Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone

 

At Westminster, students engage with one another every day. They share meals, gather for chapel, embrace Martlet traditions, attend classes, participate in athletics and the arts, and build lasting relationships in the dormitories and through club activities. This year’s academic theme asks students to go further — to take charge, explore new ways to become more involved at Westminster, develop new interests and ideas and strengthen their leadership skills.

Last spring, the Fifth Form student council proposed “engagement” as the 2023-24 theme. “Students really want to be more intentional about connecting to all facets of life on campus,” explained Sixth Form Dean Julia Smith, who helped students present the proposal to the administration.

The theme challenges students to go beyond their routine interactions and expectations, which might mean plunging into the pool to learn water polo, stepping onstage to try out for a theater performance or taking charge of a classroom discussion. At Westminster, the opportunities to do more, to be more, are endless.

But authentic engagement, as Dean of Student Life and Director of Theater and Dramat Productions A-men Rasheed noted, involves more than just showing up. It’s about how students show up.

“Our students all have so much to offer with so many different perspectives. How do we ensure they all actively contribute? Part of the effort this year is about working with students to amplify their voices in a wide variety of our initiatives,” he said.

That means creating pathways for more students to push themselves academically, take risks or try a new sport or activity –– with a support system to help them along the way.

In his Opening Days address, Head Prefect Robert Yalda ’24 asked the entire community to go beyond what comes easily to them. For students, that might mean performing a standup routine at coffeehouse nights on campus, participating in an impromptu dance party, volunteering with Loaves and Fishes or anything else that pushes them out of their comfort zone. 

The call to action extends beyond the student body. “It’s a perfect choice for the school theme,” said Sydney Courtmanche ’24, a Prefect Board member. “It encourages everyone, including students, faculty and staff of all ages, to become more actively involved in the community.” 

One of the best ways to encourage authentic engagement is to lead by example. Over the summer, the school developed programming that helps foster community engagement and 

asked students to lead the initiative. Before the start of the academic year, the Prefect Board, Peer Leaders and student RAs arrived on campus to work with the nonprofit Effective Leadership Academy, which provides youth leadership training and promotes character-building skills.

Through team-building activities and self-reflection, students learned how to effectively communicate with their peers and build the self-awareness and autonomy required for responsible decision making. These sessions also helped students identify their leadership style, depending on their values and personality. 

“The program taught us basic leadership traits, but it also helped us learn a lot about ourselves so that we can be the best we can be as leaders,” said Courtmanche. 

In the sessions, students also gained a deeper understanding of mental health issues and learned about ways to support their classmates. Finally, they talked about how to build community through engaging in thoughtful conversations and contributing to the vibrancy of the community. 

Student training will continue throughout the year with the Bruyette Leadership Academy, which works with the Prefect Board, Peer Leaders, student RAs, the Student Council, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board, varsity team captains and co-heads of programs such as John Hay, Dramat and the Dance Ensemble. The wide-ranging program is underwritten through the Brian Bruyette Fund, founded by Kathy and Gene Bruyette P’77, ’78, who established it in honor of their late son, Brian T. Bruyette ’77, who died from cancer in 1977, shortly after he graduated from Westminster.

 

One of the most important ways students develop during their Westminster years is through their relationships with teachers, coaches and advisors.

The advisory program continues to be one of the hallmarks of the Westminster experience, providing an opportunity for students and faculty to make meaningful connections. Over the summer, faculty members read “One Trusted Adult,” which explores how adults can build strong, healthy connections with young people. The book’s central idea is that just one trusted adult can have a profound effect on a child’s life, influencing that young person’s growth, encouraging greater engagement in school and community activities and enhancing the student’s overall well-being. 

Students and faculty also have opportunities to work together on a common cause that serves the entire community. Last spring, students and faculty worked together on reducing cellphone usage on campus, which resulted in a responsible-use policy aimed at restricting students from using their phones not only in the classroom, but on the campus pathways and in other areas where members of the community gather. In a letter to families this fall, Jessica Keough, associate head of school, explained that the policy was yet another step toward promoting engagement — not just among students, but across the entire school community.

“We realized that too many of us were distracted by our phones. They were the first thing we pulled out as class ended, or we made a habit of walking across campus while scrolling through our feeds,” she said. “Collectively, we worried that we were losing the Westminster way of meeting someone’s eye and pausing to say hello. This policy is one of the many ways we called the theme to action.” 

This year, students were asked not only to deepen their involvement in things they are passionate about, but to try new things and make new connections.

“Find something that causes you discomfort. It doesn’t matter the magnitude; just do it,” said Head Prefect Yalda in his Opening Days address. “It may cause you anxiety, but you’re immersed in an environment where there are people who can support you along the way.”

Not only can students join clubs and organizations; they are encouraged to start their own clubs and assume leadership roles early on in their Westminster experience, explained Andrea Thomas, associate director of admissions and co-director of student clubs and programs. 

“In the Admissions Office, we talk about Westminster being a small school with big opportunities. Students can come in and get involved immediately — they can try new things, and they can take on leadership roles immediately,” she said.

“We have Third Formers giving tours to prospective families just weeks after their arrival on the Hill. Maybe a student was involved in a particular activity before coming to Westminster and wants to start a club — they can do that right away. It is also not uncommon to have Third and Fourth formers play leading roles both on our stage and playing fields. Through these experiences, they develop skills that prepare them to take on more responsibility as upper formers, serving as Peer Leaders, Prefect Board members, captains and resident advisors, just to name a few. The fact is that we rely heavily on all our students for community leadership. If students are expected to be successful leaders in college, their communities and as professionals, they must have opportunities to lead at a young age.”

Last spring, a group of students did just that by launching the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board (DEIB) to better support international students. The board began last year with a handful of students from the Class of 2025 and has grown this year with students from the classes of 2024, 2025 and 2026. Cindion Huang ’25, who co-founded the board, said that members brainstorm ways to enhance the Westminster experience for students who may feel underrepresented on campus.

Students can also support each other through the residential advisors’ mentor/mentees program, in which upper formers help create a welcoming, safe and supportive environment for dorm residents. 

Martlets Educating Martlets is a tutoring program that offers students opportunities to help their peers with academics. Wills Erda ’24 became a tutor last year to give back to the community and found the program deeply rewarding. “Helping another student grasp a new concept or making sense of an elusive problem — for me, there really is no better feeling,” he said.

This year, the faculty is focused on encouraging students to be fully present and active in the learning process by creating a stimulating classroom environment, with group discussions, debates, project-based learning and real-world applications of concepts.

“The pandemic encouraged students to be passive learners, and we need to retrain our students to take an active role in their education,” said Academic Dean Betsy Heckman. “Teachers are guiding students to take leadership roles in the classroom by leading discussions, asking questions, doing research and solving problems independently. We hope that this focus on engagement this year will be just the beginning of creating a culture of academic curiosity and investment.”

Kerry Kendall, head of the visual and performing arts department, noted that engagement is the focus of students in the arts. “The studios and performance spaces allow students to express themselves and create works of art, performances, music, dance, designs and architecture that engage the whole community,” she said.

The department is also designing cross-curriculum lessons that are interactive, hands-on and relevant to students’ lives. This fall, Kendall is working with Fourth Former Henry Flaton, who started the nonprofit Kathmandu Foundation, which raises funds to support the orphanage in Nepal where he lived before he was adopted as a child. “We’re brainstorming ways in which the visual arts students can become engaged in the lives of the children at the orphanage through a virtual art and letter-writing exchange,” she said.

“Bolstering student engagement is critical to the school’s core mission,” said Associate Head of School Jessica Keough. “Truly, engagement is at the heart of why we do so much of what we do and why Westminster’s approach has been a winning recipe for countless Martlets.”