My first Publication Alumni Magazine21-online | Page 24

ISSUE 21, JUNE 2019
DENA
POPOVA ’06:
Welcome to the
Alumni Community,
Class of 2019!
Your Excellency, Ambassador Rubin,
Dear Dr. Ewing,
Dear Faculty,
Dear Members of the Board,
Dear parents of graduating students,
Dear Class of 2019,
It is a truly cinematographic perspective to look at you all
and see the coming rain. This is most probably going to be
a very special rain to remember. It is a big honor to be here
and address you as the alumni speaker, to see the faces of
some of my most favorite teachers, and seconds after the
beautiful speech of Teodora Dimova.
This is a big day for you seniors, but also for all your teachers
and your parents.
Preparing for today, I realized that it was in 2014 when I
reconnected with ACS, after coming back to Bulgaria. You
must have been prep students then, right? I’m happy and
proud to know a number of you personally from meeting or
working together with you as part of different ACS clubs,
student projects and initiatives.
It was about 4 years ago when Lily Yovnova, ACS alumna
and a talented poet, together with Nikola Nenkov, organized
a huge literary reading event as part of their SIHP. Among
the names of the most acknowledged contemporary
Bulgarian writers, (Georgi Gospodinov, Alek Popov, Deyan
Enev) there were also 3 ACS alumni, Alexander Shpatov,
Dimiter Kenarov and myself.
Three years ago, for Christmas, a group of students from ACS
were behind an initiative to collect Christmas presents for
mothers and their children at the Crisis Center for Victims
of Domestic Violence of Animus Association Foundation.
Each beautifully wrapped box was accompanied by a
personal letter giving warmth and hope for the holidays
for those in need. This year, I had the pleasure to mentor
another SIHP project focusing on charity. Tsvety Ashova
made it possible for a group of children without parents to
pursue their love for drawing and painting.
In 2016 a number of students from the ACS debate club, also
selected for the national debate team, became key figures for
the renaissance of competitive debate culture in Bulgaria.
Kristiya Navushtanova, graduating today, is one of them.
These few examples that I share right now are a very tiny part
of the many projects created and produced by students here
each year. All of them demonstrate that you, the students
behind them, have courage, creativity, sensitivity, and
willpower to address, discuss and fix problems we face in our
society, making our very much imperfect world a bit better.
Looking back at the years when I was a student at ACS,
I was eager to join Beseda literary magazine, College Life
newspaper, and the Musical Production club among others.
It was specifically in those contexts that I not only fostered
my interests in writing, photography and journalism, but
also met some my best friends for life.
Continuing my studies in a small liberal arts college on the
West coast in the States, surrounded by beautiful nature and
located on a historic campus, I quickly felt comfortable and
happy there. It reminded me a lot of ACS. I joined the Blue
Moon literary magazine, the college newspaper, and the
documentary film-club. It was easy to meet my new friends
and find inspiring mentors for that new part of my life.
The wide variety of interesting courses and programs I could
choose from was a natural continuation of my humanities
academic path at ACS. I took courses in Ethnographic
fieldwork, the Chemistry of Art, Black and White
Photography, and Community-based research among many
others. Without planning it too much, I was starting to
explore my topic of interest, namely multiculturalism, from
a multidisciplinary point of view.
I pursued opportunities for studying abroad and conducting
research in Argentina, France, Ecuador and Spain. Together
with all the new people and cultures I met, I was also happy
to cross paths and create new memories with some of my
old and dear friends and teachers from ACS. This time we
took classes in the aulas of Universidad de Buenos Aires,
La Sorbonne or studied all night in a 300-year-old castle
turned into a library in Barcelona.
In the years since my graduation in 2006, ACS has popped
into my life so many times. I have rediscovered ACS in
moments of academic or social dedication. Or in the
numerous planned or surprise encounters with ACS not
only when back on campus, but across the whole world.
Now is the time that ACS will go beyond the borders of the
campus for you too, seniors. It will turn into a web, or space,
or hyper-community, or platform of people, friends, mentors,
memories, experiences and inspirations that you will be
discovering and creating one at a time in the years to come.
Welcome, officially, to the ACS Alumni community. I dare
you to join the ACS Alumni Facebook group.
Congratulations, class of 2019!
Thank you.
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