Publications & News

The author of Brown White Black: An American Family at the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion, Nishta Mehra will speak on “Brown White Black: Living Authentically” at a virtual Society of Skeptics on September 22, beginning at 7 p.m. History department chair Jason Beck will email a private webinar link to Blair community members on the morning of the presentation, and Blair will post a recording publicly on its website the following day.

It is perhaps no surprise that Tys Sweeney ’17, founder of the student-run Blair publication The Oracle and Oracle Radio, has gone on to create a new project management software called “StoryDesk” as an economics and political science major at Tufts University. The college senior developed the software to expedite the process from assignment to publication of a written piece, in newsrooms, communications offices and many other settings.

“The Afghan Peace Process” was the topic for the evening when Islam scholar and retired Army major Jason Howk once again visited the Society of Skeptics. Mr. Howk is a regular Skeptics presenter, who has shared his expertise on foreign policy, Islam, the Qur’an and Afghanistan with the Blair community over the past several years.

Blair Academy welcomed 152 new students at the start of the 2020-2021 school year, including 96 freshmen in the class of 2024. The School received more than 1,300 applications for admission during the 2019-2020 admission cycle, the highest number in its history. Now that the academic year is underway, each new student has the opportunity to uniquely contribute to the Blair community and make the most of all that the School has to offer.

Having fled war-torn South Sudan with his family in 1990, Luol Deng ’03 entered Blair Academy nine years later as a freshman from the United Kingdom and went on to a storied basketball career that took him to the highest echelons of the sport. Today, the former two-time NBA All-Star is a global philanthropist and leader of the Luol Deng Foundation, a nonprofit he founded in 2005 that uses basketball and education as tools to give hope to all South Sudanese in Africa and around the world.  

Blair’s 173rd year opened on August 30 with an outdoor Convocation that brought the community together, both in person and virtually, on the eve of the academic year. Head of School Chris Fortunato set the tone for a year that will surely hold a special place in School history as he encouraged faculty and students to keep trying no matter what challenges they face and no matter what the world throws their way.

Orientation is a much-loved Blair tradition that brings students and faculty together at the start of each new school year. This year, as the community endeavors to stay safe and well amid the coronavirus pandemic, Orientation has expanded and taken on a different look, yet its goals remain the same.

The health of our students, faculty and staff is Blair’s highest priority, and limiting our community members’ exposure to others is critical to our plans to stay safe and on campus this fall. That’s why, out of an abundance of caution, Blair, along with all five other schools in the Mid-Atlantic Prep League (MAPL), has decided to cancel the fall 2020 MAPL season.