MLK DAY 2023:

On January 19, the Academy officially observed MLK Day with a series of events. This year’s theme focused on dignity, a powerful element in good interpersonal dynamics. Using the work of Dr. Donna Hicks, a well-known speaker on the topic who is an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, Director of the Office of Inclusion and Community Life Steven Lee worked with a team of OICL student-ambassadors to develop nearly thirty student- and faculty-led workshops on topics such as “Human Rights: Experiences from Around the Globe” to “Representation in Science” to “Dignity and Black Athletes” and “The Power of Erasure Poetry.”

Every Deerfield student participated by either attending or presenting a workshop. Additionally, three guest speakers were welcomed to campus: Elizabeth Byrne, teacher and advisor at The Literacy Project in Greenfield, MA; Carl Wilkens, the only American who chose to stay in Kigali, Rwanda, throughout the 1994 genocide; and National Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes (pictured below), who spoke at School Meeting and later offered an inspiring workshop for student poets.

National Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes was welcomed to campus the week of January 16. Hayes’ collection, To Float In The Space Between, was the winner of the Poetry Foundation’s 2019 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism and a finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. “American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin” won the Hurston/Wright 2019 Award for Poetry and was a finalist the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, the 2018 National Book Award in Poetry, the 2018 TS Eliot Prize for Poetry, and the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.