Heart on Fire
As president of the Student Council, Eden Wright ’22 promoted balance and engagement.
BY KATE DUNLOP
Her long braids held back by a black bandana, Student Council President Eden Wright ’22 beamed as she watched exuberant members of the SPS student body partake in kickball, cornhole, ping pong, egg toss, Jell-O eating, and tug of war under the lights on the School athletic fields.
It was late in May, the end of a long school year was finally in sight, and her peers were having fierce fun at Field Night. Wright, along with her fellow Sixth Form Officers (SFOs), felt a deep satisfaction at having planned a Saturday event that engaged the School community.
A faculty kid who grew up on the campus of a private school in Connecticut, community means everything to Wright. It’s what attracted her to St. Paul’s School, and serving the community as a bridge between the students and administration is what compelled her to run for office.
Wright’s year of service was itself a bridge between what she calls an old and new SPS — her form is the last to graduate having experienced the School before COVID-19. The pandemic created an opportunity to reevaluate aspects of student life, she says, from the daily schedule and check-in times to the resources available to help students with academics and mental health.
“There was a lot of growth, and that’s what makes St. Paul’s awesome,” says Wright, who will study and play lacrosse at UPenn this fall. “I stumbled learning how to excel here, but now there’s more structured study hours in place and our Third Formers are excelling in their classes because they’re guided more in the beginning.”
Wright, who fell in love with psychology while exploring “anything and everything” in her classes, describes herself as a direct and approachable leader. Believing that St. Paul’s students are too hard on themselves and that fun should be part of the equation, she committed her presidency to helping her peers find balance and perspective about their time at SPS. She’s quick to praise her fellow SFOs for their work in engaging the student body after a year of COVID restrictions, as well as the SPS staff and faculty who helped their programming ideas come to life.
In the final days of her presidency, a memory from the fall still made Wright smile. While greeting new families at the Rectory on Move-in Day, more than one told her she was part of the reason they had said yes to SPS.
“They said their kids had watched videos of me as president and that they could see themselves in me and see themselves at St. Paul’s. When you see girls can be leaders, and Black women especially, that’s awesome. My heart was on fire that day.”