Lakeside’s students and its alumni have a relationship that is educational at best and tumultuous at worst. For example, alumni speakers have long provided insight and knowledge with current students, and in many circumstances when this wisdom can be passed on through small, close-knit communities within the school, all parties benefit. However, generational divides often dictate that older people look down on “kids these days” as illogical and thoughtless, and vice versa. And especially at an institution like Lakeside, where past generations seek to preserve legacies while current students try to create new (and often contradictory) ones, it’s easy for these groups to talk past each other, agreeing to disagree and chalking dissension up to a lack of understanding on someone else’s part. But what if both students and alumni could set aside their individual mindsets for a common cause? What if alumni, other than the few who remain heavily involved at the school, could offer more than just endowment money, but wisdom, connections, and expertise to Lakeside students doing incredible work?

Climate activist John Kydd ’70 is making this a reality, calling on Lakesiders past and present to join the fight against climate change. Through Climate Lions, a group that would reach across generations to unite alums and current Lakeside students, he hopes to foster a community of problem-solvers who can be supported by their alum friends in higher places. Lakeside alums are a group like no other, he argues, with the capacity to shift politics and finances in their favor, a benefit which could extend to students they might partner with.

Climate Lions is more than alums and students working together; it flips what is commonly agreed to be Lakeside’s worst quality on its head. Back in the ’70s, Kydd argues, and perhaps even more so now (particularly surrounding college), the individual mindsets of Lakeside students held them back. That time period in American and Seattle history was groundbreaking for activism — everything from the civil rights and gay liberation movements to the beginning of coeducation at Lakeside — times that might have called groups of students to action to engage with social issues and make change. Yet many were limited, especially in finding like-minded peers, by their “desire to be outstanding,” as Kydd puts it. It’s a pervasive issue that many current students can relate to and often observe among our classes. Depending on which head of school you choose to believe, we’re all deeply special or not, but perhaps we see our specialness as conditional. We students believe we are only exceptional if we are “better” than those around us, pushing us further still from the kinship necessary to promote social change. 

The Climate Lions initiative will bring together Lakeside community members with a wide range of experiences and interests to solve the most pressing issue the world, especially ours and future generations, face today. Current students will lead the program, pushing for the changes they want to make at Lakeside and beyond. They’ll have a direct pipeline to the expertise, connections, and support of alumni. Everyone has a role to play in reversing the effects of climate change, says Mr. Kydd, and this devotion to progress in the present and future is the first step. At Lakeside, it starts with ending the disaffiliation of past, present, and future students. Indeed, for activism to truly succeed, it has to be a community effort.

Stay tuned for more on this story in an upcoming issue.