May 12, 2006

MOORESTOWN FRIENDS STUDENT SELECTED FOR NEW JERSEY SCHOLARS PROGRAM

MOORESTOWN, NJ – Alex Levy, a Moorestown Friends School junior and Voorhees resident, has been accepted to attend the intensive New Jersey Scholars Program at the Lawrenceville School this summer. He will spend five weeks in residence at the school, learning with other students about this year’s topic, Africa.

Through the disciplinary lenses of history/economics, literature, the arts and the environment, participants will focus on sub-Saharan Africa, building a textured and complex understanding of a continent that has resisted western understanding for centuries. Lectures, seminars, research and fieldwork will explore characteristics found in African cultures and environment before major western incursions. Also explored will be the impact on the region of the 19th century European land-grab on established cultural folkways and eco-systems. This knowledge will be used to guide dialogue on challenges for African states seeking to build a better world for their peoples.

Participants will have extensive reading assignments and will prepare several short papers in advance of their culminating achievement, a major interdisciplinary research project on a topic of special interest. Students also will take field trips and will create artistic, musical and dramatic works that will be exhibited in an Arts Festival.