AGS Alumni meeting

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AGS Alumni will be having a meeting to discuss the year’s programs and regular business for the coming year.

Date: Saturday, Sept. 19, 2015
Time: 10:30 a.m. until noon
Location: Cox-2nd floor meeting room of the Central Arkansas Library Main building.

Address:
100 Rock St., Little Rock, AR 72201

The Cox Building sits on the East side of the parking lot. It’s a red brick, triangle shaped building, with green awnings. The library operates a café and bookstore on the first floor, so if you want to grab a cup of coffee or snack on your way up, please help yourself. Food is allowed in the meeting rooms.

Also, there will be a conference call number as well. Please email me at Melissa dot sawyer at gmail dot com for details.

Hope to see you there.

Free tickets to view of Muffintop on Thursday, January 15, 2015

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One of the movies shown at Governor’s School in recent years is Miss Representation about how the media’s perception of women influences politics. It goes on to show the dearth of female producers, writers, and directors in Hollywood. Muffintop is a female written and produced movie that was bought here by Women Lead Arkansas. Tickets are 10 dollars with 8 left but there are also 10 free tickets available. . If anyone would like to attend for free, please let me know. The email is womenleadarkansas@gmail.com. There will be door prizes! DOOR PRIZES!

The movie will be shown on Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 6:30PM – 8:11PM
at Dickinson Chenal 9 IMAX Theatre
17825 Chenal Pkwy, Little Rock, AR, US, 72223

$10.00 General
https://www.tugg.com/events/12149

ATTENTION AGS ALUMNI: VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

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ATTENTION ALUMNI OF ARKANSAS GOVERNOR’S SCHOOL. I am looking for volunteers. According to the AGS website https://www.hendrix.edu/ags/, AGS will be from June 14-July 25, 2015. If tradition continues, tht means we will need to recruit a speaker to speak for July 23, 2015 in the early afternoon. If we want to have alumni day in the same format as last year, we need to plan that as well. I will post a survey within a week to see gauge programming interest. I got an estimate to build an AGS website and that total was $2800. I would like to be more streamlined and have monthly meetings (with phone in or video chat capabilities) either during lunch 12-1 CST or in the early evening 5:30-7:00. If you have a preference on that please let me know.

Pretty much everything is open including treasurer, parliamentarian, social chair, chair elect, fundraising committee (with chair), speaker committee (with chair), and class reps. If you are interested, please message me via facebook or send me an email at melissa.sawyer@gmail.com.

We have had two amazing speakers as part of our annual speaker series: Doug Shipman (Class of 90) the Chief Executive Officer of the Natinal Center for Civil and Human Rights who spoke in 2013 and Karama Neal (Class of 88) who promotes equity in health, education, and opportunity through teaching, research, practice, advocacy and service. We should definitely have another one.

If you would like to participate, please comment here (it is screened but I will get an email address), contact me via Facebook, or email me at melissa dot sawyer at gmail dot com.

AGS Alumni day

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Go back if even for an afternoon. Come to Governor’s School to dine, see our Second Annual Alumni Speaker Karama Neal give her speech to the current class, participate in a special Area II class with Jim Rush, and watch a panel of alumni talk to the current class on surviving in a post AGS world. You have the option to eat both times but it cost 5.75 per meal. Also, cost is $20

11:45am-1:00pm Lunch in the Dining Hall
1:00pm-2:20pm Karama’s presentation in Staples Auditorium
2:30pm-3:50pm Lecture to alumni by Jim Rush on Singularity (see attached reading material)
4:10pm-5:00pm Panel discussion of alumni for our students on the theme “What Now?”
5:00pm-6:00pm Dinner in the Dining Hall

Please RSVP to Melissa Sawyer at (501) 613-7529. Thanks. There is a maximum of 15 people so don’t delay.

Visit our Cafepress store

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We here at AGS Alumni are proud to announce the opening of our AGS Alumni (Arkansas Governor’s School Alumni Association) store on cafepress. We have a wide variety of swag from stickers for your car to onesies for your babies. We run the gamut from shirts to shot glasses. There is something for everybody.

Proceeds from this swag sale will be used to fund our speaker series, social events, and the daily operations of AGS Alumni (mainly this website and our PO Box for now). According to Cafepress, all orders before December 19, 2013 will arrive at your home before Christmas. So purchase a piece of history here.

We are currently planning a social event for the last week in February of 2014 so save the date.

AGS Inaugural Speaker: Doug Shipman

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Doug tells the Class of 2013 of his experiences at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia

Doug tells the Class of 2013 of his experiences at Ebenezer Baptist Church

On July 18, 2013, AGS Alumni was honored to present its Inaugural Speaker, Doug Shipman, to the class of 2013 as part of their weekly speakers. This was a mere three days before the last day of Governor’s School and the current class’s last speaker. Doug Shipman is from Flippin, Arkansas and attended Arkansas Governor’s School in 1990 with the Area I emphasis of Social Science.

Doug Shipman uses Fred Rogers statements on love to illustrate how to form the beloved community

Doug Shipman uses a Fred Rogers to illustrate how to form the beloved community

Doug Shipman is currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR). Doug was most recently a Principal in the Atlanta office of the Boston Consulting Group where he worked in the New York, Mumbai and Atlanta offices. He is the founding CEO and has been with the Center since the inception of the project in 2005. He currently serves on the Boards of the Emory Alumni Association and the Harvard Alumni Association. He has previously served on the Boards of The Intown Academy charter school, Easter Seals of North Georgia, and the Butler Street YMCA.

He was named one of Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “40 Under 40” in 2008, one of Georgia Trend’s “40 Under 40” in 2009 and received the New Leaders Council 40 Under 40 award in 2010. He was also named on of the “100 Most Influential” in Atlanta for 2011 and 2012. He has guest lectured at several institutions including Bard, Duke, Emory and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). He has been featured in numerous publications and broadcasts including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, TEDxAtlanta and the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Doug has an extensive educational background in issues of race, ethnicity and gender including the relationship between economics and poverty, the history of American minority groups and religion as applied in social movements including the American Civil Rights movement, the Indian independence movement and the Buddhist environmental movement in Southeast Asia.

Doug has an MPP (Master of Public Policy) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University with an emphasis on domestic politics; an MTS (Master of Theological Studies) from the Harvard Divinity School with an emphasis on religion and public life and a bachelor’s degree with High Honors from Emory University with majors in Economics and Political Science. Doug attended Arkansas Governor’s School in 1990.

An Introduction from Melissa

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Hello.

My name is Melissa Sawyer. I am the founder of AGS Alumni, the alumni association for Arkansas Governor’s School. Arkansas Governor’s School is a six week residential program for gifted and talented rising seniors in Arkansas. Arkansas Governor’s School is funded by the “Arkansas State Legislature as a portion of the biennial appropriation for Gifted and Talented Programs through the State Department of Education”. See Arkansas Governor’s School website The program was founded in 1980 with 276 students, 28 faculty, and 25 staff members on the campus of Hendrix College in Conway. Since then, over 12,000 Arkansas high school students have completed the program.

I founded AGS Alumni in April 2013 for the simple reason that it was time for Arkansas Governor’s School to have an alumni association.

The goals of AGS Alumni are simple:

  1. platform for gifted education
  2. to promote and enhance Arkansas Governor’s School
  3. to provide a place for AGS alumni to network and socialize with each other
  4. to keep archives of Arkansas Governor’s School memorabilia
  5. to keep alumni informed of the current Arkansas Governor’s School class

We took our first step forward in implementing these goals was presenting our Inaugural Speaker Doug Shipman (Class of ’90) CEO of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights to the class of 2013. His speech to the students was entitled “Creating the Beloved Community” and addressed issues of diversity and Martin Luther King Jr’s “beloved community.”

I hope to have this be an annual event with a different speaker coming each year to speak to the current class.

We are also planning social events as well.

Governor’s School was a wonderful experience and changed my life. I know it changed the life of many of my friends as well. I hope you stay tuned because wonderful things are happening here.