Leadership Preseason

In the week leading up to Opening Day, St. Andrew’s fields and courts buzzed with fall athletes back early for sports camps. Boys soccer practiced throw-ins. Volleyball ran net drills. Football scrimmaged. And in Engelhard Hall, another team was getting their reps in: the Class of 2027.

“It’s preseason for leadership,” Director of Student Life Kristin Honsel P’24 says of the intensive three days seniors spend together before the whole school arrives. “For our seniors to fully embrace all that we’re asking them to do as mentors and leaders, we need to give them an opportunity to come back early. They can reconnect, settle in, and focus on defining themselves in a way that they haven’t had to do until now.”

There’s no playbook, exactly, but something close: the seniors discussed their class identity and values, who they want to be as leaders, and how. They gathered as a whole and broke into their dorm teams (there are no senior dorms at St. Andrew’s; all seniors live across campus with younger students).

Alice Fitts ’27 felt called to the value work. “We chose our five top values individually, and then duked it out over whose were most applicable to St. Andrew’s,” she says. What Fitts found most interesting as the days went on and discussions deepened, was that the values the class originally adopted shifted. The chosen values the seniors will stand on this year are trust, courage, love, and, the bedrock of it all, family.

Fitts’ favorite orientation activity involved a whiteboard. Her dorm team gathered with markers in hand while a faculty member called out prompts—“Who is most likely to help someone study even though they have their own work?” Each senior wrote a name and held it up. “It was so affirming,” Fitts says, “and everyone could see how appreciated we were as individual members of the community. It helped you realize how many people around you care, and how everyone on our dorm team is good at different things.”

Then came the scrimmages—dorm-life scenarios that got continuously harder. How would you respond to an underformer who constantly checks in late? A student who deeply dislikes their dorm job? Or the “cliques” that may begin to form that aren’t as inclusive as they should be? St. Andrew’s counselors and dorm parents were in the room with the seniors as they worked through the scenarios, and provided them a framework for when adults must step in.

“[The scenarios] made us realize situations could get complicated,” Fitts says. “It also ingrained the idea that we are students, too, and we will have to identify when we need to involve an adult.”

It’s a point Honsel echoes. “You’re still kids,” she makes sure to tell them. “Do not carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

In a way, Divya Bhatia ’27 has been training for this moment. She watched closely as her sister, Sonal Bhatia ’22, progressed through St. Andrew’s. Her sister would share stories about her senior year, and they often opened with a knock on a door.

“Now a younger student will be knocking on my door,” Bhatia says. “Maybe they’re feeling academic pressure, or having trouble making friends, or maybe they just don’t feel well.”

Or maybe someone just can’t figure out their bed frame. There’s no Dorm Furniture 101 in leadership training, but when a student’s bed frame broke, Bhatia got that knock.

“That was a quick, ‘Now-I’m-a-senior moment,” she says. “You have to be able to make quick decisions to support someone, and do it with the empathy they deserve.”  

There is a balance: Seniors require empathy, too.

“Orientation reminded us that we don’t have to be perfect,” Bhatia says. “We just have to be there, and let other people be there for us.”

Honsel didn’t have to look far for proof the training holds up on game day. One senior couldn’t be there on move-in day, leaving his freshman little sibling (all seniors match with a new student as their “little sibling”) without his “big.” Before Honsel could think of a fix, another senior had approached her. “Should I scoop him up?” the student asked. “We don’t want him to be alone.”

“Nobody ‘assigned’ that,” Honsel says. “That’s just what being a senior means here.”

When it comes to how they’ll personally lead, Bhatia says she’ll figure it out as the moment demands. “I’ll discover what kind of leader I am as I get thrown into situations,” she says. She’s inspired by former student Enid Appiah ’26. Appiah never gave grand speeches, Bhatia notes, but she closely observed. On stressful nights on dorm, she’d curl up on the couch in the common room and softly strum her guitar. “Her presence in those moments, the way she showed up how she uniquely could, mattered,” Bhatia says.

Fitts is focused on doing. She won’t stalk the dorm kitchen to tally who leaves dirty dishes in the sink. She’ll simply roll up her sleeves to wash hers. “I’m a quieter person,” she says, “so I’d rather lead by example.”

To celebrate their hard work, the Class of 2027 gathered for a bonfire at Rodney Point. They circled around the fire to sing their senior song—One Republic’s “I Lived”—the same shape, Bhatia realized, as the one they all stood in as freshmen on their move-in day, introducing themselves to each other for the first time. It struck her how much the St. Andrew’s circle continues. Bhatia dipped her toe into that circle of care this summer, texting with her little sibling to prepare her for campus—the same way her big sibling once did for her.

Neither Fitts nor Bhatia sees the work ahead as too heavy. They welcome it. “This is my last year of childhood, and I go to a school that recognizes that,” Fitts says. “I want to experience that, and be whimsical and happy during it, no matter how much work we have as school leaders. There’s always room for joy.”

Check out images from senior orientation, and the bonfire, at SmugMug!