In August junior Shanna Ballesteros travelled 3,000 miles to Washington, D.C., to experience a semester at the brand-new School for Ethics and Global Leadership (SEGL). She will return Saturday Dec. 19.

ABOUT SEGL According to its Web site, SEGL is a “selective, semester-long residential program for 32 intellectually-motivated juniors from across the United States.”

Its purpose is to provide a rigorous curriculum to help students analyze public policy through an “ethical lens without prescribing a partisan outcome for their analysis.”

Adolfo Mercado, Breakthrough Sacramento Director, suggested Ballesteros for an SEGL scholarship.

“Since there are 34 Breakthrough programs in the U.S. and Hong Kong, each Breakthrough program was invited to nominate one student,” Mercado said.

According to Mercado, SEGL looks for students who are committed to academic excellence and social entrepreneurship. Ballesteros was the perfect match.

“In the five years I have known Shanna, I have seen someone who takes her analytical skills to assess challenges in larger communities and then works tirelessly to improve or combat the challenge she sees,” he said.

CURRICULUM Ballesteros’s schedule at SEGL includes Spanish, Pre-Calculus, U.S. History, English, three free periods and an Ethics and Leadership course, which includes “case studies.”
Recently, Ballesteros worked on a case study on whether or not the U.S. should continue giving aid to Afghanistan.

On Monday morning, the case study is presented, and students discuss it, identifying the key ethical leadership questions that it raises.

On Friday evenings, the solution to the case study is presented by each team of students.
Between that time, there are two four-hour blocks on Tuesday morning and Friday afternoon dedicated to information-gathering pertinent to the case studies. This is when students collaborate with local leaders and institutions to help find solutions to their case studies.

When working on the Afghanistan case study, Ballesteros met Jane Marriott, deputy head for Afghanistan issues in 2007 and 2008.

Ballesteros also met Derek Hogan, member of the President’s Committee and Mark Dybul, the United States Global AIDS Coordinator.

“I winded up visiting representatives of Senator [Barbara] Boxer and Congresswoman [Doris] Matsui,” Ballesteros said.

She represented Boxer in a simulated debate.

During the semester, students are given a total of four case studies.

CAPSTONE PROJECTS In addition to case studies, there are three Capstone Projects incorporated into the semester.

The “Collaborative Capstone” takes place in the third month. The student body selects one international issue and investigates it. When they are finished, they draft a paper that proposes a solution to the issue.

Once the document is finished, it is shared with leading academic institutions, media sources, and political leaders. Then the students lobby the outside leaders to use their solutions.
The second is the “Credo Capstone.” The purpose of this project is to answer the following questions, “Where do you stand on the questions of ethics and leadership that are most important to you?” and “Given your answer to the previous, how are you going to live your life?”

At the end of the semester, each student will present his/her Credo to the school community.
The last project is the “Community Capstone.” Each student chooses an issue in the local, national, or global community. Once chosen, the student can engage in community service, activism, or social entrepreneurship to combat the issue. The point is for the student to reach out to people affected by the specific issue.

Work on this project starts at SEGL, but students are encouraged to continue once they’re back at home.

There are no extracurricular activities included in the program. There also aren’t many social events (such as dances) outside the classroom.

“There are no events of that kind, but we did have a talent show with a mini-dance,” Ballesteros said.

DORM LIFE Students live in an old townhouse on Capital Hill behind the Supreme Courthouse. The dorms are co-educational with boys on the first and third floors, and girls on the second.
Students live in two, three, or four person rooms. The rooms are relatively small, but have a desk, bed, and shared storage space for each student. There are common areas for socializing, and bathrooms with showers on each floor.

Ballesteros’s floor has a resident advisor, Robert Ross, who supervises them.

“In a way it’s like college, but in a way it isn’t because we are always non-stop with each other, which is a good thing, but it can be frustrating at times,” Ballesteros said.

Every week at a dorm meeting students bring up ideas, concerns, and reflections about how to make the living halls better.

When the academic day is done, students return home around 6 p.m. Dinner is at 7:30 p.m. After dinner, study hall is from 8-10 p.m. and check-in is at 10:30 p.m.

“There is an alarm set every night so no one can leave their floors after check-in [at 10:30 p.m.],” Ballesteros said.

During study hall students do “residential chores.”

Each week, the students’ responsibilities change.

“This week I have common room clean-up, so I have to sweep the floors, vacuum the rug, and just make sure it is neat and respectable,” she said.

Students also complete a morning chore before breakfast.

WEEKENDS Weekends begin after lunch on Saturdays. The Saturday night activity is decided by students every Tuesday. Events have ranged from dance classes to casino nights.

“The activities are generally very fun. For example, we went to a corn maze!” Ballesteros said.
According to the SEGL brochure, Sundays are for relaxation, with time for fun with friends, laundry, optional field trips, community service projects, or religious services.

ADJUSTING Ballesteros admits that in the beginning, she was extremely nervous.

“I didn’t know if I could compete against the students here intellectually,” she said.

QUOTE “I’ve learned that we are all capable of becoming leaders, but it is the different experiences or figures in our life that shape us into those leaders. The best decision is not the one that is best accepted,” she said.

“It’s more understanding the struggle within yourself and using that understanding to better yourself.”