The Parent Association sat down with two parents to talk about race. This interview was with Clark Akers, Father of Clark ’21 and Sterling (a senior in college).
Tell us about yourself and your family.
I grew up in Nashville, worked in the wireless telecom business in DC, Mississippi, and Nashville for 25 years and am now starting a company in the financial technology space.
My wife, Elizabeth, who is from Louisville, and I have been married for 25 years. We have two children, Clark, a high school senior, and Sterling, a college senior.
You are participating in the pilot launch of Race Talk. Tell us a little bit about it and your experience in the group.
It is a group discussion led by Rich Milner intended to open and encourage a dialogue on race. A cross section of Ensworth parents is sharing, via Zoom, thoughts and experiences about our perspectives and conversations about race. As it is a lively, articulate and thoughtful group, I am enjoying listening to and learning from everyone.
Do you have hopes for what will come out of it—for the parents involved, and/or the community as a whole?
I hope we all improve our listening, learning, and patience skills with each other. As our group continues to get to know and trust each other, I look forward to building on those relationships and to finding a way to scale and spread to a wider audience our ideas and our initiatives about the race conversation. It is a great opportunity to be able to participate in this conversation and Seminar. I appreciate being included!
The spirit of a place is evident. If enough people believe in something, it becomes a truth. If enough people believe that truth, it becomes a culture. A culture passed from one generation to the next is a tradition. Everyone came together in support of the vision and In Search of Truth.
Ensworth is committed to providing our students with access to the latest technology and an expert faculty. The new Creative Technology Center at the High School, featuring an engineering-oriented instructional space, a full-service broadcast suite and control center, a dedicated home for the Robotics team and arena, a podcast studio, and a well-equipped digital media and computer science classroom, opened in the fall of this year.