Dr. Ellis presented a session as part of Teach For America-Arkansas’ annual ASLI (Arkansas Student Leadership Initiative) Spring Summit. In that session, he worked with students from low-income schools from around the state to define leadership and success in their own terms, and create concrete long- and short-term goals in order to reach that definition of success. Students were leaving that session wide-eyed, sharing with their teacher-leaders things like, “I know where I want to go now!” and “Dr. Ellis really pushed me to think beyond just graduating high school.” In addition, several students noted that they saw him as a role model, as a Black man who is from a small, low-income town in rural Arkansas. We appreciate the profound impact Dr. Ellis made on those students and are excited to continue working with him in the future!
