School Culture Committee Reflection

I am very unhappy that this activity has ended. I emailed Mr. Hieser the other day to see when the next meeting for the School Culture Committee would be and he informed that unfortunately there would be no more. This hasn't been a very extensive CAS activity, but I presumed that we would be doing more work over the course of the next two years, and so although there was great effort in the Committee during my sophomore year, we didn't do too much while I have been a junior.

I came into this activity last year with no idea what to expect, but I quickly became accustomed to my duties. It was a great organization with the intent of discerning the culture of Sturgis, a difficult task to say the least. I was honored to have been chosen as one of only two students represented in the Committee, and I knew that I would have great responsibilities. As I mentioned, most of the work done by the School Culture Committee was completed by last spring. This included planning for and administering a survey.

For this year, my goals were simple: to collaborate with the group to comprehend the culture of our school and to annotate the key points for why the school is successful. I loved doing this activity and learning about our school society. It was an awesome chance to do service for my school in a unique, creative, and positive way.

The duties of this year were basically to decipher and present the results of the survey. The School Culture Committee met a few times in winter to go over the results of the HSSSE survey from last year. We had to work together to figure out which results were the most important for understanding our school culture. It required hours of reviewing and discussion, and I had to focus intently on the task at hand. I developed new skills in sociology as I reviewed the HSSSE and worked with others to figure out what made Sturgis unique.

The final event of the School Culture Committee was a presentation to the faculty. I was able to present my knowledge of the survey and offer the very important student perspective. I was proud of myself for working so hard over the course of two years and to see my efforts culminate in this meeting. I really had endurance, persevering for months and months in the tedious but important task, and was committed to solving the identity of our school. I think I met my goals to the best of my ability. Of course, there can be no precise definition of something so broad as the culture of a school, but I worked well with others to try and understand why Sturgis is so successful. I am satisfied with my efforts.