As part of the ongoing development of Delphian's web presence, we'd like to introduce you to Beyond Delphian, our alumni blog. The goal of this blog is for our alumni to talk with you about their expereinces at Delphian, but more importantly how they continue to use the tools they learned at Delphian in their daily lives!
Do you have a topic you'd like to hear about, or just want to ask the alumni a question? E-mail your thoughts or questions to us here.
Though it was some years ago that I last donned the green on the soccer field, or stood on stage in McMinnville performing in the Parents Weekend play, or sat in the Upper School as a student, I still often find myself thinking about “The Hill” or telling some anecdote from my seven years as a Delphian student. And while I have only been able to return once since my last year as a student there in 1999, I have always wanted to express my gratitude for those years spent at Delphian—gratitude for those who patiently tolerated my fumbles, and for the life that Delphian was able to not only prepare me for, but also allowed me to enter with a bang and a flourish.
I went straight from Delphian into working in fields that interested me, starting with touring Europe and the United States as a soundman for a British jazz and swing band. Then, in 2004, I began working in a music studio and doing live sound for concerts and events. This led to working on film sets and an introduction to the camera and cinematography. Since 2006, I have been working on documentary and commercial filming as a cameraman and director, and this has taken me across the world many times over. I've traveled about 500,000 miles in the last five years, going all over Americas, Europe, East Asia, and Africa.
Whether it was filming in the sweltering Haitian summer following the devastating earthquake, documenting human rights work in the blinding cold of a Russian winter, or filming music videos in LA, I could confidently go into any environment and film stories that inspired others, that brought lives and events to other people around the world as though those events were unfolding right before them.
The tools I gained at Delphian gave me the ability to walk into any of these scenarios and succeed. I also gained the confidence at Delphian to know that anything I choose to do is something I am capable of doing. This self-confidence in my innate ability is a real gift and a sure product of my Delphian education.
In this world, a person often must learn a new field, or else finds the one he's been trained in evolving so quickly that he must constantly reeducate himself to keep up. Delphian gave me the ability to easily do this. Very few life skills are as valuable as the ability to teach yourself a new subject. The Delphi Program helped me realize that I could handle anything I wished to endeavor by using the tools I'd learned. I was no longer held back by my own uncertainty of my abilities—one of the largest hurdles to jump when standing at the beginning your life’s work. It is for that I must thank the school and its faculty. Without my Delphian education, I doubt very much that I could have stepped into these fields so easily and found such success.
I thank all those who helped me through my years at the school and wish you the best in doing the same for all the students who are lucky enough to find themselves on “The Hill.”
- Drew Harrison
Posted
by twright
on Wednesday February 20 at 10:29AM
After graduating from Delphian School in 2003, I attended Pacific University, where I majored in English and minored in creative writing and philosophy. I graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in 2007.
During the next two years, I became disillusioned with my 9-5 job, eventually growing to hate it as much as the person it was making me into. I decided to go back into school and move yet again toward my goal of teaching English at the college level. I applied to the master’s program at Belmont University and got in! I spent the next three years working full-time and attending school full-time. I studied as much as I could, covering topics like “the role of Love in Shakespeare and Chaucer,” Studies in Genre, Nature Writing, Literary Criticism, and several survey courses covering large sections of literature, like Early American and Modern World Literature. Through it all, I reaffirmed my passion for learning, especially for reading.
My love of reading, and really my goal to study literature and eventually teach literature, started at Delphian. My senior year instructor challenged me to read Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd, which at the time was an optional substitution for Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. Anyone who knew me back then knew that the best way to challenge me was to tell me I couldn’t do something or that something was too hard. This instructor did just that, suggesting I might not want to tackle the Hardy novel. Deciding to read it became one of the most important decisions I’ve made, as that novel marks the beginning of my academic calling and my unmitigated love of critical reading literature. I can never thank that instructor enough for this, and actually sent him a copy of my biggest achievement to date, my master’s thesis.
Throughout my graduate studies, as with my undergraduate work, the skills and tools I gained at Delphian were invaluable. I was actually known throughout undergrad as the girl who carried a dictionary, as I brought one with me to every class and regularly helped the entire class clear up misunderstood words. In graduate school, the planning and organizational tools I learned at Delphian became almost more crucial in some ways than my use of Study Technology, as they helped me successfully manage a full-time job, full-time school, and a household as a newlywed. Without the skills I learned at Delphian, I may not have succeeded in juggling all of these things, and I am regularly reminded how much I gained from my time there.
During my last semester of graduate school, I quit my job and concentrated all of my time on completing my master’s thesis and developing my research area. My thesis is titled The Relationship Between Reading and Listening to Literature and discusses how we read, how we listen, and how the two processes affect how we interpret a text critically. Overall, the purpose of my research was to develop the groundwork that will allow me to tackle questions about how we interact with listened-to texts, what the role of the external (read: audio book) narrator is and how their readings affect both our understanding of a work and the message of the author, and, ultimately, how this relates to the teaching of literature. These questions, and others I hope, will be tackled in a dissertation during my Ph.D. work and possibly in a book length publication, if all goes well.
Overall, graduate school was amazing! It helped remind me of my goals and to make that next crucial step to getting there. I now have a much clearer expectation of what’s to come when I finally get into a doctoral program. Also, and almost more importantly, it’s helped me already start working as a college professor, as I am currently wrapping up my first semester teaching at Cumberland University in Lebanon, TN. While I am only an adjunct professor, the opportunity offered to me at Cumberland has helped me get my feet wet as a professor and has certainly tested my resolve.
Kelsey LeCrone, Class of 2003
About Pacific University (www.pacificu.edu) Pacific University, in Forest Grove, Oregon, began as a school for orphans from the Oregon Trail in 1848 and in 1849 was chartered as a college founded by Congregationalists and modeled after the best schools of New England. Over time, the university has grown into a unique combination of undergraduate and graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, education, business and health.
Posted
by twright
on Thursday February 7 at 01:09PM
I have been blessed to attend a unique university named Long Island University, Global (LIU Global). Since my freshman year (I am currently a senior.), I have studied in 10 different countries. Traveling has always been a passion of mine and I've been fortunate to have had the opportunity to do so quite extensively within and outside of LIU Global.
Delphian Laurien Emrani earning Long Island University college credits near Granada, Nicaragua.
My interests lay in human rights and education, but I didn't want to sit in a classroom and read about other cultures and peoples in books. I wanted to see those peoples face to face and interact with them. I feel so lucky to have found LIU Global, who facilitates a three-year study abroad undergraduate program with a focus on intercultural communication.
My college experience has been amazing. From living with a host family in Costa Rica to teaching novice monks English in Thailand (a required part of a course), I have truly had the most amazing college experience—the ride of my life. Having been around the world now and seeing what that experience offers, I urge anyone who has the opportunity to travel to do it. Learning about other cultures and understanding different ways of life has not only expanded the lens with which I view my life, but has affected my daily interactions.
Globalization has brought us closer together, and it is up to us as citizens of this world to recognize, understand, cherish and embrace the diversity that exists. Every human has rights just because they are human, and it is crucial that people recognize these in others so as to live in a harmonious world. War, pain and suffering often stem from misunderstanding, falsehoods or no understanding. In our increasingly connected world we have the opportunity and accessibility to understand our differences and respect them. Let us not waste a moment—there is a whole world to explore and discover!
Laurien Emrani, Class of 2008
Editor: Laurien’s recent presentation to current Delphian students was covered by the local media. Read the article here.
LIU Global is an academic unit of Long Island University and a unique program in international higher education. Formerly known as Friends World College, LIU Global students continue a forty-five year tradition of studying the world’s most pressing issues in the world’s most dynamic regions ‑ but in the context of a cutting edge contemporary curriculum. LIU Global education is a life-altering experience. During their years with LIU Global, students become a part of an intimate world-wide learning community, a caring network of support which sustains and enriches them both during and after their years with LIU Global. LIU Global students don’t just make friends; they make friends for life ‑ through sharing a series of awe-inspiring and transformative educational experiences rarely available to American undergraduates.
Posted
by twright
on Wednesday February 6 at 02:36PM
Editor's note: Tony first submitted this blog several months ago. See the last paragraph for a law-school acceptance update.
I am currently a Dean’s List, scholastic scholarship student going into my senior year at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey (14 miles outside of New York City). But my college career did not start out in quite so stellar a fashion.
On the dean's list at Seton Hall in 2012, Tony's college career did not start out in quite so stellar a fashion.
When I graduated from Delphian in 2009, I was unsure about my next step. I had been accepted to a couple of schools with very good scholarships, but I was not excited to go to college. I wanted to stay at Delphian forever—it was what I’d known for most of my education, and it felt very safe. The Delphi Program is well-designed with a proven study methodology built into the curriculum, and the environment is so upbeat and supportive that it would be strange to go to school anywhere else. Despite having the desire to stay as close to Delphian as possible, I took a plunge into the unknown, going across the country to a state I had never visited and a school where I knew no one.
At Seton Hall, I am majoring in Sports Management and minoring in Legal Studies in Business. I will be moving on to law school upon my graduation from Seton Hall. My ultimate plan is to work in sports agency.
After Delphian’s rigorous academic program, I thought the academics at Seton Hall would be a piece of cake. Thinking this turned out to be a critical mistake. I failed the first midterm I took in economics and scored a D (60 out of 100) in calculus. I found myself wondering if I was going to lose my scholarship in my first semester.
I finished the semester with three A’s, two B’s and a B-… I spent a little time trying to blame the world for my early academic woes. Then I decided it was time to actually be a Delphian graduate and apply the many tools the school had given me to achieve success. It was challenging without my high school classmates to support me—as would’ve been the case at Delphian—but I started applying the ethics and study tools I had learned at Delphian toward improving my college education. I finished the semester with three A’s, two B’s and a B- (in the economics class); not a bad recovery after failing my first college midterm.
Since that first semester, I have taken 29 classes. In these classes I have gotten an A 25 times. I have made the Dean’s List for five straight semesters. This past semester, I was inducted into Seton Hall’s Honor Societies for both Sport Management and Legal Studies in Business. Furthermore, I received a scholarship this past April for having the top grade point average in Seton Hall’s Sport Management program.
Using the communications skills I learned at Delphian to begin my career before getting the degree. Outside of the academic world, I knew I needed to get involved with sports organizations; after all, that was the main point of my college experience. Thanks to the communication skills I gained at Delphian, which emphasized the ability to comfortably speak with and lead people and projects, I was able to get my foot in the door of both the Seton Hall sports scene and the industry itself. In my three years at Seton Hall, I have:
Written for the sports section of the school paper
Participated in the sport management student association
Worked at a professional sports arena (the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ), conducting game day marketing activities for the Seton Hall Men’s basketball team
Managed the Seton Hall men’s soccer team
Interned at ESPN New York for a semester
Interned at Madison Square Garden as a Fan Development Assistant for the Nicks
None of this would have been possible without my Delphian experience. Needless to say, I have taken control of my college education in a big way. However, none of this success would have been possible without my Delphian education. While many of my college friends and Seton Hall faculty have helped me out greatly, my Delphian education heavily outweighs all else.
Attending college has been an extremely valuable experience for me. It’s provided a perfect opportunity to take the tools I gained at Delphian and apply them to real-world situations—discovering as I did so that having these tools is critical to achieving success. Professors and students alike often ask me where my persistence and study discipline come from. I always give them the same answer: the Delphian School.
Law school acceptance update as of Spring, 2013 I will be attending law school this coming fall. So far I've been accepted into University of Miami, Tulane, Loyola, Yeshiva, Marquette, Northeastern, and Michigan State. I am leaning toward Miami as they are a sports school with a stellar sports/entertainment law program. They are also ranked well and are located in a prime sports market. I want to be an agent, so this seems like a great fit. Nonetheless, Loyola, Tulane, and Marquette are premier sports law schools, so I am not ruling out any of them.
And as a further update, "Wow! I actually just got an email from St John's University School of Law in Queens, NY. Full tuition scholarship!"
Anthony Holesworth, Class of 2009
About Seton Hall University (http://www.shu.edu/) Founded in 1856 by Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, the school is named for the first American-born saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton. The school is affiliated with the Archdiocese of Newark of the Roman Catholic Church; it is one of the oldest such universities in the USA. The enrollment is around 5,300 students, 60% female and 40% male, with more than 60 countries represented. The graduate enrollment is around 4,500. The freshman profile is an unweighted GPA of 3.4, an SAT average of 1100, and an ACT average of 24.
About Delphian School (http://delphian.org) The Delphian School is a premiere international K-12 day and boarding school, celebrating 37 years of its unique proficiency-based/mastery-required educational methodology, including college preparatory, English-as-a-Second-Language, and summer programs. The Delphian School is an accredited member of the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools and an accredited member school of the Northwest Accreditation Commission. The school is a member The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS), the Oregon Federation of Independent Schools, and the school is licensed to use Applied Scholastics educational services. Delphian School’s 725-acre campus is located southwest of Portland in the abundant Willamette Valley, heart of Oregon’s family-friendly wine country.
Posted
by twright
on Tuesday February 5 at 04:01PM
Hello! My name is Laurien Emrani; I am a Delphian graduate from the Class of 2008. This Fall I am doing an internship with the incredible human rights NGO (non-governmental organization) Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI).
The definition of an NGO from www.ngo.org is: “…any non-profit, voluntary citizens’ group that is organized on a local, national or international level. Task-oriented and driven by people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen concerns to governments, advocate, and monitor policies and encourage political participation through provision of information. Some are organized around specific issues, such as human rights, environment or health.”
Every year for the past nine years YHRI has organized and conducted a human rights summit for like-minded youth and adults to come together and share their human rights education work and views. This year was the 9th Annual International Human Rights Summit held in Brussels, Belgium.
As part of my internship, I arrived three weeks prior to this year’s summit and helped with the preparations. Among my duties were:
Calling local embassies to invite ambassadors
Editing documents such as keynote speaker speeches and program insets
Contributing to a storyboard for a short informational film about the summit
As it got closer and closer to the date of the summit, the rest of the volunteers and I worked long hours to ensure everything was perfect and fully ready for the three-day-long summit activities.
The summit’s first day was filled with prominent authorities speaking about human rights interspersed with youth delegate commentaries on the field representing over 20 different nations. This facilitated a formal yet energized conversation about human rights today. The second day was focused more on the youth that came and allowed them to discuss their actions that forwarded human rights in their local communities and share successes that other youth could take back with them to make their programs more effective. The third day was an Inter-Religious Conference for Peace. Ten different denominations were represented and gave the youth delegates and audience a message for peace and human rights.
A recurring theme of the summit was the vital importance of human rights education. Without the knowledge of human rights, they can never become a reality. By educating people of all ages, especially children, on their human rights we as a human race are that much closer to peace on Earth. Human rights, recognized and observed, engender compassion, understanding, and tolerance. With these three qualities nurtured in children at a young age, yet old enough to understand the importance, the future is bright and full of opportunity.
By acknowledging, inspiring and supporting youth to educate their peers on human rights Youth for Human Rights single-handedly creates change for peace every day. One such youth inspired by YHRI was a young man from Russia. Stumbling upon YHRI’s materials and information on human rights, he realized the importance of them and immediately began educating his peers and as many people as possible about human rights. Among his human rights projects, he went to a public space in his home city and asked people walking by to paint negative acts and human rights violations committed against them on a long, make-shift cardboard surface. After the cardboard was overflowing with pictures he then asked people to paint happy and positive images over the negative ones symbolizing that human rights, tolerance, and other positive qualities are more powerful than the negative ones. This one youth reached many people from all walks of life and got them thinking about human rights.
Had this youth never stumbled upon YHRI one night on the Internet (www.youthforhumanrights.org), who knows whether or not he would have been inspired to do such an activity and educate people on their human rights? This is but one of many success stories of YHRI and the power of their education tools.
How my Delphian education applied to this internship Among the many useful and invaluable qualities I gained at the Delphian School, integrity has been the most crucial. Being an individual amongst millions of other individuals can sometimes be taxing, let alone pressures from groups of which one is part.
My Delphian experience helped me cultivate a strong integrity level that was supported not only through the academics, but also with projects, being part of the student council, and just hanging out with friends. Since graduating from Delphian I have thanked the school mentally many times for providing me with the importance of keeping one’s integrity solid and providing me with the means to do so.
While viewpoint shifts and expansions can be positive and are often seen as a favorable trait, there are times when one knows what is right and what is wrong. Integrity and ethics, defined as the ability to make decisions that enhance survival (another strong quality I developed at Delphian) are closely related. When my integrity has been challenged along the way, I used ethics to make the right decision and stay true to my principles. Without such a strong foundation in both I am sure that at times when I most needed to keep my integrity in, I would have strayed or been pressured otherwise.
Laurien Emrani, Class of 2008
About Delphian School (http://delphian.org) The Delphian School is a premiere international K-12 day and boarding school, celebrating 37 years of its unique proficiency-based/mastery-required educational methodology, including college preparatory, English-as-a-Second-Language, and summer programs. The Delphian School is an accredited member of the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools and an accredited member school of the Northwest Accreditation Commission. The school is a member The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS), the Oregon Federation of Independent Schools, and the school is licensed to use Applied Scholastics educational services. Delphian School’s 725-acre campus is located southwest of Portland in the abundant Willamette Valley, heart of Oregon’s family-friendly wine country.
Laurien Emrani, Class of 2008, helps organize a human rights convention in Brussels. Hello! My name is Laurien Emrani; I am a Delphian graduate from the Class of 2008. This Fall I am doing an internship with the incredible human rights NGO (non-governmental organization) Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI).
Laurien Emrani, Class of 2008, helps organize a human rights convention in Brussels.
The definition of an NGO from www.ngo.org is: “…any non-profit, voluntary citizens’ group that is organized on a local, national or international level. Task-oriented and driven by people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen concerns to governments, advocate, and monitor policies and encourage political participation through provision of information. Some are organized around specific issues, such as human rights, environment or health.”
Every year for the past nine years YHRI has organized and conducted a human rights summit for like-minded youth and adults to come together and share their human rights education work and views. This year was the 9th Annual International Human Rights Summit held in Brussels, Belgium.
As part of my internship, I arrived three weeks prior to this year’s summit and helped with the preparations. Among my duties were:
-Calling local embassies to invite ambassadors -Editing documents such as keynote speeches and program inserts -Contributing to a storyboard for a informational film about the summit
As it got closer and closer to the date of the summit, the rest of the volunteers and I worked long hours to ensure everything was perfect and fully ready for the three-day-long summit activities.
The summit’s first day was filled with prominent authorities speaking about human rights interspersed with youth delegate commentaries on the field representing over 20 different nations. This facilitated a formal yet energized conversation about human rights today. The second day was focused more on the youth that came and allowed them to discuss their actions that forwarded human rights in their local communities and share successes that other youth could take back with them to make their programs more effective. The third day was an Inter-Religious Conference for Peace. Ten different denominations were represented and gave the youth delegates and audience a message for peace and human rights.
A recurring theme of the summit was the vital importance of human rights education. The consensus was that without the knowledge of just what human rights are, they can never become a universal reality. By educating people of all ages, especially children, on their human rights we as a human race are that much closer to peace. Human rights, recognized and observed, engender compassion, understanding, and tolerance. With these three qualities nurtured in children at a young age, yet old enough to understand the importance, the future is bright and full of opportunity.
By acknowledging, inspiring, and supporting youth to educate their peers on human rights, Youth for Human Rights seeks to support and ensure all of mankind’s efforts for peace. Often quoted by YHRI, Eleanor Roosevelt once said,
“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
Universal human rights are possible ‑ it starts with one youth, one NGO, one government, one person making the decision that human rights are important and need to be promulgated and shared. This summit, as well as past ones, has inspired the attendees to be those people, no matter their background, and help change the world together.
Don't Assume Anything - A lesson I learned from Delphian School on what it takes to survive in the 'real world'
A few years after I graduated from Delphian, I worked for a very large production company based in Seattle with an arm in San Francisco. In both cities, I worked as a Performer Wrangler and personal shopper, setting up temporary apartments for out-of-town actors and performers, and I literally "wrangled" the performers to make sure they were on stage when it was their cue. This company produces large theater shows as well as the annual AT&T 4th of July celebration and an annual music festival in downtown Seattle where big-name musicians performed.
The owner of the company was (and to my knowledge still is) close friends with the mayor of Seattle and every other VIP in both Seattle and San Francisco. He also happens to be a millionaire - but you wouldn't know it from looking at him, his car or his house. He drove a beat- up old Isuzu trooper. He was a large man with a shaggy beard and unkempt hair. His home (I heard) was an older craftsman-style home -- nothing fancy.
It's easy to make assumptions about situations or other people. The hard part is casting aside prejudice or pre-conceived notions of "success". There are some truly phenomenal people out there who don't fit the mold of what society says a successful person looks, acts and talks like. Attending a high school that was a melting pot of cultures and students from all over the world, with different socio-economic backgrounds, certainly helped instill in me the idea of not making assumptions - not only about people, but generally in life.
I think the lesson I learned from Delphian was drawn from my entire experience. The education I gained at Delphian has led me to live my life as if everyone I come across is an important person. Do I always live this way? No. Do I regret it when I don't? Almost always.
So what does it really take to survive in the 'real world'? It takes a combination of backbone, great communication skills and a commitment to success; but if you shut people down before even getting curious about them first, you could be closing the doors to your own future success and happiness -- and all those other skills won't matter.
[Rachel Karl is a freelance marketing consultant who has worked with some of the biggest names across multiple industries with social media and marketing. She is THE social media mentor for Small Businesses, start-ups and solo-entrepreneurs.]
When I was asked to contribute to this blog and talk about how my Delphian education has helped me in my career and life, I thought, "Wow, where do I start?" I mean, how can I fit into one small blog post all of the amazing things that have come my way as a result of being taught to be hardworking, professional, trustworthy and an independent learner?
Well, let's start with my career. Basically, I'm doing EXACTLY what I want to be doing. I have a successful custom portraiture business specializing in outdoor, natural light photography of children and families. I get to make money playing with kids in fields and taking their picture at the same time (pinch me!). I decided a few years ago that I was going to follow my dream and actually make a decent living doing it. There were naysayers as there always seem to be when one sets out to do something they've dreamed of doing. They said that I wouldn't make enough money; they said that I was trying to do something thousands of others had attempted and failed at; some even said that it was a stupid decision and I should go back to an administrative job. I didn't agree.
That's when my Delphian education stepped in. The first part was self-determinism and self-confidence. I knew what I wanted, and I believed in myself strongly enough to know, without a shred of doubt, that I was going to start my business and make it successful. The second part came with the ability to do my own research and teach myself. I learned this from the independent study program at Delphian. We had to take ourselves through our own courses and lessons—no one else was going to do it for us.
The third part was the ability to work really, really hard and be a trustworthy, professional business person. I would guess that this is where people usually fall on their face when starting a business. They don't realize exactly how much work it's going to take and, when things don't go quite as they planned, they back off and fail to persist through the dips. Any Delphian graduate can tell you that they only got through the program because they worked really hard, did top-notch work and persisted to the end of the program. That experience, in itself, has been invaluable.
I'm honored to be sharing a piece of my story with you here and I'm so very thankful to my parents for doing what it took to send me to Delphian. Would I send my own kids there? In a heartbeat.
I recently read the letter about how "Delphi saved our son". Really?! Yes. It happens.
I do not know the parents or the student about which the letter was written. I can only offer my own story as evidence:
I had a good upbringing. I was smart and capable. But I lacked motivation, and I was arrogant to the point of my own detriment. I was angry and bitter at what I perceived as being the "lesser" sibling because my brother did well, and I felt "everyone" compared my ability and skill to his. I would rebel at all angles just to prove I was nothing like my brother. I couldn't tolerate or be responsible for the world I lived in.
One day, there was a large brawl at my high school where a lot of kids got hurt. Oddly enough, I had ditched after first period and avoided the whole mess. The event, however, made me realize I needed to get serious about my life and what I was going to do. I began partnering with my parents and working on a plan to find some place where I could start fresh and create a future for myself.
On a whim, my mother and I contacted Delphian—from a one-line phone number in our local Yellow Pages. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history. I completed the program in just under three-years time (April 1992 - Feb 1995). I've now graduated from college, I work in an industry I love, I have a beautiful wife and two kids, but most importantly, I know who I am and what I am capable of doing in this world.
I know now that I was responsible for most, if not all, of my problems as a teenager. At the time though, I couldn't see the forest through the trees. Delphian's biggest help to me wasn't in academics; it came from the cornerstones of its logo - integrity, ethics, knowledge and leadership. Not in the classroom - but in the real world.
At my graduation speech, some people wondered why I was so serious about how Delphian saved my life. It was that big of a moment for me - the wreckoning I had been having with myself for three years about being a self-driven, able and contributing person was immense. To know I had integrity and could use it to do the right thing was a monumental affirmation, especially compared to where I was when I walked in the door.
Delphian can save lives, but it starts with the student making it happen for him or herself.
Posted
by kevinl
on Tuesday April 19, 2011 at 04:21PM
In 1994, I graduated from Delphian School as a Fine Arts major. Over the years as my goals have shifted, my career has changed direction a few times. However, the one thing that has remained constant is my ability to step into any position - whether it's volunteer or paid work - quickly assess what's needed and wanted, and not only present that, but also refine it to higher level of excellence.
Sure, I've always been a bright, go-getter; but I can say with 100% certainty that I gained this ability through my education and experiences as a Delphian student. Without a doubt.
Today, I'm a Business Coach specializing in client attraction. I teach high-achieving entrepreneurs, professionals and small business owners how to consistently attract more ideal, high-paying clients, as well as how to leverage their time so they make more money while working less.
When I recently found out that only 5% of all entrepreneurs make more than $100,000 a year in their businesses, I was floored. You see, I easily did this my first year in my own business and have also helped many other clients do this for the past 13 years. When you have the tools to handle life with integrity, ethics, leadership and responsibility, you can bypass the years of stumbling, fumbling and guessing and get right to the meat of what life is all about. I have a commitment to help other self-employed, entrepreneurs and professionals beat those odds through my seminars, products, coaching and workshops.
I am honored to have been chosen to share with you about life and business from my unique perspective as a proud Delphian alumna. Through this blog I hope to be able to impart some of my knowledge and tools that I use daily in my life. Whether it's how I've been able to have a happy marriage for 16 years, advice on how we parent our 3 children, or strategies on how to grow your business (and perhaps the occasional musings on books, films or music); I hope it serves you in having a deeper understanding of the many beautiful ways my life has been affected by my Delphian education!
Though it was some years ago that I last donned the green on the soccer field, or stood on stage in McMinnville performing in the Parents Weekend play, or sat in the Upper School as a student, I still often find myself thinking about “The Hill” or telling some anecdote from my seven years as a Delphian student. And while I have only been able to return once since my last year as a student there in 1999, I have always wanted to express my gratitude for those years spent at Delphian—gratitude for those who patiently tolerated my fumbles, and for the life that Delphian was able to not only prepare me for, but also allowed me to enter with a bang and a flourish.
A few years after I graduated from Delphian, I worked for a very large production company based in Seattle with an arm in San Francisco. In both cities, I worked as a Performer Wrangler and personal shopper, setting up temporary apartments for out-of-town actors and performers, and I literally "wrangled" the performers to make sure they were on stage when it was their cue. This company produces large theater shows as well as the annual AT&T 4th of July celebration and an annual music festival in downtown Seattle where big-name musicians performed. 
When I was asked to contribute to this blog and talk about how my Delphian education has helped me in my career and life, I thought, "Wow, where do I start?" I mean, how can I fit into one small blog post all of the amazing things that have come my way as a result of being taught to be hardworking, professional, trustworthy and an independent learner?
In 1994, I graduated from Delphian School as a Fine Arts major. Over the years as my goals have shifted, my career has changed direction a few times. However, the one thing that has remained constant is my ability to step into any position - whether it's volunteer or paid work - quickly assess what's needed and wanted, and not only present that, but also refine it to higher level of excellence.