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SPRING 2008 • ST. MICHAELS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL The Pillars of Leadership Five Views SMUS Alumni Weekend A Preview Focus on Alumni The Diplomats Creating tomorrow’s leaders, one grade at a time. At St. Michaels University School, we are educating the leaders of tomorrow. That means integrating principles of leadership into all levels of our curriculum. Starting in kindergarten, students at Junior School are learning the foundations of leadership through the Virtues Project. By their final year at Junior School, students are taking on active leadership roles in the school, reinforced by events such as the Grade 5 Leadership Assembly. In Middle School, students continue to develop leadership skills and character traits through programmes like the house system, student council, exloratory units and outdoor education. By the time they reach Senior School, our students are ready to take full advantage of the many lessons and opportunities that are available to them. At this level, principles of leadership have been actively incorporated into all aspects of the school – in classes, councils, the boarding programme and extracurricular activities. At the end of their time at SMUS, our students are prepared to take on further leadership roles and make their marks on the world. For more information about our leadership curriculum, contact our Admissions office at (250) 370-6170 or [email protected], or visit our website at www.smus.bc.ca. • Co-educational • Day School - Grades K-12 • Boarding - Grades 8-12 • ESL - Grades 8-10 • Financial assistance available Outstanding preparation for higher learning and for life. Kimbell Hall and David Heffernan are the Centennial Year Head Girl and Head Boy. See page 6 for details. School Ties is distributed to more than 5,500 members of the St. Michaels University School community, including current families, friends, and current and past staff and students. The goal of the publication is to communicate current activities and initiatives and provide articles and reports on the alumni community. If C2 The unexaminedontents life 20 Feature: The Pillars you have any comments or suggestions What does it take for a student to turn in Action regarding this publication, please contact the beam of light that questions the lives Louise Winter at (250) 370-6176 or email: Head prefects Kathryn Wizinsky and [email protected] of others onto their own lives and onto Michael van der Westhuizen give the the world they are beginning to possess? students’ perspective on how the Pillars Published by the Advancement Office In the answer, says Bob Snowden, lies the have impacted school life. St. Michaels University School beginning of leadership. 3400 Richmond Road Victoria, British Columbia 21 Feature: On a Quest Canada V8P 4P5 4 SMUS Review for Leadership Telephone: (250) 592-2411 News stories from all three campuses Recent grad Sam Witt ’07 finds his first Admissions: 1-800-661-5199 published on our website between Email: [email protected] lessons in leadership beyond the SMUS years. September 2007 and February 2008. School Ties magazine and archive copies 23 Focus on Alumni: can be found in the publications section 8 CESI Report of the school website: www.smus.bc.ca The Diplomats The results are in – a summary of the The US Ambassador to Nicaragua meets If you are interested in attending report from the Canadian Educational his new Canadian counterpart at a school events, call (250) 592-2411 for Standards Institute’s visiting committee. further details, or visit the school’s cocktail party in 1982. What happens next website Calendar of Events: is one of those small-world coincidences. www.smus.bc.ca 8 National Debate Seminar SMUS recently had the honour of hosting Editors: Laura Authier, Lisa Clement, 24 Focus on Alumni: Louise Winter, Cliff Yorath a portion of the Canadian National Reginald Edward Bailey ’43 Debate Seminar. Organizer Sean Hayden Contributors (in no particular order): gives us a review of the event. Robert Snowden, Robert Wilson, Ian 25 Alumni News Hyde-Lay, Louise Winter, Cliff Yorath, Laura Authier, Kent Leahy-Trill, Brenda 9 Studying Abroad An update from the Alumni Association, Waksel, Erin Anderson, Lisa Clement, Grade 11 student Emma Houghton on the kicking off the Mentorship Programme Peter Gardiner, Sean Hayden, Emma Overseas Summer Credit programme. and the Heritage Walk. Houghton, Keven Fletcher, Doreen Metcalfe, Kathryn Wizinsky, Michael van der Westhuizen, Sam Witt, and SMUS 10 Athletics Highlights 26 Alumni Events community members. We apologize for and News Review of alumni events between any omissions. Sports highlights from September 2007 to September 2007 and February 2008 plus Photos: Evan Effa, Mike Jackson, Kent February 2008. Plus a basketball revival SMUS Alumni Weekend preview. Leahy-Trill, Erin Anderson, Lisa Clement, at SMUS. Cliff Yorath, Peter Gardiner, Gordon Chan, 30 Alumni Updates Diana Nason, Kirsten Davel, George 13 Arts Floyd, Sam Witt News from our alumni around the world. Arts highlights and news featuring Cover Design: Krucible Solutions our students, alumni, and Advanced 36 Continuing the Design and Layout: Reber Creative Placement Studio Art programme. Conversation Printed in Canada We share some of the letters and emails we W 17 Feature: The Process by Hillside Printing Ltd., Victoria, BC received about the last issue of School Ties. Behind the Pillars Rev. Keven Fletcher on how the building SchoolTies - Spring 2008 • blocks of our Leadership curriculum evolved, and Doreen Metcalfe talks about the Virtues Project at Junior School. This issue of School Ties was printed on New Leaf Reincarnation matte paper, manufactured with Green-e® certified renewable energy, 100% recycled fiber, 50% post- consumer waste, and processed chlorine free. St. Michaels University School saved the following resources by using this paper: 16 fully grown trees, 3,504 gallons of water, 7 million Btu of energy, 766 pounds of solid waste and 1,295 pounds of greenhouse gases. Calculations based on research by Environmental Defense and other members of the Paper Task Force. The life What doesunexamined it take for a student to turn the beam of light that questions the lives of others onto their own lives and onto the world they are beginning to possess? In the answer, says Bob Snowden, lies the beginning of leadership. SCHOOL of HEAD he unexamined life is not worth living. It is wonderful to work obvious: couldn’t all schools be said to be engaged in this Tat a school where many of the students know who Socrates is. discussion, in one form or another? The dictum is double-edged, of course, especially when the Our current discussion is special, we believe. At least we life the students don’t want to leave unexamined is the life of their believe our version of it is fresh, for us. A historic approach parents and teachers, rather than their own. in many schools – and I dare say, our school, too – is that What does it take for a student to turn the beam of light that the institution’s learning is measured by the preparation of questions the lives of others onto their own lives? What does it those brightest students who are the exemplars of the school’s take for students to turn the beam of light that questions the academic performance. They are the ones who get perfect scores world they feel they have inherited – therefore not their own – on provincial exams, and win scholarships to famous universities. onto the world which they realize they are beginning to possess? The school’s academic programme, in other words, rests its laurels Thus begins responsibility for themselves, and thus begins on pushing those top students to their greatest heights, and this responsibility for their world. It is the beginning of leadership. propulsion of them will, by association and momentum, pull all Know thyself, the oracle at Delphi said. The questioning other students along to do their best also. spirit lights the way to understanding of oneself and the world. Similarly: in the discussion of leadership, the historic approach Questioning can’t be unrelenting, and can’t spray like a shotgun in schools like ours is to create a system of responsibilities, teams at every target. If it is unrelenting, it doesn’t wait for answers; if it and opportunities that allow students to demonstrate their doesn’t want to wait for answers, then the questioning cannot be leadership capabilities, and eventually they will rise like bubbles judged sincere. And if it sprays on all possible topics and targets, in champagne – the true leaders in the student body – to the top. then it is uncritical, unintelligent, and more than likely designed These will be the prefects, the yearbook editors, the valedictorians to demonstrate how little everyone else knows than how one and the team captains. desires to know more oneself. More likely to be a metaphorical Many people will recognize both of these models, either in shotgun pellet, designed to wound the target, rather than that our school or in schools that they know or perhaps attended. beam of light designed to illuminate the mind of the questioner. Both of these models suggest that the quality of a school’s If I may resort to one last image from the ancient world: in a learning programme is measured by the performance of its top school with a Chapel, where the adults are apt to focus on the students, and the quality of a school’s leadership programme is many stories of Jesus the teacher, it is actually the one story of measured by the quality of its most prominent student leaders. Jesus the student, staying behind in Jerusalem to question the We are questioning the adequacy of these models, because priests and elders, which is the emblematic story.

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