as part of a team, organize and make sense of complex information, adapt to changing circumstances, question everything—this list certainly reads similarly to Worcester Academy’s new Core Values under CHALLENGE.
The advice and wisdom of the four-featured alums on this Open Gates trip conveyed to the nine students was in accord with the school’s new “Portrait of a Learner” (POL), recently completed by the Curriculum Committee. POL’s “focus on demonstrable skills, habits of mind, and other such attributes, is a recognition of the new realities of the ‘information age,’ where information itself is very easy to come by and yet the ability to process, think carefully, draw inferences and utilize it is in ever greater demand” (see appendix below for POL traits and skills).
Clearly, this convergence is reassuring as Worcester Academy continues to adapt to the pressures and complexity of the 21st Century. The Open Gates program is certainly a manifestation of larger institutional changes, what Head of School Dexter Morse called the “New Direction.” With the new Strategic Plan, WA has seen still bigger changes. In some sense, however, there is circularity here. The institution has responded well just as the alums featured here. And that they gave of themselves–their time and their hard-won expertise and understanding of some very fascinating facets of our world—is a testament to their love of the Academy and that WA’s most valuable asset of all is its people—alums, students, faculty and dedicated staff. To quote Dexter Morse again, “everything else is just bricks and mortar.”
Dr. John R. Murnane
Director of the Open Gates program
Chair of the History and Social Sciences Department
APPENDIX
Portrait of a Learner (POL)
A learner at Worcester Academy . . .
- Embraces and lives up to the core values of the school
- Is a dynamic learner, who engages in critical and creative thinking and uses a variety of problem solving skills
- Effectively uses appropriate, real-world tools as a part of the learning and thinking process
- Collaborates and works well as part of a team
- Sees relevance and connections in the classroom, the community, and the world
- Engages in effective and interactive communication, including a range of multimedia applications in addition to traditional writing and oral communication
- Is a knowledgeable person, with a grounding in a range of academic disciplines
- Makes informed, healthy choices
- Exhibits personal and social responsibility
