High School Seminars

Georgia Frank, Interim Director of Chapel House, Charles A. Dana Professor of Religion, Colgate University

These days, so many media platforms and people demand our non-stop fragmented attention. How can we learn to center our thoughts and be more attentive to what really matters in the world around us?  This mini-course identifies practices human beings have adopted, across cultures and across time, to concentrate, broaden and deepen our attention and awareness. We will try some of them in a meditation center set in the woods on the edge of Colgate's campus: including walking meditation, sitting meditation, journalling, and silence. If the group is in agreement, Chapel House's therapy dog, Lily, might be joining some of our sessions. We shall explore how some religious people around the world have followed these mindfulness practices as well as how non-religious people find meaning in similar practices today as a way to discover empathy, health, and well-being. Prerequisites: None. No religious background is presumed or expected. 

To learn more about Chapel House visit our website or follow Lily and our students associates' posts on Instagram @colgate_chapelhouse.

Lyosha Gorshkov, Director of LGBTQ+ Initiatives, Colgate University

This class will be focused on discussing the idea of civic and political leadership through the journeys of figures such as Harriet Tubman, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Greta Thumberg, and Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera.

Tabisha Raymond, Assistant Director of First@Colgate, Colgate University

Get ready to discover your unique strengths and unleash your full potential! This seminar is all about supporting high school students like you as you navigate your academic journey and plan for the future. Join us for engaging sessions where you'll discover how to overcome challenges, explore college options, and set exciting goals. Through fun activities and supportive discussions, you'll learn to embrace your strengths, build resilience, and confidently pursue your dreams. Don't miss out on this chance to connect with peers, share experiences, and kickstart your journey to success!

April Sweeney, Professor of Theater, Colgate University

This mini course is designed to cultivate creativity, spontaneity, and collaborative skills through theatre play and improvisation. We will endeavor to discover the “quality of play”, which at its essence is a deep sense of far reaching curiosity.

The first step and one of the most important in preparing to study theater or perhaps succeeding at whatever you want to do in life is rediscovering your sense of play. “Galumphing” as noted anthropologist Stephen Miller calls it (taking his cue from Lewis Carroll) is a talent characterized in higher life forms. Play is different from game; it is the free spirit of exploration, doing and being done for its own pure joy. Process. The act is its own destination. The rediscovery of play leads to the cultivation of the imagination and the discovery of the power of one’s own creativity. Imagination is central and crucial for life.

Chimebere Nwaoduh, Assistant Director of Residential Life, Colgate University

Choreography 101 is a dynamic course for dancers of any and all experience levels. This class explores dance composition and expression through movement, allowing students to develop skills in choreography, performance, dance analysis, and collaboration. Students will tap into their own artistic reserve to craft original routines, thereby eliminating barriers to the creative process to more easily and quickly build out choreography. Students should wear comfortable clothing to move around in (i.e. t-shirt, sweatpants, fitness tights/leggings, etc.). Students are encouraged to wear either clean sneakers or socks, or dance in bare feet if preferred.

Ben Lennertz, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Colgate University

It is common to think that we don't owe much to strangers. But an influential philosophical argument suggests that people actually have far-reaching moral duties to strangers. According to this argument, it is morally wrong not to sacrifice great amounts of our time and money in order to make a stranger better off. In this discussion-based course, we will investigate this counterintuitive conclusion, and we will explore whether the argument for it is a good one. We will reflect on how to live a moral life with respect to strangers. Along the way students will gain familiarity with some common tools of philosophical thinking, like arguments, counterexamples, and thought experiments.