The Hutchins Center for Civics at The Lawrenceville School is a multidisciplinary academic hub that prepares young people to become informed, engaged citizens through innovative scholarship, programs, and experiential learning.
The Center, established in 2021 as the Hutchins Institute for Social Justice, focuses on strengthening, deepening, and expanding our collective civic capacity needed to foster a more just society. It supports advanced student research, faculty fellowships, summer studies, and other opportunities designed to increase our sense of civic belonging, responsibility, and community.
The Hutchins Family Foundation, which focuses its change-making efforts in the areas of education, health, and public policy, provides primary funding for the Hutchins Center for Civics. The Foundation’s co-founder Glenn Hutchins ’73 is a trustee emeritus of The Lawrenceville School. Additional support was provided by trustee emeritus David Ottaway ’57 and Marina Ottaway.
Inspired by the pioneering definition of civic media first offered by Henry Jenkins as part of MIT's Center for Civic Media, the Hutchins Center for Civics frames civic education as education that increases capacity in five key areas.
| INFORMATION |
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Acquiring and conveying meaningful information through research, study, teaching, and learning, fostering informed decision-making. When we talk about being informed, we are talking about acquiring and conveying meaningful information through research, study, teaching, learning, and fostering informed decision-making. We are at our best when we come to the table informed, ready to listen, question, and contribute thoughtfully.Connor H., Fifth Form Student |
| CONNECTION |
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Strengthening community bonds and encouraging openness to collaboration, building a cohesive civic network. Here at Lawrenceville, we have many different opportunities to connect. This is important because strengthening community bonds and encouraging openness to collaboration are necessary to building the kinds of relationships and networks needed to work for the public good.Miranda D., Fifth Form Student |
| ANALYSIS |
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Engaging multiple perspectives critically with academic rigor and respect, applying tools of analysis to identify and address societal challenges. At Lawrenceville, Harkness learning sharpens our analytical skills. This is only possible if we engage multiple perspectives of an issue with respect and academic rigor. By critically analyzing multiple, conflicting perspectives, we arrive at a stronger conclusion. These skills help us identify and address community challenges, shaping our goals for the future.Andy Z., Fifth Form Student |
| VISION |
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Offering clear insight into the forces that shape our lives, while crafting and advancing transformative visions for the future. Vision means seeing clearly how social forces shape our lives, how institutions operate, and how decisions get made in ways that impact us. Vision allows us to craft and live the future we would like to see.Roshan H., Fifth Form Student |
| ACTIVATION |
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Recognizing and inspiring individual and collective agency to take meaningful action for positive change. We do not need to be politicians, journalists, athletes, educators, artists, or influencers to be civic actors. We are already civic actors. We have the responsibility to acknowledge and use our individual and collective agency to take meaningful action for positive change. We do this by sharing information, strengthening connections, sharpening our analysis, inspiring vision, and motivating action.Bunny H., Fifth Form Student |
The Hutchins Center’s initiatives thus aim to inspire generations of change agents, equipped to acquire and convey meaningful information, strengthen community bonds and encourage openness to collaboration, develop critical perspectives through rigorous analysis, promote transformative visions for the future, and inspire and encourage civic action. Drawing on best practices in the evolving field of civic education, the Center helps ensure that students are well prepared to meet the challenge put forth in Lawrenceville’s mission statement: “to lead lives of learning, integrity, and high purpose."
| HUTCHINS SCHOLARS IN CIVIC LIFE |
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The Hutchins Scholars in Civic Life program offers selected students in the Fourth Form (rising Fifth Form students) an opportunity to immerse themselves in the multidisciplinary study, skills, and ethics of values-based civic engagement. The program consists of two required components: (1) a two-week summer residency (held in June before the Fifth Form year) and (2) a Fifth Form fall term interdisciplinary course, Honors Seminar on Civic Life. Classroom activities, team- and community-building exercises, and experiential learning with expert practitioners and through field trips allow Scholars opportunities to expand their conceptual and methodological toolkit for strengthening, deepening, and expanding collective civic capacity. During the fall seminar, the scholars design, implement, and assess a civic life campaign around an issue of their choosing. Hutchins Scholars’ campaigns are featured as part of Lawrenceville’s annual Civic Awareness Day and Fall Academic Showcase. Applications for the Hutchins Scholars in Civic Life program open to students in the Fourth Form in the winter term. |
| HUTCHINS STUDENT CIVIC MEDIA GRANT |
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The Hutchins Student Civic Media Grant program offers students in the Second through Fourth Forms instructional support and funding to complete non-fiction media projects during the summer. Grants support non-fiction storytelling (narrative documentary) projects, in any medium, that advance a shared understanding of and collective responsibility for addressing issues that impact our civic life, with special consideration given to image-, video-, and digital-based formats. Recipients of Hutchins Civic Media Grants meet virtually as a cohort throughout the summer for instruction and feedback as they complete their projects. Selected projects are presented as part of Lawrenceville's annual Civic Media Festival, and all projects are showcased as part of Civic Awareness Day and Fall Academic Showcase. Applications for the Hutchins Student Civic Media Grant program open to students in the spring term.
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| COURSE OFFERINGS |
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In addition to the Honors Seminar on Civic Life course offered to Hutchins Scholars in Civic Life, faculty affiliates of the Hutchins Center for Civics offer a wide range of courses in multiple disciplines that provide students opportunities to deepen their studies of civic life and engagement. In advance of the annual scheduling fair, the Center provides a list of courses for student consideration.
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| HUTCHINS FACULTY FELLOWS |
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The Hutchins Faculty Fellow in Civic Education program offers faculty a one-year fellowship (renewable for a second year) to develop curricular projects in any discipline designed to increase civic belonging, responsibility, and community. Each Hutchins Faculty Fellow receives institutional support and a stipend throughout the academic year to complete a project that builds civic capacity in one or more of the five areas framed by the Hutchins Center’s approach to civic education: information, connection, analysis, vision, and activation. Faculty Fellows meet as a cohort during the academic year, work with mentors, and present their work to Lawrenceville colleagues as part of a Faculty Fellow Showcase. Faculty Fellows completing a second year of the fellowship are encouraged to develop work that is public-facing and can be amplified to external audiences beyond Lawrenceville. Applications for the Hutchins Faculty Fellows in Civic Education program open in the spring term. All faculty who expect to serve as full-time faculty during the tenure of the fellowship year are eligible to apply. |
The Civic Media Festival is an annual red-carpet gala event that celebrates the work of Hutchins Civic Media Grantees that use non-fiction storytelling (narrative documentary) to advance a shared understanding of and collective responsibility for addressing issues that impact our civic life. The evening features a presentation of selected media projects, a panel discussion with media creators, and an afterparty with dessert food trucks.
Civic Awareness Day is a half-day of all-school programming organized annually by the Hutchins Center for Civics, designed to inspire, inform, and invite us to act with greater care and responsibility as members of the Lawrenceville community and our greater society at large. The day includes an all-school assembly, workshop sessions led by faculty, staff, and students, and a Civic Fair where students learn about the campaigns organized by Hutchins Scholars in Civic Life and practice civic engagement through activities like canvassing, letter writing, and voting.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Commemoration
The Hutchins Center for Civics organizes Lawrenceville's annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration in collaboration with the Office of Community and Belonging. As a presenting partner, the Hutchins Center is primarily responsible for developing program components that highlight the civic themes of King's life and legacy.
Mini-Residencies
Hutchins Center for Civics Mini-Residencies are visits by scholars, artists, activists, and practitioners working to increase civic capacity. They provide opportunities to deepen our thinking about civic life, listen to and learn from each other, and promote community-centered and impact-focused action. Each Mini-Residency visit is designed to offer a range of programs that allow for multiple points of contact for members of our community, including school-wide assemblies, professional development for educators, guest teaching in classes, and informal gatherings during meals and receptions. Past guests included historian and journalist Dr. Stacey Patton '96 and Irish-American activist and author Michael Patrick MacDonald.
Listening as a Civic Act
Listening as a Civic Act is a curated music listening series that guides participants, and invites them to guide each other, through intentional listening as a way to explore identities, share histories, build community, and expand our imaginations. The listening practice is built around four acts - search, discovery, resonance, and understanding - that frame participants' engagement with, and reflection on, the ways they construct meaning and form attachment. This meaning-making models a creative process that is attentive, connective, and collaborative; and cultivates the curiosity and wonder that are essential to the work of civic capacity building.
Community Workshops
Hutchins Scholars, Faculty Fellows, and Civic Media Grantees regularly design and facilitate civic capacity building workshops for the community. Past workshops have explored the art of politics and the politics of art, examined the role of social media in civic life, introduced systems analysis to understand the underlying causes of social issues, assessed the viability of political labels, and engaged in civic-inspired game play.
Zaheer Ali serves as the executive director of the Hutchins Center for Civics and leads the Center’s team of educators and staff in designing, developing, and directing its programs.
