America needs a new kind of leader.  It needs leaders who are literate in the critical challenges facing our world.  It needs leaders who can navigate with integrity the ambiguities of modern business, law, medicine, domestic politics, and international relations.  It needs thoughtful activists, passionate social entrepreneurs, and relentless humanitarians.   

If we show a talented, motivated cohort of young Americans how to be this kind of leader, that group will create currents of hopeful, infectious, and powerful change throughout the world.

The best time for this sort of inspiration is the junior year of high school: the critical moment just as young people are gaining the ability to think seriously about complex ideas. If we catch promising students at this moment and challenge them with new information, new questions, and new possibilities, we can help motivate these young people to change the world.

The School for Ethics and Global Leadership presents a compelling, unique opportunity to do just that.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Located in Washington, DC, the school is a selective, semester-long residential program for 32 intellectually motivated high school juniors from across the United States.  The program selects students who have shown outstanding character, promise for leadership, and scholastic ability and provides them with a unique curriculum that emphasizes ethical thinking, leadership development, and international affairs.  Highlights of the program include:  

• A unique adaptation of a proven pedagogical model (the 11th grade semester school) that is well-known for creating transformative educational experiences
• Financial resources to ensure a student body that is racially and economically representative of the United States
• An innovative Ethics and Leadership course for all students
• Immersion in the resources of Washington, DC, including cooperative learning endeavors with leaders from the business, law, and political communities
• The use of interdisciplinary case studies across the curriculum
• Individual leadership profiles created by each student, as well as frequent and unique opportunities to practice leadership skills in an atmosphere of shared trust and accountability
• Introductory exposure to Arabic and Chinese language and culture for all students
• A collaborative, student-written policy document responding to a current global challenge; students will lobby for implementation of the document’s recommendations once the document is published
• Reunion conferences after graduation to help students solidify learning, build connections, and look toward future challenges
• A curriculum designed to meet or exceed honors-level/AP requirements at schools around the country

THE CASE FOR SEGL

SEGL will fill a national and international educational need. Few American high school students enter college with a meaningful understanding of current world events, or with leadership capabilities that are informed by ethical reasoning skills. Each year, SEGL will provide the United States and the world with a cohort of 64 young leaders who excel in these areas.

SEGL will build on a proven model. Semester programs are well known for creating transformative educational experiences for motivated high school juniors (see, for example, the Mountain School of Milton Academy, Vershire, Vermont; the Maine Coast Semester, Wiscasset, Maine; CITYterm, Dobbs Ferry, New York; the High Mountain Institute, Leadville, Colorado; the Oxbow School, Napa, California).

Intellectually able students are ready for questions of ethics and global leadership. These students often show a particular aptitude for moral perception, reflection, and action (Silverman, 1994). They are more acutely aware of social and ethical issues (Winner, 1986), see themselves as more concerned about global issues (Roeper, 1988), and have a greater need to align their actions with their ethical beliefs (Clark, 1986). (See also Michaelson, 2001). At the same time, high school teachers report less and less time to discuss current events (Hunter, 2003), and all but a handful of schools have even elective courses on ethics, leadership and/or current international events.

SEGL will provide a more profound learning experience than existing summer programs. The school’s comprehensive, rigorous curriculum will help students analyze public policy through an ethical lens, without prescribing a partisan outcome for their analysis. Students will develop topic-specific, intensive relationships with Washington leaders and institutions, connect traditional disciplines with contemporary global challenges, gain an in-depth understanding of DC culture, and become part of a purposeful community of graduates.

SEGL will recruit outstanding students. Partnering with nationally recognized universities, talent search organizations, leading independent, charter, and public schools, and institutions serving underprivileged, motivated students will ensure a large, diverse pool of applicants, with far fewer marketing costs than comparable programs.

The time is now. We need a new generation of leaders with the knowledge required to keep our nation strong and respected in a post-September 11th world. We need leaders with sturdy moral compasses. We need leaders articulate and passionate enough to persuade others that character shapes destiny. SEGL is a viable, sustainable, inspired answer to this challenge.

Our program is intentionally small, but we also intend for our impact on the world to be considerable.  As former Attorney General and United States Senator Robert Kennedy famously said, 

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. 

We are convinced that The School for Ethics and Global Leadership will give us the best chance to produce leaders capable not only of creating such ripples, but of inspiring others to help build a current of positive action that will help shape the course of history.   

We hope you will join us.

LEADERSHIP TEAM

Board of Advisors
Harold Eugene Batiste III (vice chair)
Paige Cottingham-Streater
Noah Bopp
J. Matteson Ellis (chair)
Cabell King
Dudley Lacy
Giselle Leung
Jason Reed
Megan Shutzer

Special Counsel
Michael Nickson

Honorary Leadership Council
Ambassador David Abshire
Ambassador Donald Mahley
Coleman McCarthy
Paula Mirk
Dr. Joel Rosenthal
Dr. Abdul Aziz Said
Anne Stephens
Dr. James Thurber
Pastor Carl Wilkens