Marion Dry

President and Co-Chair, ClassACT HR73

PAST EMPLOYERS: Wellesley College,  emeritus, Music Department, where I served as Senior Music Faculty, Department Chair and Director of the Music Performance Program, 1997-2017

My first career was as a contralto who sang with concert and opera organizations in the US and Europe. To that I added a 20-year period as a member of the Music Department of Wellesley College where I taught voice and opera, served as department chair and was Director of the Music Performance Program. I retired in 2017. 

In 2013, with a small group of my Harvard and Radcliffe classmates, I founded ClassACT HR73 (Class Achieving Change Together). I serve as President and Co-Chair. Our work is varied. To date we have sponsored four women from predominantly Muslim countries for fellowships in the Mason Program at HKS, helped numerous small non-profits in the US and Africa with pro bono services, written a gerrymandering primer, and produced Zoom Forums with prominent leaders in the social justice arena to educate and help move creative action toward change forward. In addition we have worked with the Harvard Alumni Association to share our model with other alumni groups, so what we started has become a movement.  See our website for  the full range of our work:  (www.classacthr73.org).

Our mission: The ClassACT movement, started in 2013 by members of HR 73, is based on the principle that we can Achieve Change Together (ACT). We have impacted hundreds of lives by connecting classmates and others to leverage our individual efforts to promote a more just and equitable world.  

ClassACTors share and apply the experience that our education, community, and collective energy have put within our reach.  We are blessed with opportunities that many envy and all should have.  We believe that education underwrites human flourishing, not just a daily wage; that a diverse and inclusive community is more than the sum of its parts, not an invitation to chaos; that inquiry and imagination set the first, essential steps towards a new and better life for all if we have the wisdom to embrace them.

With humility and energy, we seek to pay our past advantages forward to create sustainable change.  It is an honor to lead this group.

HIGHLIGHTS:
I am an Executive Producer for Zoom forums that focus on social justice issues:  https://www.classacthr73.org/Previous-Forums