2023 Ilene Beal Scholar Speaker Series

At the 2023 Ilene Beal Scholar Speaker Series, four current Wily Scholars and one alum spoke about the impact of our program on a panel moderated by Advisory Council member Ed Walker.

Attendees also participated in roundtable discussions with Wily staff, student panelists, and alums of our program. It was wonderful to see such thoughtful conversations taking place about the real-world impact of the expectations and assumptions about college students that are built into our higher education system.

We are so grateful to the Ilene Beal Charitable Foundation for sponsoring the event, which was held in the remembrance of Ilene’s birthday.

Scholar Panel

Panelists from left

Tiana (she/her), Northeastern University ’23
Jax (he/him), Boston College ’23
David (he/they), Massachusetts Institute of Technology ’23
Crystal (she/her), Northeastern University ’23
Eric (he/him), Wily alum, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth ’19

Watch highlights from the panel

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Word Cloud

At the event, we asked guests to brainstorm words they associated with Wily Scholars’ strengths. As they typed into their phones, we all got to see their thoughts take shape on the screen, each word growing larger as more people added it to our collective “word cloud.”

We watched the word cloud expand in real time as words like energetic, compassionate, creative, problem-solver, savvy, driven, talented and trailblazing all appeared on the screen.

It was a beautiful lead-in to our panel. One panelist said that the word cloud helped to “curate a moment where we feel loved, where we feel seen, where we feel empowered to come on stage and tell our stories.”

Roundtables

Attendees also participated in roundtable discussions with Wily staff, student panelists, and alums of our program. It was wonderful to see such thoughtful conversations taking place about the real-world impact of the expectations and assumptions about college students that are built into our higher education system. We are thrilled that so many alums were able to join us – their insights were invaluable, and we were so happy to spend some time with them!

Thank you so much Boston College for hosting us, to panelists Crystal, David, Eric, Jax and Tiana, to our moderator Ed Walker, to the alums who helped lead our pre-panel discussions, and to all the guests who attended and participated!