Girard College: Power Lunch: Schooling the City
SK: Should Girard College be doing more for disadvantaged students?
AA: We have a responsibility to be a place of innovation that can provide solutions to urban education. We can be the great laboratory for educational creativity, and part of that is opening the gates of Girard so that our students get more exposure to the city and the city to us. That’s coming.
SK: How is your school changing lives now?
AA: When I talk with our alumni, the messages I take away are about the sense of community they have, the safety —physically and emotionally — that they enjoyed here as students, and the familial, social and business connections they made. One of our 11th-graders stopped me in the hall with her dad. He thanked me for providing his daughter with the opportunity “not to have to think about some of the things that go on in the neighborhood” while she’s here.
SK: Are you thinking about increasing your enrollment so more kids can have the Girard experience?
AA: We’re at 600 now. At its height, Girard had 1,800 students — but there were 30 boys lined up in a row of beds. It’s not how we’d want them to live today. We need to plan strategically, but I could see us growing to 1,000. We’d need capital to improve our buildings, but we have the land and the space.
SK: How did you get here? It all seems so surprising.
AA: I was born in Monongahela, out near Pittsburgh, but grew up in Richmond. My parents valued education, hard work, and being the best at whatever we chose to do. As a kid, I worked for five summers at a day camp that my private school put on for a low-income housing development. I couldn’t understand why I got such a great education, and these kids were getting so little. I wrote my college essay, when I was 17, about social injustice in schools. It helped me get into Virginia, where I decided I’d pursue a career making lots of money and connections, and then I’d start a boarding school for inner-city children.
SK: So you’re “living the dream”?
AA: Amazingly, I am in every respect. Right at the time this job came along, I met a wonderful man from Virginia, the man of my dreams. Dream job, dream man. Though at first, I wasn’t sure about being the first non-white to lead this institution. I knew Philadelphia was great, but I also knew it had a difficult racial history. So there was some hesitancy. But after I met everyone, I felt so welcomed, I knew that I had my cake and was eating it too. We’re getting married in May, and I’ll be the second president of Girard College to get married while holding this job.
SK: Carrying the legacy of Stephen Girard and leading this school, starting a new life and a family — your plate is pretty full.
AA: So was Girard’s. I had done some research, but I truly realized the extent of his legacy when I visited the Masonic Temple next to City Hall and saw prominent portraits of Lafayette, Franklin, Washington and Stephen Girard. My question then was, “What is this man doing with these other powerfully important figures, and how did he get so lost?” Girard College needs to answer those questions. I’m pretty certain that we can.
