For his David Mallery Fellowship, Alex Ates, Director of PK-12 Visual and Performing Arts, created a podcast exploring the intersection of Quakerism and creativity. In this three-episode series, Ates interviews New Orleans Clarinetist Ben Schenck, New York City Printmaker and Graffiti Artist Todd Drake, and Westtown student poet Jamila Burgos ’27. This podcast is intended as a resource for faculty and staff, students, and the greater Friends community. Click here to listen!

If you have live locally to Westtown, consider signing up to be a host family for the next school year!
The Host Family Program is a valuable experience for Upper School international students and Westtown host families, allowing for close relationships to be built between families and opening the door for connection and cultural exchange. Host students seek to develop relationships, play with siblings and pets, and talk about their culture, life, and ambitions with host parents. Host families are welcomed into a one-year commitment with the Host Family Program with the option of renewing. Many students and host families continue their relationships beyond Westtown, staying in touch through college and visiting each other in their respective homes and cultures.

You can learn more about the Host Family Program on our website. If you have questions, please contact the Director of the International Student Program, Bei Zhang.  

It was wonderful to see all the grandparents and special friends at the Lower School Grandparents/Special Friends’ Day! Visitors got to experience life in the Lower School, special activities, and see a performance by the students. Thanks to all who joined us! You can enjoy
the gallery of photos here! 

Save the dates for next school year’s Shoemaker Lectures! We are thrilled to welcome to campus the following visiting lecturers:

Michael Twitty 
November 14, 2024 at 7:30 p.m.
Barton-Test Theater

From November 13 – 15, 2024, world-renowned author, speaker, and culinary historian Michael Twitty will visit Westtown. During that time, he will visit classrooms and meet with students. He will present a Shoemaker Lecture on Thursday, November 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Barton-Test Theater. 

Michael W. Twitty is a culinary historian and food writer living in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
He blogs at Afroculinaria.com and has appeared on Bizarre Foods America with Andrew Zimmern,
Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, and most recently Taste the Nation with Top Chef’s
Padma Lakshmi.

HarperCollins released Twitty’s The Cooking Gene in 2017, tracing his ancestry through food from
Africa to America and from slavery to freedom, a finalist for The Kirkus Prize and The Art of Eating
Prize, and a 3rd place winner of Barnes & Noble’s Discover New Writers Awards in Nonfiction.
The Cooking Gene won the 2018 James Beard Award for best writing as well as book of the year,
making him the first Black author so awarded. His piece on visiting Ghana in Bon Appetit was
included in Best Food Writing in 2019 and was nominated for a 2019 James Beard Award.

His next book, Rice, a New York Times noted cookbook, became available through UNC Press in
2021.

Kosher Soul, his follow-up to The Cooking Gene, was published in August 2022 through
HarperCollins and received the 2022 National Jewish Book Award.

Tyriek White 
February 24, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
Barton-Test Theater

In February, award-winning novelist, musician, and educator Tyriek White will come to Westtown. He will be visiting classes and and spending time with students. He will present a Shoemaker Lecture on Monday, February 24, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. in the Barton-Test Theater.

Tyriek Rashawn White is a writer, musician, and educator from Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of the novel, We Are a Haunting (Astra House, 2023) which won the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, was a finalist for the Gotham Book Prize, and was longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize. He was named a 2024 National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” Honoree and has received fellowships from Callaloo Writing Workshop, New York State Writer’s Institute, and Key West Literary Seminar, among other honors. He is currently the media director of Lampblack Literary Foundation, which seeks to provide mutual aid and various resources to Black writers across the diaspora. He holds a degree in Creative Writing and Africana Studies from Pitzer College and most recently earned an MFA from the University of Mississippi.