Lizzie Edwards '12, M'13

This month, Lizzie Edwards '12, M'13 shares her journey as an educator, coach, and lifelong learner. A dedicated St. Lawrence volunteer, Lizzie talks to us about the Young Alumni League and what makes it a unique competition among volunteers from different class years.

Transcript

[Theme Music Plays]

Beth:      Hello everyone, and welcome back to Scarlet & Brown Stories. I am your host, Beth Dixon. And this month I am so happy to be joined with Dennis Morreale. I'm so excited. Denny, how are you doing today?

Denny:      I'm doing great. Thank you, Beth. I'm super excited to be back and excited to be podcasting with you. We've worked together a long time and now both getting on the show.

Beth:      I know this is so exciting, we've been a part of this podcast team for a little while, but before that we've been working together in this capacity for about what seven years at this point. And previous to that we'd worked together reunions when I was a student worker and you were in charge of the student worker. So nice long history.

Denny:    Go way back stories that we'll save for another episode.

Beth:    Yes. [Laughter].

Denny:    So we'll set that aside for today. Yeah. We've got a very exciting guest today. Someone that I've also been working with for a long time.

Beth:    Absolutely. So here is our interview with Lizzie Edwards class of 2012.

[Music Plays]

Beth:    We're so excited to be chatting with one of our honestly like best volunteers that we have of our Young Alum League. And she's just been super involved with St. Lawrence since she graduated. She has a wonderful career in education. She's an all-star runner. She's got all these wonderful attributes going for her, and we're excited to hear a little bit more about her Scarlet and Brown Story. So Denny, why don't you tell us a little bit more about Lizzie before we bring on Lizzie Edwards?

Denny:    Yeah. Thank you, Beth. I was reflecting on this beforehand, because I've been working with Lizzie for a number of years now in the Young Alumni League Program. And the way that I think about it is this, we think a lot about the strength of our world renowned alumni network and what makes a network strong. And I was thinking of it, the kind of metaphor of like, "What makes steel strong? What does steel consist of?" Steel is almost entirely just iron. And then you throw in like a little bit of carbon or manganese or something like that. And that little bit changes the whole structure and it makes it much, much stronger than the iron, the iron's pretty strong on its own, but you throw that in and you get steel something vastly stronger. And Lizzie really is sort of an example of the carbon atoms in our network, right?

Beth:    Yeah.

Denny:    It would be strong on its own, but throw them in. And the whole kind of lattice work structure just becomes so much stronger than it would be otherwise. So, I'm not a chemist-

Beth:    You could for me.

Denny:    Or a blacksmith for that matter so let's not take the metaphor too far, but genuinely Lizzie is one of the most important volunteers I've worked with in the 10 years I've been running the Young Alumni Program. So I'm delighted to have her on and welcome to the show.

Lizzie:    Denny, thank you so much. What an introduction, your enthusiasm and leadership has made being part of the Young Alumni network so enjoyable and also so accessible. You've made it a competition. You've made it engaging and you've made it dynamic truly.

Denny:    Oh, well. Thank you.

Beth:    I think that's a really great place to start actually, because for our listeners who don't know what the Young Alumni League is, it's a really interesting and fascinating way to get involved as a young alum. And it's something that Denny has actually been able to present on across the nation at different conferences and had colleagues at different institutions pick his brain about. So why don't the two of you kind of tell us a little bit about what the Young Alumni League is, maybe Lizzie, why don't you start from what it is from a volunteer's standpoint?

Lizzie:    Absolutely. So Denny gathers people who are 10 years or less out from their undergrad experience and he creates basically a fantasy football draft wherein you as a volunteer, get to try to find people from your affinity groups. So maybe a sport that you did on campus, a living community that you were a part of, a sorority or fraternity that you were a part of or any other like study abroad group, an affinity group. And within that context, you try to gather your team. And just like in sports, you want to try to have some people who have consistently given over the years and you reach out to them and see if they'd be willing to continue to give. But Denny also incentivizes getting people involved in attending alumni events or donating who maybe haven't done so yet. And for them, maybe it's a matter of hearing from someone who reminds them of how positive their college experience was.

Lizzie:    And maybe they've started to take on other ventures and it's not at the forefront of their mind, but a call or a text from someone who is a part of that experience triggers in them that loyalty, where they want to get involved. He also incentivizes it, not just being financial involvement and he doesn't put monetary goals at the forefront of the experience. He wants to see people attending alumni events, mentoring people in their careers and getting involved in other ways. And because of the way he structured it creates a network that feels like it's based on people giving where they feel their strengths are instead of giving where it maybe feels more forced for them.

Beth:    I think that's such a succinct way to describe it. Denny, do you have any additional thoughts here?

Denny:    I would just say it was lovely to hear you describe it that way from your perspective. I have presented on it in a number of places, but to you hear someone who's been as involved as you have talk about it like that and kind of seize on some of the real key points of it just really kind of warms my heart. Yeah. The program, it started out as a way to increase involvement of our youngest alums before I was here. It was really kind of only focused on giving and through the things I was seeing, what I was hearing from volunteers before the kind of remodel where we turned into the fantasy football method that you can't just isolate things down to just giving because everyone's a whole person. And so the more someone is engaged in any one category, the more they're going to just be engaged across the board.

Denny:    And that's what we want to do and to think about it kind of holistically. And to that extent it has worked out well, the other way that it's worked out well, the numbers sort of have been fabulous in terms of how engaged those classes have been that have been involved in the program. But it's just for me personally, so much fun to be a part of and to sort of tell the stories from week to week when we're in season and to track the progress of the different classes and the different competitors. And I never could have guessed before I started how fiercely competitive it would get. Genuinely the last, however many years, if you are ranked anywhere in the top 40, I know because I'm hearing from you all the time that you're really working hard here.

Denny:    You're really actively engaged in it and reaching out to people and making a difference. And kind of a key thing is that one person is crowned Young Alumni League champion at the end of each year. And that person I can tell you really earns it. It is so competitive that I am always sort of blown away and deeply humbled by the efforts made by that person. And we have a former champion in our presence on the conversation here today. And in an addition to that, someone who has been, so she was a league champion, but in many other years, she has been a top five finisher and makes the champion sweat and makes them work harder than they would if they hadn't. If Lizzie hadn't been there, I can say that for sure.

Beth:    Lizzie, do you take it very competitively as well? Like do you feel the competitive spirit when you're participating in the Young Alum League?

Lizzie:    Absolutely. Lindsay Malcolm and I were teammates at St. Lawrence, but we've battled it out a couple years.

Denny:    Yeah, No, I hear from, Lindsay's a good friend of mine. Like she'll call me or text me like in the closing weeks. And it's like, "I'm not feeling confident about my score." She'll be in first or something. And she's like, "Lizzie's just been, she's gained like 120 points last week. I'm really not comfortable with this." So you're bringing out the best in people.

Lizzie:    Well, I think you also hit the nail on the head with bringing out what makes St. Lawrence alums St. Lawrence alums. We're all competitive fiercely, but in this it's friendly kind of way. That's part of the culture on campus. And it's something that we can carry through to those years, right after graduation.

Beth:    Absolutely. And I like too, that to both of your points before that this is really just about engagement at the end of the day. And what I love is the amount of people that I, when I used to participate in the league, that would be like, "Beth, I want to help get you some points. What can I do?" And I'd be like, "Write a class note," and they're like, "I bought it." And then all of a sudden, the class of 2010 had like a whole bunch of notes and that kind of thing, which is really fun. And it's just a great way to connect with people who maybe you're not talking to you all the time, but you still think about from time to time. It's a great little touch point. Lizzie, it's important to note that this year is your 10th reunion, essentially, as you reflect back on 10 years of being a young alum, what have you learned about either the St. Lawrence network or yourself, or a combination thereof that you would love to give that advice to a graduating senior this year?

Lizzie:    Put yourself out there. There've been so many situations where I've been in a major city in a different part of the US, not anywhere near Canton. And I've seen someone with a St. Lawrence T-shirt and don't be afraid to go up and talk to them, ask them about their experience. See what kind of cool opportunity, whether it's social or professional could come out of that. And also just be open to new experiences. I think that the world we live in right now is different from the world people were graduating into a generation ago. I haven't been afraid to move geographic location, but I felt ties to my past throughout. So I got to a new job at the beginning of the pandemic last year in Telluride, Colorado. And someone showed up at my school substitute teacher to cover a maternity leave. And it turned out it was Colin Sullivan, St. Lawrence class of 2002.

Denny:    Oh wow.

Lizzie:    Who is the executive director of the Telluride Theater here, where I live, but he's really deeply ingrained in my school community. His kid goes Montessori School in the same building. And he had a number of the same professors as me, like some of my absolute favorite professors were his favorite professors too. So we engaged in this dialogue. And even though we graduated 10 years apart, we had both done the London semester abroad. And we even had like British professors in common and it was just insane. So I feel really grateful that I've had those kind of crazy St. Lawrence moments at different points in these 10 years since graduating.

Denny:    That's super for interesting. So as you sort of put yourself in the shoes of you as a graduating senior, when you look at everything that sort of happened in between, has it all been exactly according to plan or where have there been the kind of interesting twists?

Lizzie:    Absolutely not. What life has had many twists and turns that 2012 me would never have predicted, but the journey has led me to somewhere where I feel really happy. I love what I do career wise. I love the community I've landed in. It's so vibrant, athletically, artistically, intellectually. I'm never bored. There are always stimulating events going on. And with modern technology, I'm still connected to my friends back in Upstate New York or my friends who live in other places I've gone to along the way. I never would've predicted using my minor in European studies from St. Lawrence, but now I'm teaching history and I was an English major. And I thought I would just teach English. But now my course load is half English, half history. And I'm calling upon some of those experiences that I had earning credits abroad for that minor, and actually using them in my teaching, showing kids pictures of my travels and trying to get them engaged in that way.

Lizzie:    So I think overall it's important to have a vision for what your goals are in life, but to balance that with the practice of a little bit of healthy spontaneity and following your gut, I never thought about living in Colorado before, but someone reached out to me with an opportunity at the beginning of the pandemic and I decided to go for it. And I interviewed all over Zoom. Having never been here before. And I secured housing, having never been here before, and I've been really happy. So I think it's important to be brave and to make changes. When you feel it in your heart, that's going to be good for you.

Beth:    I think that's really important to hear. So often we are told from the time that we're little, "What are you going to do when you grow up?" And it's like, I graduated college and I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I grew up, and I was grown up at that point. I had to know. And so taking those risks are super important. And I think that oftentimes when we have people like yourself who are in education, we think of education as a very like stable career. Like you do something and there's probably not that much risk in it, but there is, there's a lot of ways that you can make it exciting and different. And for yourself. And we have a lot of Laurentians who go out into the education world, whether they're teaching abroad, they're teaching English in different countries, or if they enter like a traditional K-12 system, whether it's public or private, we have people who are mentors and coaches.

Beth:    

We have people in higher education, education in itself like you said, has so many opportunities to keep your mind and your body really active in so many ways. I know that you were an athlete. Have you been able to translate any of your experiences of running at St. Lawrence into your teachings in any way? Have you been a coach? Have you done anything like that we could explore a little bit today?

Lizzie:    Yeah. So I was a cross country and track coach for seven years prior to moving here.

Beth:    Fantastic.

Lizzie:    Which is incredible and I loved it so much. I have now transitioned to actually being a mountain biking and skiing coach.

Denny:    No way. That's Amazing.

Beth:    Wow. The most Colorado thing I've ever heard.

Lizzie:    So yeah, I've taken all these classes. I'm going to get Avalanche Safety Level One certified in two weekends, I'm taking a group of kids to do it. And in chaperoning that trip, I'm getting certified as well. I just got back from a back country, hut ski trip with kids. We had 20 middle schoolers. So my job right now is actually very varied. It's seventh to 12th grade humanities. So I teach a lot of different age groups.

Denny:    Oh wow.

Lizzie:    But I took seven eighth graders into the back country and we learned avalanche safety education. And last spring, I did a rafting trip down the Green River in Utah. And we looked at the history of that region, sociologically as well as environmentally. And then I've also taken kids backpacking, two backpacking to trips, to Bears Ears National Monument, where we delivered place based history, English and art curriculum. So I've had to be in good shape for all of these trips. And I credit my St. Lawrence Cross country and track time with helping me to create a regimen. So it's possible to do that.

Denny:    I think it's sort of fast to best point. This is not what you think of when you think of the track of being a teacher. You do think of it as this more kind of static existence. And yeah. The amount of travel alone that you do is kind of amazing and the exciting forms that it takes. So you have a trip coming up in March, which it will be right around the time that this is landing. Do you want to tell us more about that one?

Lizzie:    Absolutely. So the South trip is a biennial Civil rights experiential education trip. And we fly from Colorado where I'm based to Atlanta and we tour around the Southern United States. It usually runs for seventh and eighth graders in January, but we have had to reschedule twice due to COVID related concerns. We now have the green light to go ahead right now, this March with the current eighth and ninth graders. So we've lost a whole school year in the planning of this and rebooked museums. We've rebooked flights, hotels, but everyone's pivoting right now. It's what we're doing. And the focus of this trip is to explore social justice and civil rights in America from the beginning of our country's history to the current day.

Lizzie:    So we will be traveling with a cohort of about 20 middle schoolers and early high schoolers and four faculty members. And we'll visit these museums, memorials and monuments in Atlanta, Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham. So we'll be delivering curriculum while we're traveling. Then we'll come back to school and we'll create what we call a POL or presentation of learning. And the students who will be able to share their newly acquired knowledge with the entire school community. This is a model we repeat three or four times a year for our kids.

Denny:    That's amazing.

Lizzie:    Yeah. Depending.

Beth:    Experiential education is just so important. I think that when we think of school or at least when I think of it, I often think about, textbooks and homework and sitting there in class. And that was very much to the core of my education growing up. And then I got to go to college and it was a little different you did a lot of the reading at home and then, classes were just discussion based or presentations or you went off at and learn something. And then you brought it back for everybody else to learn about it too. And I love everything that you've said today so far, whether it's these trips that you're taking, you're helping to inform people on diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, not even theories, just practices you're teaching in such a liberal arts kind of way.

Beth:    The fact that you have both, like humanities in a general is a very liberal arts' concept. You have English and history that you're teaching together, which is important. And then combining that with this experience of whether it be coaching or these outdoor trips and that kind of thing, there's so much that you can learn that are life skills or personal skills from all of different kinds of things. And so I love that your approach in the career that you've chosen has been really focused on helping students be better global citizens. In addition to being better versions of themselves too, like learning what some of their strengths and weaknesses are maybe learning, "Oh, I actually really like hiking and I never gone before," or, "This was a big risk for me to go rafting. I've never done that. I don't know if I'll do it again, but I can say that I've done it."

Beth:    And I don't know if, when I reflect back, if I had too many of those experiences in K-12 that I could say, so hearing that there are students out there that are going to be able to have those experiences in their formative years, it's really important to hear.

Lizzie:    Thank you. I really feel that I've grown in my teaching practice. And I also don't know that I necessarily had these types of experiences at a young age. I did have them in college. I remember doing a class with Antalya singer, where we were visiting local farmers, and it was environmental studies and also English and-

Beth:    Very cool, yeah.

Lizzie:    So I had those kind of experiences at St. Lawrence and certainly abroad. We would go to a museum and discover things in a hands on way. I really think that students remember things when they directly have experiences, instead of indirectly acquiring the information through a text book or seventh graders, can't listen to a three hour lecture. They're not going to remember anything, right?.

Beth:    Right.

Lizzie:    So I feel really supported in my community that I can be creative with my lesson plans. And not only am I allowed to do that, I'm encouraged to do that. And it's not just when we're traveling, when we're at school, we can do this too. One of my favorite memory so far of teaching here is I had my ninth grade history students make a map of world war I battles using humans to represent geographic locations. And then they tied themselves together with yarn to show the encounters or the battles between the locations.

Beth:    Oh, that's so cool.

Lizzie:    And because I work at a multi-age school, the younger kids came out for their break. And like second and third graders were just watching with big eyes and they look up to the older kids, but they also like to see the older kids having fun. And I had some younger kids come up and say, "Oh, when I'm older and I'm in your class, well, we get to do this?" So that's exciting to me when you're, you're doing something and kids, aren't just saying, "Oh, when am I done? Or why do I have to do this?" But they're excited about it.

Beth:    When they're saying, "When do I get to do this?"

Lizzie:    Yeah. Right, right.

Beth:    That's a real test of it. I remember when I was in fifth grade, we were learning about the Revolutionary War and my teacher taxed us. So we had a paper tax. So you had to pay a penny every single time you had to turn into like your homework. Or if you had to borrow a piece of paper, you had to pay a penny for every suite that you had in your lunch. You had a sugar tax. And so there was like a 5 cent kind of thing. And she gave us all the money. It's not like we had to bring money from home to do this. I remember just that practical experience. And we had fun with it. One day, my dad wrote an email to my teacher and said, "My queen, I regret to inform you that you have a trader amongst your midst, like this whole thing.

Beth:    And he had packed a whole bunch of sweets in my lunch panel and I hadn't known it and of course he had all the nickels and everything in there, but like, they made it like this huge theatrical deal. And it was like, they put me on trial and the class, it was so silly, but that kind of thing, really from here on out, I'm like, "I could tell you all the different kinds of taxes before the Revolutionary War." Because in fifth grade I got taxed. And like that experiential education took me out of the textbook and like made me have a lived experience. So the things that you're doing and your students have the creativity to do, I'm sure are making a huge difference in how they will retain information moving forward.

Denny:    So you had mentioned that teaching history is new for you because you were an English major. And so you've just been teaching history for the last two years. Is that right?

Lizzie:    That's right.

Denny:    And had you taken history in college or was this sort of a newly acquired skillset?

Lizzie:    A little bit through that European studies minor. I had some education in history, but a lot of it has been, I love to read obviously, I pursued an English major at St. Lawrence because I love to read. So a lot of self-taught work in the last two years as well, which has been good for me. I'm never bored. I'm always learning too. And information that's new to me is exciting to me. And hopefully my students can see that I'm discovering along with them.

Denny:    And I assume you didn't take Avalanche safety in at St. Lawrence either. Right?

Lizzie:    Never on the East Coast. Never.

Denny:    Yeah. So one of the things I'm just really admiring hearing you talk about your experience here is the number of places it's been like, you didn't leave with some certificate saying you knew how to do this stuff. And it's so easy. I think when you do come from a liberal arts background to sort of sell yourself short in terms of what you can do, just thinking again about the 2012 version of yourself, that looking ahead, there's so many things that you can do because that's what the liberal arts sort of does. Is it primes you to be able to pick these things up as you go?

Lizzie:    Yeah. It fosters intellectual curiosity, I think, which is a hugely undervalued skill. That desire to be a lifelong learner, as opposed to having a fixed mindset. I'm an expert in this and this is what I do. It's more of a lifestyle I'm trying to adopt where I'm constantly learning new things. So I'm never bored. My brain's always stimulated. Athletically, I'm always stimulated and it just makes life more exciting.

Denny:    Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Absolutely.

Beth:    As you look forward to other goals in your career, what are some of those goals that you have?

Lizzie:    I think for me, I'm still growing in my practice. So every day I'm learning something new. How do I make kids feel safe to express themselves in the classroom? How do I remind them that a lot of the time in English, there's no wrong answer. Can you back up your perspective with evidence or feelings? Can you articulate yourself? So I'm still, I'm always learning new ways to go about achieving a lesson that feels good. And in any given day within a lesson, you might feel like you had stronger or weaker points within a day, you might feel like certain classes went better or worse than you thought they would. So I think at the end of the day, I want to feel like I'm always growing as a teacher and I aspire to also be a writer-

Denny:    Yeah. That's great.

Lizzie:    ... as well. So that's kind of a passion project that I want to pursue on the side.

Beth:    What kind of writing would you be interested in pursuing or are you pursuing?

Lizzie:    Short stories in poetry? Mostly I don't ...

Denny:    Oh, that's fabulous. Yeah.

Beth:    I can't wait to see your published work someday. We'll come back to this podcast and say, "Hey, in February, 2022, she was talking about this being a passion of her. So let's look it up."

Denny:    So circling back a little bit, some of the things we were talking about earlier on in terms of staying engaged and volunteering and those kinds of things, Beth and I were kind of having a debate as we were prepping for this podcast a little bit, because I was saying again, I've been working with the Young Alumni classes for, I think this is my 10th year working with Young Alumni. And I was saying 2012 is there's something really special about that class? And then Beth is like, "Well, 2010 through 2012."

Beth:    I started off by saying 2012 learned from 2010.

Lizzie:    Of course.

Beth:    I said that kind of tongue and cheek, to be honest with you. But then we started talking about those three classes.

Denny:    There really is something to it. If you had asked me candidly, without trying to flatter anyone on this very podcast. I would've said independently that there is something definitely unique about the triplet of classes of 2010 through 2012. Of course, all of our classes are exceptional in their own ways. But from all the ways that from our office standpoint of engagement event, attendance, annual fund support, volunteering for admissions, career services that triple of classes really is exceptional. I was curious to get your theory about this. Was there something in the water at the time was there, because there's a lot of reason to think that people graduating at that particular time period might not be so connected to their school just in terms of the world they were walking out into, but that's one of the strongest three class pairs that we have anywhere in our lineup.

Lizzie:    I'm not sure that I can answer this with certainty, but I can speculate based on anecdotal experiences. So I think that we were pretty harmonious as a cohort while at SLU. And I think that SLU provided ample opportunities for us to connect with people outside of our classes. So those intentional living communities, study abroad, extracurricular activities and events, the FYP idea of living with people you're taking a first year class with, I think all of those things contributed to me feeling like I had a lot of different affinity groups and we all supported each other. And you could be thespian and an athlete. And you could be someone studying two seemingly disparate academic areas and having friendships in both those areas. It wasn't uncommon for me to feel like there were multiple opportunities for what I could do with my free time in terms of connections I had with people in different facets of my campus life.

Lizzie:    I never felt tied to one identity or friend group while I was at St. Lawrence. So I think that engendered a sense of loyalty to a vast network of people. And I also think that yes, we went through a lot of global events that were challenging. We also came of age as technology was coming of age, right?

Denny:    Mm-hmm (affirmative). Oh, yeah.

Lizzie:    So we knew what it was like to not be always connected to each other and to have to make the effort to have those face to face conversations. But we also had the ease of communication once we gone on campus, a lot of us had those older cell phones. So we had some level of technology.

Denny:    Yeah.

Lizzie:    Yeah. Can you press three times for the C.

Beth:    [crosstalk 00:29:27]. And then you had to press it another three. Yeah.

Lizzie:    Yeah. So I think we were like right on the precipice of all of that and social media, Facebook was just becoming big. So we had this interconnectivity, but I think we were also forced to be social with each other in a way that maybe is less rampant now with more technology, we were right in that bubble.

Denny:    Yeah. I think there's definitely something to that you guys really were sort of in an interesting spot as far as that goes. I think of myself as sort of being, I've graduated in 2007 as being sort of millennial, but I really am kind of like really straddling the Gen X millennial line there, but you guys are like squarely millennial. And in that space of having yeah, had those kind of dual exists and seen both sides of things. That's not just, I mean, there's some very strong classes coming up, but there was something really kind of uniquely special about those three. I feel like a few interesting things I can say that I've observed having worked with those classes for my whole career at this point, I think of each class as sort of like an organism, it sort of has its own personality a little bit. Beth, 2010 is like the most cutthroat class I've worked with.

Beth:    Yes. We're very cutthroat.

Denny:    Like the most competitive. This is maybe I see this more because of their running, the Young Alumni League. But 2010 is the most overtly competitive class across the board that I work with. And it's really like, not even close. And by contrast 2012, if I could say one thing about 2012, it's that you guys just love each other. Like it is wild. You can name, drop anyone in the class to anyone else in the class and you'll just hear, "Oh, I love him." Well, it'll be like, it's remarkable. Like I love a lot of people from my class too. I felt like I knew everybody as I was graduating and now I look at the spreadsheet of all the people in my class, 2007 and it's like, "Wow, I actually there's a lot of people in here. I don't know." But I feel like it's uncanny whenever I'm meeting with people from 2012, how they just know everyone and they just love everyone. It is. I've never seen anything like it.

Lizzie:    It's so accurate. I really feel connect to all of them.

Denny:    Yeah.

Lizzie:    And even people who are really different personality wise, they somehow just shout.

Denny:    Yeah. I know it doesn't matter. Like you could have been like a star on the hockey team or you could be like in Java and you're or like, "Oh, that guy's great." It's just across the board.

Lizzie:    Shout out to all my 2012 people. I miss you.

Beth:    Well, hopefully we'll all be together for reunion some year. Before we end our chat with you today Lizzie, I wanted to just see, you've been involved with St. Lawrence for a while. We've asked a few of our guests this question, but if you had a million dollars to give to St. Lawrence, where would you invest in St. Lawrence?

Lizzie:    Ooh, that's challenging. I feel a connection to so many aspects of my experience there, but I'd have to say what was formative for me would be study abroad and the cross country and track program. I think through both those experiences, I learnedit was okay to fail and bounce back. And I had a community supporting me and those communities still support me today. Like if I do a race now almost 10 years out, I know that I'm going to get positive feedback from teammates and former coaches. Like, that's just incredible. That doesn't happen with every school.

Beth:    It's so true. I was in the Laurentian Singers and it's the same thing. If I sing some place, then other people, "Oh, I love that music," or, "Great job. I know that you did well. I didn't listen, but I'm sure that it was great." You get that kind of support. And I agree.

Lizzie:    I was in DC with kids a couple years ago and I met up with two people from my global Francophones Program group.

Denny:    Oh wow.

Beth:    That's great fun.

Lizzie:    Who are living in DC now? And I hit them up last minute. I was like, "I'm coming to town tomorrow with a bunch of teenagers. I'm going to have an hour off, want to get together." And they were like, "Yes," they were there.

Beth:    I love when you can make those kind of connections.

Lizzie:    Yeah. Ethan Bishop and Emma Renz.

Denny:    Oh. Yeah.

Beth:    Oh, both great.

Lizzie:    Yeah.

Beth:    Well Lizzie, thank you so much for the time that you have given us today. And thank you for the time that you do to invest in your students, both in and out of the classroom. We are so excited to have you for one last year in the Young Alum League. And we're hoping we're polling for you to bring home that gold once again, to really solidify yourself as like the go to champion of the Young Alum.

Lizzie:    I'll be in the running for sure.

Beth:    Absolutely. We have no doubts. We have no doubts.

Lizzie:    Thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun.

Beth:    Wonderful.

Denny:    It's an honor. Thank you.

Beth:    It's been great. Thank you so much.

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Denny:    There you have it folks. Lizzie Edwards, class of 2012, she is one of the best, best of the best. And I have a feeling we may not be here in the last from her on this show if I have anything to say about it. So stay tuned.

Beth:    Absolutely. You know what I love, and I know you might have been able to hear a little bit of like the school sounds and such in the background, but this is like how committed she is both as a teacher and as a Laurentian that she wanted to jump right in with this kind of school environment and like bring us into that environment while she was talking about it. I really like that actually.

Denny:    Yeah, it's great to really feel present. Even though we literally aren't, but to feel really present with a guest like her.

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Beth:    It was such a wonderful conversation. I hope that you all enjoyed it and be sure to tune in for our next edition. So have a good day and we'll see you. Next month.

Beth:    Scarlet & Brown Stories is edited and produced by Amanda Brewer, Megan Fry Dozier, Dennis Morreale, Beth Dixon and Amelia Jantzi.

Amelia:    Our music was written by Christopher Watts inspired by Eugene Wright, class of '49.

Beth:    Subscribe to Scarlet & Brown Stories on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

Amelia:    If you have a story you'd like to submit to us, you can email us at connect@stlawu.edu.

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