Upper School
We are thrilled to be celebrating the 25th year of the Tower Hill Forum!
The Forum was established in 1998 by the Rappolt family in honor of their children Gabrielle ‘93, Sarah ‘96 and Bill ‘99, and in recognition of the dedication, scholarship and professionalism of the Tower Hill faculty. The Tower Hill community thanks the Rappolts for the legacy of remarkable speakers over two decades.
Tara Malloy Fletcher, History Department Chair
Bessie Speers, Head of School
Each year since its inception in 1998, the Forum has brought experts and scholars to Tower Hill to speak to students about themes related to history, citizenship and international affairs. Among the speakers have been George Will, Stephen Ambrose, Gwen Ifill, Elie Wiesel, David Gergen, Joe Biden, Congressman John Lewis and Niall Ferguson.
Click here for Past Forums.
Click here for Past Forums.
2022-2023: Food
Omar Tate - Wednesday, March 29
Founder of Honeysuckle
Omar Tate is a Philadelphia rooted artist and chef. Omar has worked fifteen years in the restaurant industry in some of the best restaurants in New York City and Philadelphia. During his time as a cook he found that the lack of diversity and representation of African Americans and other people of color to be unbalanced both in the kitchen and on the plate. In a profession where the product is a direct representation of cultures from around the globe Omar found that modern aesthetics of Black American culture to be severely limited, if not non-existent. In the spring of 2017 he decided to tackle this unbalance by diving into his experience as a self taught artist and writer to broaden the scope of his work.Through travel and research Omar developed a unique perspective on approaching cuisine through the lens of contemporary Black America. As a result of his study Omar launched Honeysuckle Pop Up as a traveling dining concept in the winter of 2018. This concept uses food and art simultaneously as vehicles to explore several nuances of Black life and culture.
Honeysuckle has received critical acclaim not only as a food concept but also as a leading philosophy of the future of food thought in America. Partnered with his wife Cybille St. Aude-Tate, Omar is currently seeking funding to open Honeysuckle as a food focused community center in his neighborhood in West Philadelphia. You can find Omar’s work featured in "The New York Times," "Esquire Magazine," "Okayplayer," "Eater," "The Philadelphia Inquirer" and other publications.
Amanda Little - Monday, Oct. 17
Amanda Little is a journalist writing about the environment and innovation. She is a professor of investigative journalism and science writing at Vanderbilt University and has a particular fondness for far-flung and hard-to-stomach reporting that takes her to ultradeep oil rigs, down manholes, into sewage plants, and inside monsoon clouds. She is the author of the bestselling book, The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World, which explores how we’ll feed humanity sustainably and equitably in the climate change era. Her recent TED Talk, based on this book, has more than 1.3 million views. She also wrote the book Power Trip: The Story of America's Love Affair With Energy.
Amanda is a contributing opinion writer for Bloomberg and has published her reporting and commentary in the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Wired, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, NewYorker.com, and elsewhere.
A former columnist for Outside magazine and Grist, she is a recipient of the Nautilus Book Award, a Rachel Carson Environment Book Award from the Society for Environmental Journalists, and the Jane Bagley Lehman Award for excellence in environmental journalism.
Little has interviewed figures ranging from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to John McCain and Lindsey Graham and has appeared on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Amanpour & Co., and CNN with Fareed Zakaria.
A graduate of Brown University, she serves on the Board of Trustees at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband and kids.
