BRO O KS CONNECTI O NS
A LUMNI PROF I LE
E L L E RY SE DGW I CK ’60
A Community Effort A Brooksian works for 30 years to help the less fortunate members of his community.
Ellery Sedgwick ’60 has always recognized the strength of community and its collective ability to do good. From his time at Brooks, where he met classmates that would become lifelong friends, to his career working to improve public schools in the community in which he lived, to his current passion — Sedgwick is president of the board of directors of Farmville Area Community Emergency Services, a food pantry in central Virginia known as FACES — Sedgwick has both focused on and relied on the community and the people that surround him.
Brooks, Sedgwick reports, had a profound impact on his approach to academics. “I was not a good student going in, and Brooks had a reputation for taking chances and taking students who might have potential but never showed it,” he says. “Brooks accepted me, and I was very grateful, but Brooks really turned me around academically. The teachers really liked the kids and encouraged them, but demanded performance. For me, that worked wonderfully. I really began to take an interest in my work.” Brooks also provided Sedgwick with a sense of community that far outlasted his tenure on Great Pond Road. “My friends at Brooks really became my family,” Sedgwick says. “I remember my classmate, Bill Ferris, who has led a very distinguished career [Ed. Note: Mr. Ferris’s latest book is featured on
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page 46 of this issue]. We were the only ones who had background in the South — I had spent a lot of time in Georgia — and when we would read Faulkner, we would take up for the South.” Sedgwick matriculated to Harvard University with five of his classmates from Brooks. The group still reunites regularly. “They come down to visit me every year,” Sedgwick shares. “There’s a group of about five of us that get together and hunt in Georgia in January. It’s a great part of the year for me.” Sedgwick went on to receive his teaching credentials from Columbia University’s Teachers College. He embarked on his teaching career by taking a position at a Stamford, Conn., public high school before obtaining his doctorate. Then, he accepted a position at Longwood College, now Longwood University, a small institution that is part of the commonwealth’s
public university system, and which is located in Farmville, a town in the south central area of the commonwealth. He was hired as director of the writing program, and then he chaired the department of English, philosophy and modern languages for several years. “And then I developed another interest, which was really compelling for me,” Sedgwick says. Virginia had no education major, Sedgwick explains. Instead, prospective teachers were encouraged to major in the subject area they wished to teach — English or mathematics, for example. Sedgwick felt that put teachers and students at a disadvantage. “I got together with a couple of other people who felt this was not working well and created a cross-disciplinary major, which
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