Taite Kirkpatrick ‘29 comes from Mount Vernon, a tulip-producing rural town in Washington State! As a result, they are very passionate about poverty, educational equity, and political advocacy, particularly in rural communities. At Mount Vernon High School, Taite was president of Skagit County Teen Court, a program creating restorative justice for local youth, captain of his speech and debate team, a student representative on their local school board, and a member of the internationally competitive Team USA National Debate Team. At Dartmouth, Taite spends most of his time as an intern in the Reading Brains Lab, researching the science of learning, and as an Educational Access Advisor with the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact’s SEAD program. He is interested in studying some undecided combination of sociology, WGSS, education, and public policy at Dartmouth and going into academia afterwards.