Every year, three Andover alums are presented with the prestigious 2024 Alumni Awards of Distinction. This year’s recipients are Carroll Bogert ’79, a humanitarian advocate and journalist; William A. “Trey” Ellis ’80, an award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, and novelist; and Dr. Vanessa Kerry ’95, an envoy to the World Health Organization and the founder of Seed Global Health. Upon receiving the awards, the nominees gave speeches discussing their experiences at Andover, their career, and their advice for Andover students at last Friday’s All-School Meeting (ASM).
A former journalist and international correspondent for Newsweek, Bogert became a Deputy Executive Director for Human Rights Watch, where she oversaw the launch of its multimedia division. Currently, Bogert is the president of The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organization that covers the American criminal justice system extensively to raise transparency within it. Bogert spoke about her reasons for applying to Andover in a separate interview for The Phillipian.
“I was really in love with the history of the revolution and some of the ideas of the revolution and Boston. The idea of being near Boston seemed so cool. And it was like the ’70s. Boston’s like a student town. It just seemed like it would be fun and exciting, and I had no idea that I would be able to get into Andover. So my parents agreed that I could go to boarding school, which wasn’t anything my brother or sister had done or anything and they took me around. I found some names of some schools, and we went to visit these schools, and then it turned out that my test scores were good enough that I could apply to Andover. And I was like, ‘Really? Andover? That’s the best school in America.’ I couldn’t believe that I could maybe be in that league. It was a shock that I got in,” said Bogert.
Filmmaker and novelist Trey Ellis has won two Emmy Awards and the Peabody Film Award. Throughout his works, Andover has become a motif, as he noted it to be a foundational place for his career. Ellis spoke about how he attributes part of his success to his time at Andover, and to the teachers who fostered his creativity and encouraged his endeavors.
“At Andover, you find those people that look you in the eye, and they don’t see you as somebody’s son or daughter or anything, they see you as yourself. I felt celebrated by the teachers for my creativity. I think it’s important to identify teachers who want to bring out the best in you. I had an amazing teacher, Dr. Quattlebaum, in my history class. Once, I included a little poem, a sort of funny, slightly risqué rhyme, in my paper, and he thought it was great. I can imagine that in my other school, I would have been called to the office for that. Being celebrated for thinking outside the box and being creative was an incredible experience,” said Ellis.
He continued, “Because it’s so selective and filled with interesting people from all over the world with all these big dreams, I felt like I could do anything. I felt like I could take on the world. I grew more in those two years than in the four years before or the four years after. I know that’s true because when I look back at my work, my second [novel] takes place in Andover, and the new one I’m working on now [does] too. [Andover has] become a touchstone for me, which I didn’t realize right afterward.”
Despite their varying career paths, all of the nominees spoke about the community they found at Andover and how their experiences were transformative ones for their life trajectory. Eugenia Evangelinos ’27 spoke on how this message will impact students and whether or not they can resonate with it currently.
“At least for a lot of Andover students, they’re so worried about college admissions, getting all the right, the right extracurriculars, and the best GPA. Sometimes it’s very difficult to stay in the moment and really enjoy the time here at Andover. Even if it didn’t resonate with everyone, I think [the message] includes some sort of hope for everyone that at some point, they’ll have the ability to stay in the moment here at Andover. I think when I’ve graduated from Andover I think I’ll really try to engage with more alumni because we all have such interesting stories. I think this is sort of our starting-off point because our next stages will be formed by our experience here.” said Evangelinos.
Dr. Vanessa Kerry, this year’s final award winner, further enforced Evangelios’s takeaways. Kerry is the founder of Seed Global Health, an organization that trains medical personnel around the world to help reduce healthcare inequities to 76 million people.
“We’re not that different: we all want to be happy; we want food on the table; we want our children cared for; we want our families safe; we want to feel joy. I hope very much that a place like this can help us to build that community that we need going forward. My friends from this place held my hand through some of the toughest times of my life,” said Kerry.
Kerry continued, “I am nothing but an optimist, [but] I think that everything that we face today in this world is absolutely solvable.”
