Outreach
Speaker for the California Association of School Counselors
Presentation at the 2021 CASC Conference about how school counselors might handle student-on-student reports of sexual abuse, with a focus on the legal and internal processes that might result from such reports. The session included a background of Title IX claims and the current status of the law, practical pointers on what these reports mean, and what a school and the police/ DA's office does when such complaints are received. The talk aimed to educate counselors about what these cases involve so that they feel comfortable and confident in how to best support their school communities.
Harvard Divinity Dialogues: Stories of Care
In the second Divinity Dialogues event of the 2014–15 academic year, Sejal H. Patel, MTS '14, and Suzanne Skees, MTS '92, discuss the role of care in their work.
Patel is a San Francisco-based writer, criminal defense lawyer, and former federal prosecutor who litigated the exoneration of a Boston-area man who served 10 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Skees works for the Skees Family Foundation, which supports innovative self-help programs in the U.S. and developing countries in education and job-creation.
Family History Creative Writing Workshops at 826 Valencia
Inspired by Take 5 Foundation, these workshops teach students at 826 Valencia simple, creative techniques about how to write about family history. Students learn interviewing skills used by writers and attorneys to learn about a specific moment of a loved one's past. They then compose an essay and share it with their classmates.
Workshops
B is for Biography
A Picture is Worth 250 Words
Find Your Inner Compass
The Yum, The Yuck, and the Meh
826 Valencia is dedicated to supporting under-resourced students ages 6-18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers get their students excited about the literary arts.
Reading at San Francisco Public Library
A reading of "Seven Almonds" at Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition. The essay won First Place in Intercultural Essay category in 2015.
Sophomores Discuss Justice Issues with Former Prosecutor
A guest speaker to Broadway on February 26 engaged Convent sophomores in a conversation about assumptions and the prosecutorial system. Students in the “Hislish” class — a combination of history, literature and English taught by Rachael Denny and Michael Stafford — met Sejal Patel, who offered some insight into “circles of blame” within the legal system. Sejal also led a discussion about decisions to leave prisoners in solitary confinement for extended periods, even years at a time.
Sejal called on the group to embrace three civic acts: speak up (adding that 78% of OpEd pieces in the NY Times and 83% at the Wall Street Journal are written by men); embrace jury duty when called; and vote.