The OMCD on Dennis Febo
By SUSIE URSTADT ‘20
On Friday, September 7th, Dennis Febo spoke to the Milton Academy community and led various talks and activities in the first few days of school for new student orientation. Surprisingly, Febo was one of the only speakers to ever present on the first day of school. According to Ilan Rodriguez, head of the Office of Multiculturalism and Community Development (OMCD), “[the school] had never had an opening speaker before [Febo], so it’s been something new to try to get students thinking about themselves and how they want to prepare for the upcoming school year.” First, Dennis spoke to individual classes, and later to everyone at an upper school assembly in the afternoon. Mr. Febo’s speech consisted of elements that aimed to provide motivation for the upcoming school year.
Mr. Rodriguez says that he first heard of Mr. Febo because “he is in one of the same student organizations as [Rodriguez] was,” and Mr. Rodriguez had heard a lot about Mr. Febo’s work through mutual colleagues; “we are from different schools, but I was familiar with his work in general,” Mr. Rodriguez notes. Febo talked to some Milton students in January who were “compelled by his story and message”, so bringing him back felt like a good choice. Before the Latinx assembly, Mr. Rodriguez heard Mr. Febo’s Ted Talk on The Ism of Race and, along with the help of some students from Latinx Association, decided to invite Mr. Febo to speak in January. The talk in January “drew a significant amount of people, as he talked about mass incarceration in the prison system.”
Before the first day of school, Mr. Febo led some programming for new students and the freshmen class. Mr. Rodriguez says that, before the first day of school, “Dennis spoke with Class IV and some new Class III and II students on the Importance of Culture, how it applies to everyone, and how we create it.” During the Q&A session, a few students spoke with Dennis on whiteness and how they, as white students, can get involved with issues of race and culture. On Thursday, for classes III and II, Dennis talked about the art of culture. He also wanted students to become familiar with some of the language we commonly use at Milton when talking about diversity.
On Friday, he talked to Classes II and III about the importance of engagement, understanding the body, and how to channel the positivity in your body. He explained how he thought that our bodies have different types of energy and wavelengths and also how he thought our bodies transmit signals in a similar way radios do. In other words, he explained how we are all connected and have contagious attitudes. Taking a different approach for Class I, he talked about leadership and how each senior can create their own story beyond high school.
On Friday afternoon, the whole school came together to hear Dennis’s final talk tying up all of the individual presentations. Mr. Rodriguez says that “the hope [Dennis’s talk] was to recognize the importance of diversity of thought. There can be a division sometimes amongst our programs and student bodies which can make it hard to have certain conversations. Some people enjoyed the presentation, some people had a lot of questions, and I think that’s both a good and bad thing because it opens the door to have certain conversations that students could have felt uncomfortable talking about before. I think sometimes students found it hard to figure out what his message was but there was a lot of moments that surprised people in some of the things that he stated. Sometimes there’s a message that we can take from speakers, we are not going to always agree with everything they have to say, but it opens the door to have these conversations.”All in all, Mr. Febo’s intention with this presentation was meant to inspire open-mindedness and a fresh start to the 2018-2019 academic year.