"Breakthrough: Transformations in Human Experience”

Two of our Year 13 students, Akshaya and Serena were invited to represent BISH in the Hancock Symposium at Westminster College in Fulton Missouri.

Each Fall, Westminster faculty, students and guests gather for two days to learn about a topic of international importance. Noted experts come from all over the world to take part. The theme of this year’s symposium was “Breakthrough: Transformations in Human Experience”.

Speakers included Dr. Ellen Jorgensen (president of Biotech Without Borders), who discussed breakthroughs in gene-editing technology known as CRISPR. Dr. George Smith (Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, 2018, and human rights activist), discussed the need for scholars to engage deeply with the world beyond academia. Dr. Smith has a long interest in human rights and spoke about freedom and equality for all those who share the Palestinian Homeland. The keynote lecture was given by, former U.S. Secretary of State, Dr. Madeleine Albright. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dr. Albright addressed democracy’s future prospects, and how humanity might once again break down the walls that divide us.

The visit also provided an opportunity for Akshaya and Serena to experience university first hand: they spent their first night in dorms, explored the leafy liberal-arts college campus, and chatted to current Westminster students about university life, the sororities and fraternities that they are part of, how they selected their majors and how they have funded their time at college.