News Detail
Hunter Davis ’13 Goes to Washington
Hunter Davis ’13, a junior at Friends School, attended The School for Ethics and Global Leadership, an independent semester school in Washington, DC, for three and a half months in the fall. He learned about the program at a semester school fair held on his campus. With an interest in politics and global relations, Hunter says, “it seemed like an obvious fit.”
The program, created for intellectually motivated high school juniors, focuses on ethical thinking skills, leadership development, and international studies. In addition to a typical course load for a junior, Hunter also had two half days of Ethics and Leadership class each week that brought in guest speakers and gave students time to work on collaborative projects.
Wednesdays were entirely dedicated to Ethics and Leadership. This could mean presenting a capstone, listening to guest speakers, or visiting the Pentagon. To end the day, SEGL students went to Thompson Elementary School, where they ran Books and Basketball, a program for underprivileged youth at the school.
SEGL students practice their speech-writing for candidates in a class taught by Lissa Muscatine, Hillary Clinton’s speechwriter who is responsible for great speeches like Clinton’s 1995 Beijing speech and the concession speech to Obama in 2008. Hunter was assigned to write for Trump, which he says was a great experience to write for a candidate with whom he personally doesn’t agree.
In addition to the course load, Hunter and his classmates created a 50-page policy document that Hunter then presented to the State Department. They met with the desk officer for the Dominican Republic as well as the Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, who noted that they wished they had the students’ policy document when they were discussing the issue with Vice President Biden.
Throughout the semester, the students met many politicians. Hunter says, “the best people to meet were the ones who often aren't in the limelight, but do the most work. One person I met who was very inspiring to me was Carl Wilkens… He was the only American to stay in Rwanda during the genocide of the Tutsi people and is directly responsible for saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives… He is still remarkably humble and down to earth and very open about his experiences.”
Of his semester in Washington, Hunter says, “Overall, it was a wonderful experience that I would recommend to anyone, especially Calvert kids who are academically and socially prepared for such a rigorous experience away from home.”
Calvert School is a coed independent lower and middle school.
