Academics
Head of School Alixe Callen recently co-wrote an editorial with Lincoln School head Suzanne Fogarty on the decisions to discontinue Advanced Placement courses at both schools and promote a more balanced and diverse curriculum.
St. George's School got rid of AP courses on campus three years ago, followed by Lincoln School a year later.
"Though we made these decisions independently, we share the same motivation: to provide the best, most challenging academic experience for our students, one that prepares them for the world that awaits, and not just for a test they are required to take," Ms. Callen and Ms. Fogarty wrote in the Providence Business News op-ed.
To read the full editorial, click here.
Campus Life
The St. George’s community will take part in an important initiative this year, School Chaplain Jackie Kirby announced in her sermon on Sept. 28. Named the “Beloved Community Initiative,” the program will be comprised of events focused on the history and legacy of race and slavery in the United States, Rhode Island, and St. George’s.
The program seeks “to move St. George’s closer to what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described as the ‘Beloved Community,’ characterized by compassion, kindness, mutual understanding, and respect for the dignity of every human being,” according to the Rev. Dr. Kirby.
"The Beloved Community Initiative is seeking to center our focus on gaining a broader understanding and appreciation of pivotal social justice moments in the school's history by reflecting on the experiences and stories of members of the broader St. George's community," SG Director of Equity and Inclusion Dr. Kim Bullock said. "Through educational programming and our partnership with the Center for Reconciliation, the initiative also seeks to share the impact and history of African heritage and culture in our local community as well as provide context for understanding the connection between these historical events in today's current events and on St. George's campus."
Funded by a grant from the George Arents Jr. Cerimon Fund and in conjunction with the Center for Reconciliation based in Providence, the initiative is being led by Director of Diversity Dr. Kim Bullock, Associate Head for Student Life Mervan Osborne, Alyson Mulhern, P’19, ’21, and the Rev. Dr. Kirby.
Former SG Chaplain Hays Rockwell was the first chapel guest speaker for the initiative on Oct. 4. He delivered an address about his experience as the advisor to Conrad Young, the first black student to attend St. George's. Future chapel speakers will include Tim Phelps and Sylvester Monroe, local Muslim, Christian, and Jewish preachers.
To watch Chaplain Kirby’s Chapel Talk introducing the initiative, click here.
Academics
Twenty-four students were inducted into foreign language honor societies during a ceremony in the Main Common Room on Sept. 27, 2018.
Four students were inducted into the Chinese Honor Society.
The National Chinese Honor Society (NCHS) was established in 1993 to recognize those accomplished high school students who study Chinese as a world language. The National Chinese Honor Society is a scholastic organization that promotes and recognizes students who demonstrate citizenship, leadership, and community service.
The purpose of the National Chinese Honor Society is to encourage its members to become lifelong learners in order to gain a better understanding of Chinese language and culture, as well as to play an active role as a contributing global citizen in the 21st century.
2018 Chinese Honor Society inductees were: Huy Trong (Nick) Doan ’20, Buseoung (Joshua) Kwon ’19, Zoella Barros O'Haren ’20 and Jared Diosdado ’19.
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Twelve students were inducted into the French Honor Society.
La Société Honoraire de Français is an academic honor society established in 1949 by the American Association of Teachers of French. The society recognizes outstanding scholarship in the study of French and provides a vehicle for focusing activities around the study of the French language and literature. In addition, there is the opportunity for students to experience leadership in serving as officers, directing the initiation ceremony, and/or leading other chapter events in our school.
2018 French Honor Society inductees were: James Antone ’20, Celia Francesca Byrne ’20,, Alexandra Pegeen Dano ’19, Ashley Karime Fallas ’20, Liliana Katarina Froehner ’20, Lana Noelle Gaige ’20, Xiaoyang Hua (Sunny) ’20, Caroline Renee Kaynor ’19, Wanyan Li (Vivian) ’19, Roberto Martinez ’19, Tate Christopher Karl Michelson ’20 and Matthew Joseph Richards ’20.
Current members are: Isabelle Hunter Kitchel ‘19 (President), Lindsay Brooks Meyer ‘19 (VP for Service), Alexandra Grace (Alex) Thill ‘19 (VP for Culture), Molly Ann MacCormick ‘19 (active member), Henry MacDonald Dane ‘19 (associate member), William Morgan Hill-Edgar ‘19 (associate member), John Yves Jammers ‘19 (associate member), and Charlotte Hadley Maerov ’19 (associate member).
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Eight students were inducted into the Spanish Honor Society.
The Spanish Honor Society was founded by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese in 1953. The purpose of the society is to recognize high achievement in the study of Spanish and Portuguese by students of secondary schools and to promote continuity of interest in Hispanic and Luso-Brasilian studies. St. George’s Chapter, Martín Fierro, was established in 2007.
In addition to excelling in language studies and demonstrating extraordinary interest in Hispanic cultures, members of the Martín Fierro chapter have made a commitment to promote Hispanic
cultures within the school, assist others in their study of the language, and provide service to the local Hispanic community.
2018 Spanish Honor Society inductees were: Hope Seiler ’20, Sasha Smithie ’20, Sarah Skinner ’20, Zoe Petrovas ’20, Zachary Borden ’20, Lekha Sapers ’20, Maya Bardorf ’20 and Celeste Humphrey ’20.
Current members are: Brinley Burdick ‘19 (President), Alexandra Chicharro ‘19 (Associate), Spencer Dellenbaugh ‘19 (Associate), Meghan Grimes ‘19 (Active Member), Natalie Huschle ‘19 (Tutor Head), Qinwen (Rachel) Lu ‘19 (Associate), Peyton Mulhern ‘19 (Active Member), and Jackson Rockett ‘19 (Associate).
To view our photo gallery of the event, click here.
Campus Life
Cam Jones ’19 remembers gazing longingly down to Second Beach from the boys’ thirds soccer field on some afternoons in the fall of 2016. “My friends and I were always bummed out when the waves were good,” he said, “and having to just watch them from up here.”
Things were different last fall, however, as Cam and seven fellow students — all donning wetsuits — sat on the grass near that same soccer field waxing their boards. Last school year, the eight were given the opportunity to take part in an afternoon-activity pilot called The Surf Leadership Program. The program offered the chance for participants to improve their surfing skills, train for their lifeguard certifications and gain leadership experience.
English teacher Cory Cramer ’00, the program’s advisor, put it this way: “This is not a competitive surfing program. Those programs exist. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re teaching these kids to be lifeguards. We’re teaching these kids to take ownership and planning over their afternoon activity. And we’re teaching these kids to be safe and confident in the water.”
Expanding options
Along with another program focused on marine biology, Surf Leadership was part of a move to expand St. George’s offerings in the afternoon “to provide specific-interest activities to our students,” said Dean of Afternoon Programs John Mackay.
Leading the drive for the surf program were three boys who proposed it to Cramer last year, and who also helped design a program that met the criteria for a valuable extracurricular experience: Cam and his classmates, Colin and Oscar MacGillivray.
“We got a Google Doc going and put all of our ideas in it,” said Oscar, a Middletown native. The boys had the drive and the passion to make it work. “I’ve been surfing for most of my life,” Oscar added, “and I also wanted to be doing it as a sport too.”
On Cramer’s mind was also “to help kids think in a really respectful way about the ocean.” The group spent a good amount of time in thoughtful discussion “reading the water” and talking about weather conditions before they even waded in.
Not all the students in the Surf Leadership program grew up on a board, and so with members of the group having varying degrees of expertise, the leadership aspect of the program was especially important, Cramer said.
“One of the things that we’re doing is having the more experienced kids actually do the teaching of their less-experienced peers,” he added. “One of the first lessons I learned about leadership was that it is generally separate from performance. So your ability to be an experienced sailor — in my case that’s what it was — really had very little bearing on my ability to get a whole bunch of kids who didn’t know how to sail a boat.
“It’s awesome that they can surf really well,” he said of the more veteran surfers, “but what’s transferrable out of here is their ability to work with people.”
Charis Todd ’ 18, an avid sailor from Bermuda who took part in Geronimo’s transatlantic journey two years ago, said surfing was on her St. George’s bucket list. “Coming here as a freshman all my friends were like, we totally want to learn by senior year — and I’m a senior now, so it was my last shot to give it a go,” she said. When we talked to Charis last fall, she was excited to learn — and humbled by what last October were some of the best surfing conditions in years, thanks to a series of strong storms off the coast.
“I got pummeled by a wave the other day and one of the guys sitting next to me on the beach after was like, ‘Yeah, that one took everyone out,’” Todd said. She appreciated the collegiality and getting to talk to people off campus.
Lexi Sinskey ’18 of San Francisco said she comes from a family of water enthusiasts, and before the Surf Leadership program was mainly into body-boarding and body-surfing. “I’ve always been really bad at sports and stuff, but I’ve always really liked the ocean,” she said. “It took me a little bit longer than the rest of my family to start surfing. I guess after I came here I realized I should probably start trying to surf more.”
Seamus Fearons ’19 of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, never surfed before he came to St. George’s. “I started surfing freshman year because my brother [Patrick ’18] went here and he got a surfboard — and I ended up getting into it more than he did,” he said. “The beach close by definitely got me into it.”
Indeed Cramer, who also teaches a course in maritime literature, expressed his passion for “place-based” learning. A former Dragon sailor, he led sea kayaking and sailing trips for Thompson Island Outward Bound and worked in the Maine Coast Semester program at the Chewonki Foundation before returning to St. George’s to teach in 2014. “The reason I love this program, and the reason I love this place, is that there are so many opportunities to combine what we do up here with where we are,” he said.
Learning along with the locals
Of course anyone who regularly drives past Second Beach on their way to St. George’s sees the evidence — the board-topped cars, the wave riders pulling your eyes while you’re ascending the hill — that Aquidneck has a very strong surfing community. “There’s definitely a lot of good, institutional local knowledge kicking around here,” Cramer said.
Part of what he stressed with the students was respecting the rules.
“Surfing safely within a large group of people involves being aware not only of your position relative to the waves, but also to the other people there,” Cramer explained.
“And so it really is important that people be able to communicate, to learn what it means to wait your turn, who gets to go, and to understand your place in the lineup.
I want to help our students be very good stewards of that because that etiquette exists primarily to keep people safe on the water.”
Throughout the fall the surfers made day trips to other beaches in Rhode Island to surf, such as East Matunuck State Beach in South Kingstown and Goose Wing in Little Compton — definitely a hit with Darien, Connecticut native Spencer McLane ’19. “A highlight for me was when we took the trip to Little Compton and the waves were really nice there and it was just a new break,” he said. “So it was really fun and we were all getting really good waves.”
At the end of the term, the crew went on a camping trip to Montauk — and they all passed their lifeguard certification tests.
“It’s awesome that the school allowed us to do this, to come up with our own thing and to really step out of what they originally had planned,” Cam said. “They allowed us to go for it and give it a shot.
“Surfing is a passion of all of ours,” he added, “and we love surfing whenever we can.”
This article originally appeared in the 2018 Spring Bulletin magazine. You can view the entire magazine online here.
Campus Life
In this space, we will keep a running log of important and interesting moments in Head of School Alixe Callen's second year at St. George’s.
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Oct. 17, 2018
Head of School Alixe Callen celebrated the philanthropy of the St. George's community in a video message as part of the release of the 2017-18 Annual Report.
Sept. 29, 2018
Ms. Callen kicked off Family Weekend with a welcome address to families. Her speech can be watched here.
Sept. 6, 2018
Ms. Callen addressed students at Convocation in the Chapel, highlighting the importance of community in her remarks. To watch a video of Ms. Callen's Convocation Address, click here.
Athletics
Our two new artificial turf athletic fields are officially open.
Construction first began in May to completely rebuild Crocker Field and to build the new Montgomery field adjacent to it, at the former location of Elliott Field.
Head of School Alixe Callen, Chair of the Board of Trustees Leslie Heaney '92, and former SG history teacher and lacrosse coach Arch Montgomery (for whom Montgomery Field is named) cut the ceremonial ribbon at a ceremony on Sept. 22.
Elliott Field will be reconstructed in the northwest corner of campus and will be ready for play in spring 2019.
To view a video of the ceremony, click here. To see our photo gallery from the event, click here.
