Madam President: An ETHS student may one day be the nation’s chief executive

Evanston RoundTable, Dec. 13, 2023

A future president of the United States is taking classes right now at Evanston Township High School. She’s a junior, Latina or African American, active in school activities and a good student.

How do I know?

I don’t, of course, but it’s fun to speculate and not unreasonable to imagine. Start with demographics: The non-white segments of the country are the fastest-growing and by 2050 are projected to be at or close to 50% of the population. And young women are pouring into law and politics as never before.

Then there’s geography, our special sense of place at the heart and soul of the nation. Midwesterners are friendly, outgoing, solid citizens, tested by our severe winters, steady and down to earth. We’re admired for our strong values, common sense and work ethic.

On the move: ETHS students line the hallways on their way to classes.

But all of that could apply to students from Iowa to Ohio and Michigan to Kansas. What’s special about Evanston – what brings our children together and gives them a strong foundation for the future – is our high school.

All three winners attending last week’s Distinguished Alumni Award ceremony spoke of an almost mystical reverence for the orange and blue.

“I was really awed because of the power and the role Evanston High School had in my life and all of my classmates,” said Dr. Kenneth Schaefle, an associate professor of clinical medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, who spends three to four months a year in Uganda providing medical care at an underfunded government hospital. “We all speak of this high school with reverence. Almost all of us say that it was much more influential than our college experiences in terms of teaching us our study skills and shaping us as the students we were.”

Schaefle (class of 1986) said the school’s “intensive workload and classes brought out the best in the students” around him. “I quickly saw that the smartest people were also the nicest people. And they were generous with their time and their help.”

“Being a Wildkit was the most remarkable experience of my life,” agreed award winner Nichelle Campbell-Miller (class of 2011). “I truly got a remarkable education there. Our teachers all put forth so much effort every day.”

A social worker at Sarah Scott Middle School in Terre Haute, Indiana, Campbell-Miller coaches 6th grade girls & boys basketball and 7th grade girls basketball and JV and varsity volleyball and is also the founding president of Pride Center of Terre Haute, providing services to the local LGBTQ+ community.

“I said to the [ETHS] seniors I felt cared for throughout the school,” Campbell-Miller told me in a phone interview. “Teachers and staff – from the superintendent to the security officers – made me feel supported. Everyone bled orange and blue. The curriculum was extremely vigorous and challenging. The teachers and the staff there saw things in me I didn’t see myself.

“Being a Wildkit there was a spirit you had, a sense of pride.” She credited the strength and confidence she gained at school, plus the diverse student body, with helping her come out as gay once she got to college.

That Wildkit diversity ­– 45% white, 49% non-white – will be critical for our future president, who will need to navigate and negotiate with the most varied and eclectic factions and personalities – both domestic and foreign.

ETHS ranks in the top 5% of all Illinois high schools and is routinely honored for the excellence of its teachers, a point brought out by another honoree, Dr. Frank Ling (class of 1966). Ling is a renowned OB/GYN and clinical professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and has written more than 145 published medical papers and hundreds of abstracts.

“The people who taught me [at ETHS], the opportunities, clubs and memberships and participation in all of the facilities, they went toward something that I used in a productive fashion,” he said.

Ling said he was impressed by the new “forward-thinking” programs ETHS has to offer. “The people leading the school are … looking many years ahead to prepare people and prepare groups of people and prepare facilities,” he said. “It takes vision, and I commend the school. I commend everybody who’s involved. I commend the foundation. Everybody seems to be pulling in the same direction.”

When asked for his opinion on the matter, Mayor Daniel Biss put it this way: “What environment should produce the eventual winner of the 2052 presidential campaign? Certainly a diverse community that teaches the candidate about all sorts of different people. Definitely a community that commits itself to taking hard steps to address big long-term problems like climate change. Also an ambitious community that sees a problem nobody else has solved and thinks ‘that must be my job!’

“Sounds a lot like Evanston.” Biss added: “Also, I’d be happy to come out of retirement and be a campaign volunteer – hopefully that helps too!”

All of this is to the good. Young people here and around the country need to be more aware of and involved in their future. The gerontocracy at the top levels of the U.S. government will soon be replaced by younger and more vibrant slices of the population, born in the late 20th or even early 21st centuries. They will be far more conversant with social media, artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies than the aging Boomers in charge now.

It will take a fresh and imaginative perspective to deal with our intractable-seeming global and national problems, which include climate change, ongoing wars, dangerous China-U.S. tensions, unstable leaders in North Korea and elsewhere and the painfully deep fissures in U.S. politics and civic life.

We wish you well, Madam President!

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