Christian Brothers University staffer Aimee Lewis went through the Leadership Academy’s Fellows program a few years ago. After CBU’s new president John Smarrelli Jr. began work in July, Lewis thought he might benefit from seeing the Leadership Academy’s Memphis 101 presentation.
“Our new president is from Syracuse, New York, and when he wasn’t there, worked a good deal in Chicago,” she says. “I thought the overview would be good so he has a grasp of the community he had moved into and some of its idiosyncrasies.”
The Leadership Academy offered its “crash course” on Memphis again earlier this week. The program covers Memphis history from its first charter, through yellow fever, the second charter, Mayor E. H. Crump, the sanitation workers’ strike, and the election of the city’s first black mayor.
