Alumni SpotlightALEJANDROMCGHEE ('12)

Please explain your career – title, daily responsibilities, what you like about your job… I am a doctoral student attending New York University as a Berger-MacCracken Fellowin the Atlantic World subfield of the History program. I attend classes, research andwrite about the experiences of enslaved African people throughout the eighteenthcentury in places like Scotland and Jamaica. I love that my job allows me to recuperatethe voices of people who most often lived their whole lives never imagining thatsomeone 300 years later would be searching for them in the historical record. Rarely didthese enslaved people have fancy titles or the ability to leave behind things, like diariesor speeches. My work is always asking, “What can these silences and gaps tell us aboutthe lives of the enslaved and the world they lived in?"

Earned Master's Degree fromColumbia University

What is your earliest memory of your “TitanExperience?” While I can’t say that I recall my first day of schoolat Holy Trinity, I remember feeling so nervous! Ittook me a few months to fully acclimate to theschool. Everything felt high-stakes to me sincethere was no other comparative milestone I hadever reached in my life at the time.  My earliestconcrete memory of my “Titan Experience” wasthe BUNCO party. I don’t even remember thespecifics of the game but it created a fond memorythat many of the people who attended could alwaysfondly look back on. Was there a particular class that ignited yourinterest in a field of study? I fondly remember my Spanish classes with SeñorKuhn and the ways he talked about his home cityof Seville.  It seemed almost like fate when I wasawarded a post-graduate fellowship to study aforeign language anywhere in the world - I quicklychose Seville. Teachers like Señor Kuhn plantedthe seeds of intellectual curiosity to dive into theunknown.

Currently earning PhD from NYU as aBerger-MacCracken Fellow

Earned B.A. from Vassar College inAfricana Studies/Educational Studies

Who at HT influenced you in a positive way? I didn't imagine that during my time at HolyTrinity that I’d be a Historian. What HolyTrinity’s curriculum did was that it preparedme well for wherever my interests pulled melater on.  The discussions I had in Mrs.Picatagi’s Advanced Placement Participationin Government classes are what compelledme to major in Education Studies at VassarCollege. The class taught me aboutgovernment policy and the role of everydaypeople in exerting influence on thepolicymaking process for better or worse. “Allpolitics is local” was the first thing Mrs.Picatagi taught us. Nowhere was this clearerthan in the country's education system. Inever forgot this lesson as an educator-in-training.   Have you stayed connected to your Titanclassmates? How often do you return tocampus? Yes, I have stayed connected to some of myTitan classmates and there are Titans who Ihave gotten to know in the following yearsbecause of social media. I do not return tocampus, or Long Island for that matter, oftenbecause my work has been largely based inthe city and abroad for the last few years now. Do you think your life would have turnedout differently if you had not attended HolyTrinity?  Attending Holy Trinity allowed me the spaceand the resources to “sit awhile and think” asAsagai urged Beneatha to fearlessly do inLorraine Hansberry’s play, "A Raisin in theSun." Being a student at HT gave me theopportunities to begin assembling theanalytical and ethical tools to analyze andmake sense of  the world around me.  What advice do you have for currentstudents? Always take deep breaths and keep things inperspective.  High school is a part of yourlife’s journey, not the destination. Takeadvantage of the resources you have to learnand be all that you can be.

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