The Capstone Scholars Program is a two-year learning community, for high-achieving students, with a focus on beyond the classroom engagement. While students are not required to live in the same residence hall, the majority of students in the program live in either Capstone or Columbia Hall. The option for students to live anywhere on campus required our staff to make the extra effort to connect with students and make sure they felt supported by the program. As a result, during my time with the program we created Capstone Consultations. This initiative required all scholars to meet one-on-one with their pre-assigned advisor each semester. During these meetings staff were able to get to know students on a personal level, check in on their academic progress, and also make sure they were getting involved in extracurricular activities.

 

As Assistant Principal, I was primarily responsible for programming such as coordinating social events (Hot Cookie Fridays), service opportunities, and workshops as well as supervising the Capstone Ambassadors. Using survey data, I was able to make some beneficial changes to the Capstone Scholars program based on attendance, feedback from students, and ability to scale the program to size. The primary change was to dissolve the Capstone Ambassador program in favor of an opt-in mentoring program, while also creating the Capstone Scholars Programming Council, both of which are still in existence today.

 

Some other significant accomplishments during my time with Capstone was bringing over the Emerging Leaders Program (from the formerly known Campus Life Center) and creating Capstone specific sections. This allowed participants to get to know more students in the program while also developing their leadership skill sets. ELP also provided our staff (including graduate assistants) the opportunity to lead their own sections. The following year we created another leadership opportunity by adding peer leaders to the ELP process. We increased from 16 students our first year to over 51 participants in our second year. I believe the tremendous growth was due to the positive experiences students had in the ELP and recounting their experience to other students in the program. In addition to creating these leadership opportunities, I initiated the first student leadership retreat in my second year in the program to provide our student leaders with an opportunity to get to know each other and staff outside of the work setting.

 

Finally, one program I was particularly proud of was spearheading a collaboration with the Career Center in offering a Scholars Networking Brunch during Parents Weekend. The goal was to encourage scholars and their parents to attend the brunch and have Career Center staff facilitate networking based on different sectors (non-profits, education, healthcare, etc.). Scholars were then encouraged to network with the parents of their peers in hopes to make connections (learn about internships, find a mentor, etc.) via networking with their new social circle.

 

Highlights

-Going skydiving in my first year with the program with the other Assistant Principal, Erin Wilson and 50 Capstone Scholars

-Leading multiple service trips each semester in addition to developing mentoring partnerships with Allen University and AC Moore Elementary School

-Co-leading international service-learning programs to Accra, Ghana (2014) and Rio de Janiero, Brazil (2016)

-Coordinating the development of a summer orientation video to showcase the benefits of the program

-Initiating and coordinating with Substance Abuse Prevention and Education (SAPE) and University Housing to assess high-risk behaviors in the Capstone Scholars population via a student survey