Nationally Recognized…Again!
Winchester Thurston has been awarded a 2009 Edward E. Ford Foundation Leadership Grant. WT is one of only 20 schools nationwide to be invited to apply for this honor, and one of only four to be awarded a $250,000 matching grant. This is the second national foundation to recognize WT's educational program; in 2007, the Malone Family Foundation recognized the school's excellence in gifted and talented education with a $2 million grant.
"I am so proud to have the endorsement of these two important foundations, both of which have studied, evaluated, and recognized hundreds of the most highly regarded independent schools in the nation," says Gary J. Niels, Head of School.
In 2004, a grant from E.E. Ford catapulted City as Our Campus from an idea to a reality. The school used the grant, which was matched anonymously by a WT alumna, to create a special fund to provide entrepreneurial teachers with resources, and a peer committee to provide technical assistance, with the goal of supporting faculty in their efforts to extend their classrooms and connect their curricula to the considerable educational, research, and cultural resources in the region. Over the last five years, WT teachers have spawned unique educational partnerships, creating hands-on experiential units and courses that bring learning to life. In these partnerships teachers have found transformative ways for students to apply knowledge, deepen understanding, and discover passions (since 2004, the faculty committee has awarded 15 grants), and City as Our Campus has quickly emerged as an engine of innovation and imaginative teaching.
The early success of City as Our Campus prompted E.E. Ford to invite WT to compete for a Leadership Grant last summer. The school began to envision ways to expand City as Our Campus, in a series of intensive planning sessions that involved the contributions of faculty, Advisory Board, trustees, and administrators. A vision emerged for new programming that will engage WT students more deeply as contributors to the future of Pittsburgh, through research and service on real urban problems, and through immersion in the arts. As it expands City as Our Campus, WT will create a model for educational partnership that can be replicated by other schools.
"This grant is an affirmation of our faculty's dedication to innovative teaching and commitment to experiential learning," Niels continues. "Through City as Our Campus, Upper School students have designed, conducted, and documented animal behavior studies on endangered species at the Pittsburgh Zoo; they have practiced jazz at the feet of master composers and musicians from around the world at the acclaimed Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, a jazz preservation society and Grammy-winning recording studio; they were the first to uncover and analyze primary records of the anti Viet Nam war movement in Pittsburgh at the Archives of the Industrial Society, realizing insights other historians had missed. Experiences like these demonstrate the powerful potential of City as Our Campus. With this Leadership Grant, City as Our Campus can emerge from its R&D phase, and WT can take our place in the national landscape with a model other schools can use."
"When he called to give me the good news that we had won the grant, Robert Hallett, E.E. Ford's Director, told me that the foundation board recognized that our vision represents a groundbreaking new direction for our school as we seek to strengthen our connection to the city and enhance our program of experiential learning," says Niels. "He also said that the WT Advisory Board was an impressive element that made our school stand out among the six finalists. The engagement of a diverse and dynamic corps of regional luminaries is a truly unique phenomenon in the independent school world that E.E. Ford would like to see other schools replicate in service to educational innovation and partnership."
E.E. Ford introduced its prestigious Educational Leadership Grants program in 2007, to stimulate and reward educational innovation. Schools may apply by invitation only, and must commit to an intensive process that includes a concept "white paper" (through which the initial field of 20 schools was narrowed to six finalists); a day-long site visit by the foundation; a comprehensive proposal; a detailed financial analysis; and a presentation to the foundation board in New York.
E.E. Ford will match dollar-for-dollar the funds raised by Winchester Thurston for the City as Our Campus initiative, for a total of $500,000. The school has two years in which to raise the matching funds.
