Graham Browne’s Forte Prep welcomes its first class of high schoolers.
February 27, 2024
The event offered a focus on building and strengthening the SPS BIPOC alumni community.
BY KRISTIN DUISBERG
“Why are you here?”
At the beginning of his remarks during a special service on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 17, Alumni Association Executive Vice President and Trustee Ray Joseph ’90 posed that question to his fellow alumni of color and their guests seated in the pews of the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul. It was a question with an obvious answer: Representing form years from the 1960s to the 2020s, these alumni were at St. Paul’s School to attend the first BIPOC Alumni Weekend in more than a decade. Joseph, however, was probing for an answer that went beyond the factual.
Met with chuckles, he asked again. “No, seriously: Why are you here? It’s President’s Day Weekend, a long weekend with temperatures expected to be in the teens, and it’s beginning to snow, so you have a few legitimate excuses for why you couldn’t come. But you’re here.”
Joseph, who co-chairs the BIPOC Alumni Advisory Council with David Walters ’07, shared his own reason for spending the weekend in Millville: the desire to help build community. “Developing a vibrant BIPOC alumni community that you can turn to for support, inspiration and fun will benefit all of us — but future alumni, too,” he said. “We will go farther together if this community exists and is vibrant.”
Both Joseph and Walters were integrally involved in planning the weekend, which began on Friday, Feb. 16, with a welcome dinner off campus, ended on Sunday, Feb. 18, with the second annual Onyx Black Success and Leadership Panel in Schoolhouse, and featured a wide array of opportunities to foster connections among attendees and with today’s SPS community in between. In addition to the Saturday morning chapel, the weekend’s events included a networking panel with breakout groups; a lunch with SPS faculty and staff to discuss current initiatives in the area of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice; a School update and a dinner at the Rectory with Rector Kathy Giles; and opportunities to visit with current students over meals, on a tour of the grounds and during an SPS affinity and alliance group meet and greet.
Second annual Onyx Black Success and Leadership Panel with Jaelen Buxton-Punch ’13, Christine Antoine ’16 and Ray Joseph ’90, moderated by Onyx co-heads Hudson Stovall ’24 and Lauren Edouard ’25 with Rector Kathy Giles.
Networking panel with LaMar Bunts ’87, Heather Flewelling ’84 and Denzell Jobson ’13, moderated by David Walters ’07.
Attendees included Robert Hall ’65, the second Black student to graduate from SPS (and the first to spend four years in Millville); Trustee Amachie Ackah ’90; and one alum of less than a year, Terell Johnson ’23. Walters moderated the Saturday morning networking panel of Heather Flewelling ’84, LaMar Bunts ’87 and Denzell Jobson ’13; afterward, Angelica Mercado ’12, Jaelen Buxton-Punch ’13 and Suren Nannapaneni ‘13 guided breakout groups. On Sunday morning, Joseph, Buxton-Punch and Christine Antoine ’16 participated on the Onyx panel, where they reflected on their most surprising experiences at SPS, the way SPS shaped their perspective on leadership, places in which they have found mentors and served as mentors, factors that had played a role in their career path and more.
At the end of that panel, which was co-moderated by Giles and Onyx student leaders Hudson Stovall ’24 and Lauren Edouard ’25, Walters shared some closing thoughts about the weekend. “We’re excited and thrilled that there was so much support from the alumni community and the student community to make all of this happen,” he said. “I think one of the most important features of institutions like St. Paul’s is that connection, that generational knowledge that gets passed down, opening the door behind you. … [This weekend has] been a really wonderful, informative, empowering experience.”
