Kate Wade and RISE Program Receive National Recognition

For the past several years, Grade 10 Dean Kate Wade has devoted her time to conceptualizing and implementing the RISE program at Rivers. As the full name - Reflection and Introspection for Service Education – indicates, the program is designed to encourage Rivers’ sophomores to explore and reflect on their individual leadership skills and put that self-knowledge to work through community service projects.

For her efforts, Wade was recently awarded the inaugural Gardner Carney Leadership Institute/Penn Fellowship in Pedagogy of Leadership, a $20,000 grant toward a masters’ degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania. Wade will continue teaching and advising at Rivers while working toward her master’s with a focus on school leadership. She will be matched with a headmaster from a local independent school as her mentor, and her final portfolio will examine how to develop leadership in students, using RISE as a model.

Wade’s award, given “on the basis of her outstanding work in building the RISE program at Rivers,” was presented at the 9th Annual Leadership Lab at the Gardner Carney Leadership Institute (gcLi) in Fountain Valley, Colorado. Teachers from across the country and around the world meet each year at gcLi to hear and discuss the latest research on how to teach leadership skills in their schools. Wade, a 2011 graduate of the gcLi Leadership Lab, served last week as an alumna scholar at the conference, and has spoken at and written for the institute in recent years.

In addition, more than a dozen Rivers teachers have attended gcLi for summer leadership workshops since Upper School Dean of Students Samantha Brennan first participated in 2006. Over the years leadership, defined at Rivers as “being one’s best self, and positively influencing others.” has become increasingly central to the school’s mission. Funding for the summer workshops is provided by professional development grants from Rivers.

“The RISE program's foundation in service learning, the projects we do, and the teachable moments that we capitalize on during and after, provide countless opportunities to develop leadership,” Wade said. “It’s not in obvious ways, but through supporting each student in his or her growth in those abstract qualities that define successful leadership: perseverance, integrity, empathy, resilience, innovation.

“Throughout the whole process,” Wade continued, “Jeanette Szretter, our director of community service, has been a great mentor to me, sharing her years of experience organizing community service at Rivers, to help develop a program for our sophomores at a point when they are looking to transition into leadership roles at the school and beyond.”

The success of this spring’s RISE service day, and now its recent national recognition, is a clear indication of how hard Wade worked to advance the program.

To read more about the RISE program and the spring service day, click here.