Nathan M. Clark Speaker Series

NATHAN M. CLARK

Speaker Series

We are grateful that the Nathan M. Clark Foundation has funded a speaker series at WFS to inspire and engage the broader community. The foundation is committed to adding to the quality of life in and around Wilmington, Delaware and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by supporting arts, culture, and redevelopment initiatives. Special thanks to parents of alumni, Gigi and Jan Clark, who serve on the foundation board and helped to spearhead this initiative.

The first speaker in the Nathan M. Clark Speaker Series was international peacekeeper Rebecca Davis. During her day on campus, Rebecca met with more than 300 students in grades five through nine, sharing her passion for dance, her global engagement with at-risk youth through dance, and her commitment to peacekeeping. In the evening, viewers from around the world joined in for her livestream presentation, including participants from three of the African nations where Rebecca works.

In April 2022, prominent climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann joined us in the Friends Theater for a presentation on "Urgency & Agency in the Battle to Avert a Climate Crisis.” Dr. Mann is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications, numerous op-eds and commentaries, and five books. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2020, and he is also a co-founder of the award-winning science website RealClimate.org. During the day, he spent time with WFS students, including those in our Fridays for the Future Club, on our Ecology Team, and those who traveled to Acadia National Park on last summer’s QUEST Service Trip. In the evening, he gave a talk and participated in a lively Q & A about the current state of the climate crisis and what needs to be done now to reverse it.

In May 2022, The Foundation in partnership with the WFS Home & School Association’s Parents for Multiculturalism Committee sponsored a film screening and discussion with criminal defense and civil rights attorney Jeffery Robinson. The film, Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America, features Robinson and interweaves lecture, personal anecdotes, interviews, and surprising revelations as he draws a stark timeline of anti-Black racism in the United States. Robinson, founder and CEO of The Who We Are Project, a non-profit organization working to change the narrative on our shared history of antiBlack racism in the U.S., joined us virtually.