By John Bishop

Over the past week and culminating on Monday, January 20, Lawrence Academy focused on the words and wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr.

Most specifically, LA had the words “beloved community” in mind:

Our goal is to create
a beloved community and
this will require a qualitative
change in our souls as well
as a quantitative change
in our lives.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

To that end, the on-campus community focused on “Curiosity, Affinity, Diversity, Community, Kindness, Service, and YOU!!!”

In so doing, Head of School Dan Scheibe spoke about the connection between Lawrence Academy’s stated mission — “Lawrence Academy recognizes you for who you are and inspires you to take responsibility for who you want to become…” — and Dr. King’s quote.

“Our mission uses the word ‘you’, which we could just understand as each of us individually,” said Mr. Scheibe. “But let’s take it and [make] ‘you’ to all of you; all of us. And then — maybe even further in the spirit of Dr. King — our mission wouldn’t be just something that we use here at Lawrence Academy.

“Maybe there’s a ‘you’ beyond us,” he added. “A group of individuals we want to take responsibility for, who we want to recognize for who they are, and who we want to use our most inspired acts to help affect and change.”

Furthermore, Dean of Equity and Community Affairs Raquel Majeski explained that exploring the idea of a “beloved community” was a great concept in which to ground the school’s recent work.

“What does that mean?” asked Ms. Majeski, rhetorically. “We unpack [beloved community] through different lenses.

“We had affinity spaces last week. We had conversations relating to the movies we watched. And now, in our advisory groups [we’ll explore] what it means.”

And as far as working toward the ideal of a beloved community, Ms. Majeski invited everyone in RMPAC to follow in the footsteps of Dr. King.

“We encourage and welcome you to help us in creating that change and moving things forward,” she said.