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Learning Theme Events

Each year, we center learning around a theme that connects to one of our core NMH principles. 

Throughout the year, that theme is woven into everything we do: classes, activities, athletics, special events. Guests who are engaged in work related to the theme come to campus to connect with students, speaking at all-school meetings, visiting classrooms, and joining small-group gatherings.

A man in a suit speaks at a podium in front of ornate wooden paneling.

 

"Citizenship and Service”
is the theme for the 2022-23 academic year.

A man in a purple sweater holds a drum in the foreground, while a person in a red shirt and a church interior with wooden pews form the background.

 

A crowd of young people fills the frame, with a few individuals in the foreground looking towards the viewer, while the background is a blur of faces.

 

A man in a suit speaks to a group of young people in the foreground, while a wooden pulpit and pews are visible in the background of a church.

 

This year, our learning theme series kicked off with a visit from U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts’ 2nd Congressional District. McGovern, who has focused on human rights and food insecurity during his time in Congress, spoke about the importance of public service and connected with students about the issues that are important to them.

In November, Larry Spotted Crow Mann, author and citizen of the Nipmuc Tribe, spoke about his work on cultural and environmental awareness, spirituality, and youth sobriety in the indigenous community. A traditional storyteller, tribal musician, and cultural educator, Mann is co-director of the Ohketeau (“place to grow”) Cultural Center in Ashfield, Massachusetts. In 2021, he received the NAACP’s Indigenous Peoples Award.

NMH welcomed Ecuadorian-American writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio to campus in March. Her first book, The Undocumented Americans, was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2020. The work of creative nonfiction is in part a memoir about her experience growing up as an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. in 1990s and 2000s and in part a collection of essays about the experiences of undocumented day laborers.   

 

Themes from previous years: