LWHS Welcomes Middle East Speaker: Frank Tipton

On January 19, Frank Tipton, a scholar and high school educator in Middle Eastern studies, presented to the Lick-Wilmerding High School community in a school-wide assembly on a brief history of Israel-Palestine. This presentation, called Israel-Palestine 101, aimed to provide all LWHS community members with historical background on the topic, providing the tools to have educated conversations about the polarizing conflict.

Before Tipton arrived at LWHS, school administration and Student Council (StuCo) members met and worked with him closely to prepare a beneficial and LWHS-specific presentation for the community. Tipton faced a particular challenge presenting to LWHS: he only had one hour to explain the complex historical events of Israel and Palestine that have led up to the current conflict.

Tipton has worked at a range of schools across the U.S., as well as working with LWHS Head of School Raj Mundra at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Later, Tipton moved on to prioritize educating school communities about his area of interest that was abruptly put on the world stage earlier this year: the Middle East.

Tipton’s recruitment process began when Mundra met with school administrators to propose an educational assembly about the historical context of the events of the Israel-Hamas War. Within the meeting, Mundra reflected on the LWHS student body, who wanted to participate in conversations about the war, but generally felt unknowledgeable about the topic. “I had been hearing from students that they didn’t really have a good context to understand where they stood,” Mundra said, addressing the politics behind the recent events.

When searching for an educator to lead the assembly, Tipton stood out to the administration due to his positive feedback from other schools and personal experience with Mundra. “I had known Mr. Tipton, he was a colleague of mine at my former school and I knew him to be a really great teacher, and a scholar of the area,” Mundra said.

After meeting with Dean of Teaching and Learning Kate Wiley to learn about LWHS’s social justice and political culture, Tipton realized the importance of hearing student perspectives. Soon after, Tipton met with Student Council members over Zoom to hear directly from them.

Maddie Garfinkel ’24, StuCo Co-President, attended the meeting with several other members of StuCo. “The main consensus from the students [was] that no [LWHS student] was on the same page as far as their knowledge of what was happening in the Middle East. As a community, we really were in dire need of somebody to just ground everybody [with] basic information,” Garfinkel said. After Tipton’s session with the students, which he described as “illuminating,” Tipton began reforming his presentation to fit the needs of the community outlined by StuCo. 

During Tipton’s presentation, he mainly focused on the historical context and events leading up to the attack on October 7, due to the requests from StuCo members and time constraints. Tipton also encouraged students at LWHS to reflect on how they are approaching these conversations, so the discussions they have can be thoughtful and enlightening rather than aggressive and unproductive.

Reflecting on the assembly, Tipton named his two important goals for the community. “I hope that some people found [the topic] a little bit more accessible, and I hope that those directly related to the conflict found their stories authenticated and found themselves visible,” he said. 

Tipton emphasized his appreciation for LWHS’s ability to engage in this tough conversation. “Many schools elect not to put forward a hot topic for conversation with the entire community, and I think that Lick is one of a minority of high schools that chooses to do so,” Tipton said. 

Garfinkel reflected on how she thought the community absorbed the presentation. “[LWHS students] have drastically different points of view on the whole thing, and those same people that I heard that from pretty much unanimously thought that the keynote was incredibly well done,” she said.

Arlo Waingortin ’25 and Asher Weston ’25 attended both the school-wide assembly and the following open, Q&A style Lunch and Learn Session at the Center to hear more from Tipton. “Overall, I quite liked the presentation. I thought it offered a very nuanced and humanizing view of all sides of the conflict,” Waingortin said. “The perspective he came in with was very contagious,” Weston added. 

Both students recognized how Tipton’s positive and innovative mentality towards finding creative solutions to the conflict stuck with them. “What really resonated with me was the hopefulness at which he talks about these solutions,” Waingortin said.

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Juliana McDowell

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