Our AHA community has recently received a new member and leader: Dr. David Sorkin, our new school president. Successor to our previous president, Tom Shipley, Sorkin joins us with an excitement and vigor for the future of AHA, as well as an experienced past.
Sorkin, first and foremost, is a man of faith. Beginning in his youth, Sorkin was an active member of the church. He was a server at church in his youth and began playing the organ for mass at a young age. He attended a Jesuit high school, which emphasized the importance of serving God and others through the talents that God has given. Sorkin followed this virtue by furthering his God-given talent of music through his education at St. Olaf College. It was there that he joined the choir and found a passion for directing. He followed this passion to his first teaching role at St. Agnes. Growing up, Sorkin never believed that he would become a teacher or a director or a president. But he trusted in God and followed the doors that God had opened for him, following the path from St. Agnes, to Providence Academy, to Seton Catholic Preparatory High School, to Notre Dame, to St. Hubert, and finally, to AHA. Along the way, he earned his Master’s in Educational Administration from Notre Dame and his Doctorate in Education in Leadership from Arizona State University.
Sorkin has placed his faith entirely in God and has trusted in His plan throughout the way. Sorkin urges current AHA seniors to do the same. He says to “trust that God will get you exactly where you need to go.” He has learned from his educational and professional experiences of the importance of being yourself within a community, seeing as his passions and God’s plan has allowed him to be at his current position. His advice for current seniors is to “go with your passions” and to “take the first step [because] God will get you to where you’re supposed to be.”
During Sorkin’s inaugural period, his main goal has been to get to know the AHA community on a personal level through the leadership team, the board, donors, department chairs, faculty, and most importantly, the students. His initial impression? “Holy Angels is real life.” He describes AHA as a “wonderfully authentic human experience,” and an “honest group of students, parents, and teachers who want to do well, and are working hard to do well.” He has been incredibly “struck by… the degree of care and relationship between teachers and students, and students and students.”
Dr. David Sorkin is incredibly excited to be a part of AHA’s unique community and is looking to make AHA the school of choice within Minnesota. In turn, the AHA community is equally as enthusiastic about his arrival and is here to welcome him with open arms.
