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12465 County Line Road, P.O. Box 8002
Gates Mills, Ohio 44040-8002
440.423.4446
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Senior Projects
Keeping a Long Tradition
The Senior Project program at Hawken was instituted in 1968, several years after the opening of our Gates Mills Campus. Although many secondary schools in Cleveland offer their own versions of a senior project program, ours is one of the most longstanding.
The objectives and the essential structure of our program have changed little over the years. Senior projects at Hawken remain student-driven—leaving parents, the faculty, and other adults in supporting roles. Regarding the projects themselves, students inevitably discover that the most valuable projects are experiential rather than theoretical in nature—that in actually doing something rather than merely observing, a project becomes memorable for the student.
Recognizing the value of a senior project for our students, the School has always supported a program of unusual length. At Hawken the duration of an individual project ranges from five to ten weeks, and its venue may be local or transcontinental. Over the years, for example, students have shadowed doctors at the Cleveland Clinic, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, traveled to Spain to walk the Pilgrims’ Way, lived and worked at Zen monasteries both here and in Japan, and learned to construct post and beam houses by hand.
While the Senior Project program at Hawken helps create mentorships for our seniors, some students want a more independent experience. In 2006-2007, as an option to senior projects, the Senior Seminar program was created. When a senior chooses to do a Seminar, he becomes part of a small team of seniors who, over a two-month period, chooses to investigate a problem of regional concern—homelessness, poverty, the management of natural resources, neighborhood revitalization etc. The team begins by identifying a  concern, investigating it carefully, documenting their investigation, and then posing a conceivable response to the concern. In the second half of their seminar time, the team works to refine their response and test its validity through traditional research, interviews, site visits, experimentation, prototype construction and other methods. In June, as senior projects conclude, each seminar team presents its finding to a group of interested teachers, students, board members, or regional professionals.
Together the Senior Project program and the Senior Seminar program provide our seniors with a culminating Hawken experience, a transition to college and to the world beyond the classroom. For more information contact Jack Breisch at jbrei@hawken.edu. |
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