Dr. Gold '07 Receives Distinguished Alumni Award

Dr. Alexandra Gold ‘07, Head Preceptor at Harvard, was named the recipient of the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award by The Benjamin School’s alumni council. The honor was bestowed upon Gold during a ceremony in Benjamin Hall the morning of April 4. 

Head of School Mr. Dave Faus welcomed the audience of students, alumni, friends, and former teachers of Golds’ to the ceremony. 

 

“Please know this will always be your home and you will always be part of the Benjamin family,” Faus said to the senior class of 2024. 

 

Alumni Association President Darren Craft ‘04 offered opening remarks, reflecting on what makes Benjamin special. 

 

“People make the place. This community is truly second to none. The Alumni Council works to ensure the value you get from Benjamin continues way beyond your graduation date,” Craft said before turning the program over to Gold.  

 

Gold credited Benjamin, and the teachers she had the privilege to learn from, for playing a formative role in her career path. 

 

“They [Benjamin teachers] challenged me to write more, and write better and encouraged me in the skill,” Gold said of the many Benjamin teachers who “sustained my interest in writing and encouraged me to keep going.”

 

Gold underscored that no path, even for those who are fortunate enough to figure out what they want to do early in life, is ever completely linear. 

“Beneath every resume lies the shadow of where the path diverged, shifted, or simply got blocked . . . And these moments will be just as important,” she said. 

“The process of writing is much like the process of succeeding in your career. There are twists and turns, frustrations, and happy accidents. There’s a lot of hard work that only sometimes pays off and a lot of reflection built in. Writing involves failure. Sometimes you just can't get the words right. Sometimes you fail to reach your audience in the way you hoped. Writing involves misdirection . . . writing also involves some luck . . . and writing involves discomfort . . . and finally, writing involves revision. All these things will be true in your careers too,” she said.