Honored by Governor's Honors

Elizabeth Kendrick and Elizabeth Serafen will head to Valdosta State University this summer to attend the 2015 Governor’s Honors Program (GHP)— Kendrick to study science, and Serafen, French.

The two Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School rising seniors were selected for the four-week, residential summer program for gifted and talented students, which runs June 21—July 18. Isabelle Smith will serve as an alternate in French.

For four consecutive weeks, the young women will spend mornings in their major areas of nomination, exploring topics not usually found in the regular high school classroom. Evenings will be filled with seminars, activities, concerts, and performances.

Kendrick worked last summer in Dominca establishing clean water and sanitation for a community, and has a passion for the environment and for ecology. Serafen “breathes, eats, and dreams in French,” said English teacher Melody Cannon. “She loves the language and has been able to actually hone her skills in France.”

Cannon praised the three Holy Innocents’ students for making it through a competitive application process that included writing samples and supporting documentation to even qualify for State-level interviews. “Our nominees competed with more than three thousand of the best students and made it to the State-level,” Cannon explained. “In the individual interviews, Elizabeth Kendrick was asked to extrapolate information and discuss possible research applications from data sets she had never seen before the interview. And both Elizabeth Serafen and Isabelle Smith were asked to do their interviews (including an extemporaneous writing piece) in French.”

Selection, based on a combination of ability and interest, is highly competitive.

Also returning to Governor’s Honors in Valdosta is Upper School Choir Director Tom FitzStephens, who will serve a fourth year as the Vocal Music Director. FitzStephens, who will teach voice and conducting, has described the experience of working with such talented students as unforgettable. “Every crop of students is superbly talented, focused, passionate, inclusive, and hungry for knowledge, and although I present them with unreasonable challenges, they consistently rise to the occasion.”

The Georgia’s Governor’s Honors Program is the longest continually running program of its kind in the nation. The program offers instruction that is significantly different from work in the typical high school classroom—a program designed “to provide students with academic, cultural, and social enrichment necessary to become the next generation of global critical thinkers, innovators, and leaders.”

More information about GHP, which is now administered by the Georgia Office of Student Achievement, can be found on the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement website, https://gosa.georgia.gov/governors-honors-program.