Responsible Citizenship
Susan Droke
Chief Academic Officer
Responsible Citizenship Team
Responsible Citizenship
Ethics education at Collegiate empowers students to employ empathic understanding and compassionate consideration of others to critically assess situations, work through reasoned decision-making, arrive at morally sound solutions, and then put principle into practice by taking action. The Collegiate community guides the students’ ethical development by: cultivating empathy as the foundation of strong relationships; providing opportunities for inquiry and discourse; maintaining clear expectations and accountability; and modeling Collegiate’s values in principled-action. Our graduates have the ethical foundation and skills to flourish as responsible citizens. Within this construct, teachers guide the students’ ethical development by building strong relationships, providing opportunities for inquiry and discourse, empowering student leadership, creating a culture of clear expectations and accountability, and above all, modeling the principles they espouse.
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Lower School
Using the novel, Tuck Everlasting, teachers and 4th Grade students grapple with a variety of hard decisions that occur within both the story and the real world around them. Students write, blog, and consider different points of view while keeping in mind Collegiate’s core values of Excellence, Love of Learning, Honor, Respect and Community.
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Middle School
7th Grade students tackle ethical dilemmas in U.S. History as they study Teddy Roosevelt and the Square Deal and how to use public timber lands. Students become timber barons, workers or citizens and present their research or plans to both an ethical and sustainability panel of their peers. Both panels then present resolutions to the class.
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Upper School
Upper School’s Senior Capstone: Ethics and the Engaged Citizen culminates with an Ethics Bowl, where students work collaboratively in teams to prepare for several days of in-class competition in which they present and defend positions in response to questions about real-world cases, with a heavy emphasis on critically assessing the intersection of ethics, economics and public policy decision-making.
Ignite - Ethics
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Collegiate Lower School Kindness Club Welcomes Special Visitor
Read MoreSeveral weeks ago, Collegiate School 4th Grader Catherine Conner was interviewed by NBC12 about how she started a Kindness Club. Immediately, Gini Bonnell, a Richmond resident, contacted Lower School counselor Kelsey Felton and asked to meet the club members. -
Upper School Capstone Classes Present Culminating Projects
Four senior Capstone classes presented projects that are the culmination of their semester-long studies:Read More -
Collegiate Alumni Receive Hannah Graham Memorial Award
Read MoreSonja Kapadia '17 (second from left) and Kate Partlow '17 (far right), both second-year students at the University of Virginia, each recently received Hannah Graham Memorial Awards to advance women’s health in Rwanda. -
Institute for Responsible Citizenship Named for Powell Family
Read MoreCollegiate School’s Institute for Responsible Citizenship was named last evening in honor and appreciation of the longtime support and commitment of the Powell family. -
Upper School History Students Welcome Vietnam Veterans
Read MoreCollegiate Upper School students in Brian Ross’ history course, The United States in the 1970s, recently shared conversations with and posed questions of seven Vietnam War veterans. -
Middle School Students Share Learnings from Prejudice Awareness Summit
In October, six Collegiate Middle School students attended The Prejudice Awareness Summit at VCU chaperoned by Carolyn Villanueva and Amasa Monroe. The Summit is designed to increase awareness, knowledge and acceptance of ethnic and cultural differences. The students returned to Collegiate and worked with Ms. Villanueva and Mr. Monroe through the fall and winter semester on a presentation summarizing their learnings that they then presented to the Middle School in assembly.Read More -
Global Public Health Capstone Explores Fragile and Vulnerable Settings
Collegiate School students in the Global Public Health senior Capstone are exploring the role of social, cultural, economic, environmental and political factors as they relate to access to health care and quality of life.Read More -
Junior Kindergartners Learn Lesson in Kindness
Read MoreAs recruits of the “Kindness Ninja Headquarters,” Collegiate School’s Junior Kindergarten classes (Sycamores and Willows) are involved in special secret missions involving being kind to others. -
Collegiate Seniors Experience Richmond Slave Trail
A group of Collegiate seniors who are taking the River City Capstone class visited the Richmond Slave Trail this week with faculty members Rhiannon Boyd and Brad Cooke in their ongoing efforts to understand the James River and its impact on the Richmond region.Read More -
Lower Schoolers Offer Global Support Through Unique Partnership
Read MoreCollegiate School 2nd Graders have embarked on a letter-writing campaign to secure support and sales for a product that will bring light to children and adults across the globe. -
Upper School Chemistry Students Discuss Illegal Mining
John Dau, Collegiate School’s Global Scholar-in-Residence, recently visited 9th Graders in Leigh Thompson’s and Susan Fourness-Ewell's chemistry classes to share first-hand experience with the misuse of important mineral resources and the negative impact the mining industry has on young people, the working class and communities in multiple regions in Africa.Read More -
Capstone Explores Sustainable Solutions to the Future of Food
Read MoreCollegiate School students enrolled in the senior Capstone class, Sustainable Solutions to the Future of Food, spent the semester considering the following question, “How can we ensure that people have access to safe, healthy, affordable food in a way that can be both environmentally and economically sustainable?” -
Collegiate to Host State Ethics Bowl Competition
Read MoreSeven high school teams from around the state, including one from Collegiate School, will gather this weekend to compete in the the 4th Annual Virginia High School Ethics Bowl, on Collegiate’s campus. -
Visitors Bring Unique Perspective to Upper School English Students
Two visitors to Dr. Leah Sievers’ Upper School Literature of Elegy and Redemption class last week brought their unique perspective to the students’ discussion of the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.Read More -
Senior Seminar Classes Present Final Projects
Read MoreAs a culmination of semester-long efforts in Senior Seminars, students presented findings and recommendations to guests, faculty, administration and professionals. They also discussed and debated the food industry with local experts and met with nonprofit organizations to deliver solutions. -
Articles in "The Match" Reflect Responsible Citizenship
Each semester, a group of Collegiate School student journalists in the Writing For Publication English class produce a series of Honors feature articles for The Match, Collegiate's student-run online news site. These articles are the result of months of research, reporting, writing and editing, as each author delves deeply into a topic of their choosing.Read More -
Challenges of the Global World
Read MoreThe Challenges of the Global World seminar provides a forum for investigating the world, recognizing the value in hearing the stories and perspectives of those with different life experiences and developing skills to make students more effective in their attempts to turn global challenges into opportunities for action. -
Local Farm Visit Provides Experiential Learning Experience
Read MoreCollegiate students in Rhiannon Boyd’s Senior Seminar: Food in America and Rebecca Hottman’s AP Environmental Science classes visited PolyFace Farms in Swoope, Virginia, this week. -
Librarians Lead Session on News and Information
Read MoreLower School and Middle School librarians Allison Williams and Carolyn LaMontagne worked with 4th, 5th and 6th Graders to discuss “Where Do We Get Our News and Information?” -
Lower School “Buddy Benches” Inspire Kindness
Read MoreTwo new “Buddy Benches” on Collegiate’s Lower School campus — one near Fort Cougar and the other near the Estes Building patio — were installed last week to teach students about empathy and inclusiveness. -
Collegiate Hosts Global Issues Forum for Area High School Students
Read MoreCollegiate School welcomed more than 90 high school students from nine public and private schools around the state today for the 4th Annual Global Issues Forum, which addresses ways youths in the local community can impact global challenges. Sixteen Collegiate seniors who are students in a Global Discussion Senior Seminar also participated. -
Collegiate Hosts 3rd Annual Virginia High School Ethics Bowl
Read MoreSeven high school teams from around the state, including one from Collegiate School, competed today in the the 3rd Annual Virginia High School Ethics Bowl, on Collegiate’s campus. -
Collegiate Seniors Compete in 8th Annual Ethics Bowl
Read MoreTwo teams of Collegiate School seniors went head to head during the final round of the school’s 8th Annual Ethics Bowl, held in the Craigie Board Room of the Sharp Academic Commons this morning. -
What is the Effect of Memory on an Image?
In The Literature of Elegy & Redemption, students examine the ways in which memory is expressed in today’s world: in photographs, in museums, in film, in testimony and in literature.Read More -
AP Biology Students Learn Integral Role of Animals in Sudanese Culture
As part of their ecology studies, AP biology students met with John Dau, Collegiate's Global Scholar-in-Residence, who shared the integral role domestic and wild animals play in the lives of South Sudanese villagers.Read More -
Ethics Bowl Features Well-Matched Teams
On Saturday, Collegiate hosted the 2nd Annual Virginia High School Ethics Bowl in the Sharp Academic Commons. Five teams, including Collegiate, competed and, in a very close finish, Freeman High School was victorious.Read More -
Students and Faculty Connect with Leading Ethicists
During recent visitors to Richmond for speaking engagements, Collegiate students and faculty were able to connect with world renowned ethicists Peter Singer and Michael Sandel. Upper School Ethics teacher Rhiannon Boyd attended the event at Univeristy of Richmond hosting Peter Singer to discus his recent book The Most Good You Can Do. Collegiate Upper School students attended the Richmond Forum to hear Harvard political philosopher and bestselling author Michael Sandel speak on the hard questions of democracy.Read More -
Collegiate Commits to Hosting Virginia High School Ethics Bowl
Read MoreCitizenship requires engaging in the problems of our local and global communities through discourse and compassionately yet critically assessing reasons for action. By serving as the statewide coordinators and host for the annual Virginia High School Ethics Bowl, Collegiate School maintains its commitment to ethics education and civic engagement, connecting students with their peers to consider in collaboration how we ought to live. Collegiate recently committed to hosting the Virginia High School Ethics Bowl in January, 2016 for the second year in a row. This event is a National Qualifying Event for the National High School Ethics Bowl Championship, to be held at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through their Parr Center for Ethics.
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