Former cherub classmates reunited as instructors

By Shelby Sklar

It had been nearly two decades since they had spent their summer together as cherubs in 1986.

They had never known each other well. But in planning their 16-year cherub reunion in Evanston, Victor Chi and Mary Lou Song realized how close they truly were – their California homes were just a few miles apart.

Today, the two teach together as cherub instructors, a tradition they began in 2003. They had reconnected through the reunion and remembered how much the program had meant to each of their lives.

“You never know if somebody you are a cherub with is someone you’re going to work with,” Chi said.

Rachel Stults, a 2000 cherub, was reunited with NHSI Journalism Division Director Roger Boye as an office manager -- now called community associates -- in 2002 and 2003, and as an instructor in 2006 and 2007.

Song and Chi are not the only former cherubs from the same class who are now instructors together. Jesse Abrams-Morley and Rachel Stults were both cherubs in 2000 and Medill alumni. Like Song and Chi, Abrams-Morley and Stults didn’t know each other well during their time as cherubs, but reconnected later in college and most recently as cherub instructors in 2007. 

“Even the cherubs that I didn’t stay close with managed to come back into my life some way or another,” Stults said. “It’s kind of cool to see people I knew seven years ago and how many things we’ve all experienced together.”

The cherub program strongly influenced the four instructors’ personal and professional lives. Abrams-Morley met his fiancée as a cherub, and his best man and maid of honor are also cherubs from 2000.

“Cherubs is where it all began,” Abrams-Morley said.

For Song, the cherub program led to professional success that she never could have imagined. After the program ended, she attended Medill, where she made friends who inspired a move to California, and, subsequently to Stanford University for graduate school.

At a Stanford party a few years later, Song met a man who was launching a small company that encourages buying and selling on the Internet. He offered her a position as the third employee at the company – a company now called eBay.

“Being a cherub started this incredible chain of events that couldn’t have happened had I not been a cherub,” Song said.  “I pretty much have cherubs to thank for my entire life.”