Sharp Pencils and Perfect Grades
At the start of a new academic year, everybody has sharp pencils and an A. It’s been a joy to see students, faculty, and staff welcoming each other back with great enthusiasm.
The annual college freshman “mindset list” from Beloit College always helps me better understand the life experience of incoming freshmen. This year’s class of 2019 (most likely born in 1997) has . . .
- Always known a world with Google
- Never licked a postage stamp
- Sometimes asked “Which one?” when talking about “the turn of the century”
- Never known a time when The Lion King was not on Broadway
- Always known Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic as members of NATO
- Never known a world without high-definition TV
Today’s students have grown up in a high-tech, fast-feedback world. Part of our charge—and welcome challenge—is to help them appreciate the discipline of reading great and weighty texts rather than 140-character tweets and learning to test their theories patiently in the laboratory.
We are seeing lots of excitement about the educational opportunities so abundant across Principia. At the School, the Middle School boarding program has restarted with 10 students. During Middle School orientation, all three grades (6–8) used the School’s latest iPads for a digital scavenger hunt around campus. Lower School students are exploring their renovated classroom spaces. (See what the teachers and students are saying about the changes in this month’s video.) And Upper School classes are getting ready to leave next week on Outward Bound character-education trips to whitewater raft in Idaho, backpack and rock climb in Washington state, and sail or canoe in Maine. Upper School seniors will plan and participate in a leadership retreat in Michigan during the same time.
We have a splendid group of diverse students joining both campuses. At the School, 36 international students from 17 countries are enrolled. At the College, we have 78 international students from 29 countries. What’s more, all the continents except Antarctica are represented on each campus!
Our new Indonesian student at the College shared how at home she feels at Principia, after longing to be here for years. And elsewhere in Principia News, you can meet the new student who traveled the farthest to attend the College. Whether they’re from just north of the border in Canada or all the way from “down under,” the incoming international students are a superb group of thoughtful, supportive, and sincere seekers.
Tomorrow afternoon, I’m looking forward to having the College come together as an academic community for convocation. Our distinguished faculty and academic leaders will don academic regalia, and we’ll welcome an exceptionally qualified group of new faculty members to the community. I’ll share updates on what we did on our summer vacation (publishing, researching, interning, and completing advanced degrees) as well as highlights of what we have to look forward to this year. Please join us on Principia Internet Radio at 1 p.m. (CT) Friday, if you can’t make it to Cox Auditorium on the College campus.
Later this month, we are looking forward to hosting Zuhal Sultan, founder of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq, who was named the 2015 Visionary of the Year by the Euphrates Institute. Sultan, at the age of 17, founded the orchestra to counter ISIS by promoting harmony, unity, and peace. She will speak at the College at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 24, and at the School on Friday, September 25, at 8:00 p.m. An accomplished pianist, Sultan will also perform at the College in Davis Music Hall on Friday at 1 p.m. (Both talks and the concert will be broadcast live on Principia Internet Radio.)
In just two weeks, we will be welcoming School alumni back for the Upper School reunion September 17–19 in St. Louis. We look forward to hosting this terrific group of Principians for a weekend of reconnecting and reliving high school memories. Register now so that you don’t miss out on the fun!
I hope to see many of you on one of our campuses this year. If your visit is anything like my days here, you’ll go home invigorated and inspired. Many thanks for your ongoing support.