Profiling a Student Leader – Cordelia McKee-Gresham

Shelf+of+library+books.

Anna Wenzel

Shelf of library books.

Anna Wenzel, Entertainment and Arts Section Editor

With a library filled with rows upon rows of books to read from any genre, it’s hard to believe that the school wouldn’t have a strong book club. But with the recent schedule change, the Book Club has fallen out of popularity.

Senior Cordelia McKee-Gresham is the leader of the book club.

“I’ve always been a big reader and it seemed like a nice chance to discuss books with other people who were interested in it,” Mckee-Gresham said.

McKee-Gresham explained that the book club has an unusual format. While most traditional book clubs read a monthly book and discuss, the book club here runs things differently.

“It’s really informal. We just talk about books we like, books we don’t like, give people recommendations if they’re looking for something,” she said. “If you’re reading anything you can talk about it.”

McKee-Gresham said that she has tried many different ways to encourage people to join.

“I tried [advertising through] posters; I tried recruiting the Freshmen. So I really don’t know what else to do. We had a lot of people last year, and a lot of them just haven’t been showing up this year, so I suppose I could try and get some of those guys to come more,” she said. “But I understand that they have stuff going on in their lives outside of book club.”

The new schedule seems to have contributed to the decrease in membership of the book club.

“Probably people would have more time because with CAT time being moved to the morning, it doesn’t leave a huge time for activities at block lunch,” she said. “But we could change the time, it would just be hard to schedule that. I personally don’t have a lot time before or after school.”

If more students attended regularly, then the book club would be able to continue to hold a safe community for passionate readers in the school, and McKee-Gresham hopes that more students will come to the library viewing room during Thursday block lunch to join in the discussion. McKee-Gresham encouraged anyone to join because of the loose format and easy conversation.

“I think it’s nice because I know people are really busy and I know it’s hard to dedicate time to reading a book,” she said. “Especially if the book someone has picked is by someone you’re not really a big fan of.”