Student Connection

“Mission Statement:To cultivate the joy, wisdom, and experience of liberal arts learning in the spirit and style of Samuel Clemens and Desiderius Erasmus, and within a relaxed and personal learning culture that fosters a love and exploration of ideas, meaningful conversation, and friendship. Program Service Accomplishments:SEI ran formal groups, trips, meetings, and pilot events in accord with our liberal arts mission with 3 general demographics or groups: a) high school and college students, b) educators, and c) adults. These collective activities happened in 4 general regions: the primary regions of a) Texas and b) the Mid-Atlantic area of Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, and in Princeton, New Jersey, and in the pilot regions of c) the Chicago, IL. Working within continued limitations of Covid, several groups for the primary demographics and regions met 2-5 times throughout the year with meetings at cafes, inns, and homes. We continued occasional liberating arts happy hours for professionals in the Washington, D.C. area and Chicago, which were open to a variety of persons who did not attend regular meetings. We continued a more concentrated effort in the Washington D.C. region, including helping to transform schools into liberal arts schools in the SEi spirit, helping to have SEi educators take leadership roles in schools, and beginning efforts to have local institutions offer cultural caf events for the general public and local community. These community efforts focus on cultivating the understanding and experience of jazz, offering community theatre, and poetry and philosophy events, with an emphasis on Plato. (Our hope continues that these will be steps toward future SEi cafes, or like initiatives where communities gather for conversation and liberal arts learning). In addition, SEi took steps in the area of educational consulting. Discussing with various leaders of large school systems about forming schools in the liberal arts spirit of (SEihumanism in the general spirit Erasmus and Clemens). We hope to revisit and incrementally expand this educational consulting initiative. We have begun revamping our website and will unveil the new site in 2024, with future plans to extend offerings and educational and cultural resources on the site. Furthermore, SEi has set sights on planning an annual conference which it sees as a strong strategic step to grow the influence of SEi. Incremental steps will be taken in 2024 with the expectation of a first conference in 2025. SEi provided all educational materials, curriculum, planning, marketing, guidance, teaching and training of group leaders and assistants, and event refreshments. Directly, 75 persons were part of 5 separate groups and regularly engaged with semi-monthly activities, and numerous (200+) students, (20+) teachers, (4+) administrators, and (8+) board members/educational leaders were directly and indirectly formed and influenced by SEi efforts. In addition, we have much feedback noting broad impacts on schools, businesses, and homes.”

“Description AmountInsurance 11,586Advertising and Marketing 275Meals & Entertainment 15,106Program Expenses 5,351”

“Category Beginning of Year End of YearOther Assets 0 2,700”

“Category Beginning of Year End of YearPayroll Taxes 957 1,723”