As Priya Junnar began her final fall semester at the helm of the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, she admitted to feeling a swirl of “bittersweet” emotions.
Junnar took on leadership of the prestigious speaker series—affectionately known as “the Ath”—in August 2014, becoming its fifth director. “It’s been a long journey, and I’ve learned a lot,” she reflected fondly, expressing gratitude for the friendships she forged with students, faculty, and staff along the way.
After the 2026 spring semester, a new chapter for CMC begins: Junnar will conclude her time at the College, along with her husband, CMC President Hiram Chodosh, who in March 2025 announced their departure. She recently shared her highlights and insights from the past 11 years, as Theo, CMC’s official labradoodle (who even appears on the Ath’s “Meet the Team” web page) slumbered nearby in Junnar’s office, just off the Athenaeum lobby.
Always innovating
More than a decade is a significant portion of the nearly 60 years the Ath has served as the heart of intellectual and social engagement on CMC’s campus, attracting thought-provoking speakers and shining a light on the College as a nucleus for constructive dialogue and stimulating conversations—most often over shared meals at dinner.
Under Junnar’s guidance, the speaker series—approximately 120 speaker events per academic year—has continued to engage the CMC community in timely topics, bringing to campus a diverse slate of luminaries, including: Daron Acemoglu (Nobel Laureate in Economics); Arthur Brooks (then-President of the American Enterprise Institute); Lt. General Karl Eikenberry (former Ambassador to Afghanistan); Atul Gawande (surgeon and writer); Louise Glück (Nobel Laureate in Literature); Jonathan Haidt (social psychologist and author); Samantha Power (former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Pulitzer Prize-winning author); Michael Steele (former RNC chairperson); Nadine Strossen (Senior Fellow at FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression); Bari Weiss (journalist); and George Will (Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist).
Over the years, Junnar has fielded numerous questions about her speaker selection process. “It’s very organic,” she explained. “I think the programming evolves or develops because I get many recommendations from faculty, students, parents, and alumni. I even hear from people in the community who write to me.”
An avid reader and podcast connoisseur, Junnar—who holds an MBA from Case Western Reserve, a Master’s in international relations from Yale, and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley—weaves her own curiosity into the speaker schedule each semester. This year, Junnar is blending endowed talks—sponsored by CMC’s research institutes and centers on topics ranging from international trade to human rights—with Ath programming that includes evenings devoted to artificial intelligence and literature, as well as a two-semester, four-part music series featuring devotional and spiritual world music.
“You want to be relevant. You want to be topical. But you also want to have a perspective to the past, and a perspective to the future,” Junnar said, adding, “You always want to be innovating.”
A role like no other
Over the past decade, Junnar has also revamped Ath formats, increasing the number of faculty-moderated conversations and student-led interviews, as well as hosting more Open Academy salons and daily Ath teas that often feature meaty, just-in-time discussions with faculty. “The Ath footprint is bigger than just the speakers,” Junnar points out. “We also host class and CMC club dinners, in addition to ‘Staff at the Ath’ lunchtime events that explore relevant workplace subjects.”
Coordinating all of these events demands an effective team, which includes the executive chef and the Ath manager overseeing the kitchen and wait teams (dozens of students and five kitchen staff) who prepare and serve sumptuous dinners four evenings a week (sometimes more), as well as frequent lunchtime events and—the student favorite—daily Ath teas.
For Junnar, it always comes back to the students—whether as staff, Woolley Fellows (read more about this year’s cohort), repeat or first-time guests, they are the emerging leaders who make the Ath truly special and central to the CMC experience. She described Ath speakers as being “awed” by the caliber of students, especially their thoughtful questions, both at the head table—where seating is reserved for students only—and during the evening’s Q&A.
“I think what I’m going to miss the most are the astonishingly good questions students ask every night! The questions, in and of themselves, are lessons in active listening and critical thinking. I have had everyone from Harvard Law professors to poet laureates to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s biographer tell me that at no other school do they get such great and thoughtful questions,” Junnar said.
Further reflecting on her unique role these past 11 years, she marveled at the opportunity: “This job doesn’t really exist in the world.” Junnar then paid tribute to her Ath Director predecessors, Jil Stark ’58 GP’11 and Bonnie Snortum. She credits Stark with having “the foresight all those years ago to say, ‘Yes, we can do this,’ and then for Bonnie to have built a legacy over 25 years, which I was able step into.
“I feel very lucky to have been able to do it.”
—Anne Bergman
