Last week, the School announced the 2022 Charles Krause Junior Fellow in Public Speaking, Julia Alkhayer ’23. The final round of the Pratt-Packard Declamation Contest was held on April 19. Four finalists, Julia Alkhayer ’23, Micole Makau ’24, Claire Fu ’22, and Andrew Kim ’25, delivered their speeches during school meeting.
Behind the scenes of Pratt-Packard is a long process of brainstorming, developing, and careful editing. Students put in a lot of hard work, time, and energy into their speeches. Along with writing the speech, contestants must also practice their execution, which is equally as important.
Alkhayer decided to enter the contest because she has always loved public speaking. She knew that Pratt-Packard would be a great experience and opportunity for her voice to be heard as an Arab. “My YouTube channel brought me an immense amount of happiness, and when I received negative backlash because of my ethnicity, I was heartbroken. Since I first came to Choate, I’ve wanted to provide insight into the normalized discrimination towards Arabs in this country,” said Alkhayer. She wanted to voice her experience to shed light on an issue prevalent in our modern society.
Finalists are judged on very specific and meticulous criteria. Besides the contents of the speech, every little detail about the delivery is scrutinized as well. According to Mr. John Cobb, “The judges consider every speaker’s stance, projection, pace, articulation, tone, and eye contact when deliberating. Julia performed best in those categories.”
Alkhayer noted that public speaking comes naturally to her, giving her an advantage. “Although I was a little bit nervous, it all went away when I started speaking,” she said. “Luckily, public speaking comes easy to me, and I felt proud to talk about my ethnicity. The tremendous support I’ve received from the Choate community has been amazing.”
Her natural talent and preparation during the speech was noticed by members of the audience as well. Ethan Hodgson ’23 said, “Julia was obviously very well prepared to deliver her speech. I could tell she practiced it often, and her hard work really paid off. I thought that her performance was pretty much flawless.”
Mark Hong ’23 agreed, saying, “After seeing Julia deliver her speech with such great execution and confidence, it sparked a love of public speaking in me. It was a great opportunity to learn about my classmates’ experiences and hardships.”
Alkhayer hopes she planted a seed for change. “I want to change how Arabs are perceived. I hope my message will continue to spread across campus and that others are inspired to continue learning about Arabs,” she said.
The Pratt-Packard Declamation Contest is an annual tradition that continues to inspire and teach the Choate community about public speaking as well as students’ experiences. “All of this year’s finalists appreciated the opportunity and privilege of delivering an original speech to the assembled community,” said Mr. Cobb. He urged students to join the competition in upcoming years and share a new perspective with the School.
