What is the Servite Formation Program?

Phase One: Class Formation Teams

Phase One brings all teachers, counselors and coaches together into four class formation teams responsible for the academic, leadership/teamwork and character/spiritual development of each individual student, as well as the spirit and bonding of each class. 

 

Each class formation team (freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior) includes all teachers, counselors and coaches associated with that class.  All teachers, counselors and coaches at Servite participate in a class formation team.  Each class formation team is led by a director of formation who is responsible for the overall performance of the team.   The four formation directors work with and report to the principal who functions as the chief formation officer.

 

The formation teams are responsible as a team for the progress of individual students and the class as a whole.  This means that if a student is having problems in a History class, then other teachers (i.e. Math and English teachers)—as well as the counselor and coaches—have responsibility for getting the student to achieve the appropriate goals in History.  Because everyone is responsible for class spirit and bonding, teachers have an incentive to work with coaches and activity leaders to control homework, testing, sports and activity schedules to ensure that the students are not overloaded.

 

By holding the team as a whole responsible for achieving individual student and class objectives, each teacher, counselor and coach has a direct interest in the success of each student.  Teachers, counselors and coaches have an incentive to work together to proactively identify student strengths and weaknesses, and to handle potential problems as early as possible.  As they become more directly involved in achieving student success, formation team members will become more fully professionally and emotionally invested in the students and class.

 

To ensure that students are achieving their goals in all areas and to proactively identify problems, formation teams conduct regular reviews of each student's performance.  While there is an initial teacher/counselor/coach time-investment requirement in this regular review process, we are confident that in the long run the investment will be more than offset by time savings in other areas such as completing the syllabus with increased speed and spending less time handling long-festering problems.

 

Phase Two: Priory Leadership Structure

Phase Two of the formation program involves dividing the student body into student-led groups that include seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen.  Seniors hold the primary leadership positions, with juniors and sophomores holding secondary and tertiary leadership positions within each group.   All students are divided up into eight groups called 'priories' (a Servite name for a community) of 110-120 students each. 

 

Each priory has a faculty/staff advisors to help student leaders.

 

Students within each priory are evaluated by more senior students and faculty/staff on their performance as followers and/or leaders.  The evaluation program makes students responsible to each other—especially to upperclassmen—for general disciplinary issues like campus sanitation, behavior during liturgies, professional dress, dress code, etc.   The evaluations may become part of each student's leadership portfolio in the Leadership Certification Program.

 

The first priority in the Servite Formation Program is the Class Formation Team component.  Because of adequate progress in phase one of the program, we began work on implementing of phase two in the spring of 2006.

 

Phase Three: Leadership Certification Program

The leadership certification program is intended to provide Servite students with an opportunity to develop their leadership abilities and document their progress in a portfolio.  The program should not only help Servite men understand and practice the art of leadership, but the portfolio should also provide Servite graduates with an advantage in college admissions. 

 

The program will include both academic and practical components.  The academic component will include classroom study, mentoring sessions and journaling of leadership experiences.  The practical component will include evaluation of all leader/follower positions while at Servite.  Leadership opportunities can include ASB/Priory Council positions; sports team captaincy; activity or academic competitive leadership; internships with Servite alumni and/or parents; and jobs with select non-profits and businesses.

 

As phase three of the Servite Formation Program, the Leadership Certification Program is the last component that will be implemented.  Planning will be concurrent with implementation of phases one and two, but implementation of phase three will not take place in earnest until sufficient progress has been made in the earlier phases.

 

Questions