UNDER THECupola

Dear Sewickley Academy Community,

This issue of Sewickley Speaking features the story of alumnus Billy Sullivan ’14. What stands out most to me about Billy is his resolve and diligence to not only develop a robotics program at Sewickley Academy to satisfy his personal interest, but to leave a legacy to be enjoyed by students for years to come.

His story had me thinking about how many of our students, past and present, have had the ambition to take on projects above and beyond what is required of them in the classroom, often for the benefit of others. For instance, this May, junior Anjali Shah saw her vision to host a Tedx Youth event on campus come to fruition. No one asked Anjali to take on this endeavor during what is already an extremely busy and challenging academic year for any high school student. She shared, “I wanted a passion project - something I could really put my time and energy into. I have a tendency to be a leader, but I’m not the typical ‘STEM kid’ like mostly everyone else in my family. So I wanted to do something that represents leadership on a universal level; removing the stigma that there is only one route to success.”

In addition to Anjali, but without exhausting the pages of this magazine, I will share just a few more instances of our students excelling beyond classroom expectations. Grade 11 student Claudia Kronk is working to address the issue of food insecurity in our region through micro food pantries. This need came to her attention as she developed her own bakery business, Desserts by Claudia, and witnessed the amount of wasted food in the restaurants with which she partners. Also, Sebastian Tan, a Grade 10 student, developed a website offering resources and employment opportunities to previously incarcerated individuals. Sebastian’s family’s business has historically hired workers who have been incarcerated, and he was motivated to offer support when he learned of the challenges they face in reentering the workforce. He has been in touch with officials from our state government and the Department of Corrections as well as Pittsburgh-based reentry programs and is working toward making the platform more widely available.

In this issue, you will find our Panther Spotlights focused on individual student achievements as well as the link to