Jean Frazier Leadership Institute
The Jean Frazier Leadership Institute at Sacred Heart Schools promotes a leadership culture by providing authentic leadership experiences that create empowered leaders who seek to serve others. We believe that leadership can be taught through deliberate study and practice. The JFLI has created a four-part approach to leadership development, including social-emotional learning, skill-based learning, practice, and reflection. The three pillars of the Jean Frazier Leadership Institute (Leadership, Service, Financial Literacy) combine to provide a comprehensive leadership development program that inspires students to discover their passion and their purpose.
Sacred Heart Academy Leadership Initiatives
At Sacred Heart Academy, every student is influenced by the Jean Frazier Leadership Institute.
Freshman Year - Understanding Self
Navigation Teams
- Throughout freshman year, students have two upperclassmen mentors who guide them and a small group of peers through the high school transition.
- Meet during school at least monthly.
- Focus on creating a welcoming environment to ask questions and make friends, foster engagement, and introduce foundations of leadership, including growth mindset, team building, and communication.
Freshman Seminar (taken by all freshmen first semester)
- Aims to develop strong organizational skills
- Encourages social-emotional learning
- Prepares students to be successful in their high school career
Leadership Seminars
- Understanding personality through True Colors identification
- SMART Goals with a growth mindset
- Financial Literacy with Junior Achievement
Sophomore Year - Leadership to Self
The leadership focus for sophomore year is the Personal Project through our IB programme. Students choose a project based on their personal interest, set a goal to create an end-product, write a reflection on the process and present their project at a final exhibition. Students learn leadership skills such as organization, initiative, creative thinking, resilience, communication, and self-reflection through this sophomore capstone project.
Junior Year - Leadership to Others | Senior Year - Servant Leadership
In Junior and Senior years, students learn how leadership affects others through career development exploration, additional SMART goal setting, a two-session "presenting yourself" workshop, and the Charles Kane Family Internship Program. Many become Navigation Team Mentors to our freshmen, remembering the impact the program had on them as they entered SHA. Those who want to take advantage of every leadership opportunity through JFLI apply for and become Frazier Fellows.
Juniors have the opportunity to join SHA alumnae at 'lunch and learn' career development sessions. In addition to the full Career Day, these smaller presentations give students an idea about the educational path our alumnae took to reach their career destinations and learn about careers they are interested in. Past lunch and learn presentations have been from SHA alumnae in the field of Law (judges and attorneys), Human Resources, Business & Finance, STEM & Medical, including physicians, nurses, dentists, veterinarians, orthopedics, and chemical and mechanical engineering.
Adding to these opportunities are alumnae speakers who return to SHA to address the entire student body. Students have recently heard from:
- Laura Schwab, then head of Aston Marin Americas, now Chief Development Officer, Davinci E&P
- Nina Leigh Krueger, President and CEO of Nestle Purina Petcare U.S.
- Allison Aubrey, Reporter at National Public Radio (NPR) and CBS Sunday Morning
- Lucy Helm, recently retired Chief Partner Officer with Starbucks.
Charles Kane Family Internship Program
This internship program is open to all juniors and seniors who wish to explore a topic in a career setting. Students complete 40 or 80 hours at a worksite, interview leaders, keep an electronic blog of their experiences, conduct research, and make a final presentation in order to receive academic credit. Students remark how they grow confident by getting out of their comfort zones and realizing their career potential at such a young age. Over the last two years, more than 50 students have completed internships in our Louisville community and in places like Chicago, Boston, and Stockholm.
Frazier Fellows Leadership Certificate of Distinction
Students who wish to take advantage of every opportunity the Jean Frazier Leadership Institute offers complete the Frazier Fellows program. Frazier Fellows consists of three years of comprehensive study and practice focusing on servant leadership. Students who complete the program graduate with a certificate of distinction in leadership on their formal high school transcript.
- Authentic leadership workshops including character strengths, personal finance, presenting yourself, SMART goal-setting, and more
- Personal Finance Course
- Quarterly online leadership modules
- Small-group discussions
- 40- or 80-hour authentic leadership experience or internship
- Leadership Portfolio
- Leadership capstone presentation
Results that Add Up
- Fifty students completed 40- or 80-hour internships in the summers of 2021 and 2022, and more than 30 will grow through internship experiences in the summer of 2023.
- Forty-seven members of the Class of 2022 graduated with the Frazier Fellow leadership certificate of distinction on their transcript; 43 members of the Class of 2023 will earn this honor, and 61 members of the Class of 2024 are Fellows.
- From 2021 to 2022, the number of SHA graduates who earned college scholarships specifically for leadership more than doubled.
- Over 100 alumnae returned to SHA last year to mentor and network with students through small group sessions catering to specific fields and larger seminars, fireside chats, and speaker sessions.
Leadership at Sacred Heart Model School
Sacred Heart Model School inspires leadership in every student. By emphasizing the International Baccalaureate (IB) learner profile attributes, classrooms become safe environments where students can take risks, develop a growth mindset and build confidence. Through the yearly stewardship program, students learn empathy and compassionate leadership. Leadership is infused throughout the curriculum.
Working with school counselors, the Institute trained mentors from SHA to lead small group discussion with SHMS middle school students on a variety of topics ranging from empathy, listening, respectful conversations, and physical and mental health.
Ambassador Program
The Jean Frazier Leadership Institute and SHMS Enrollment office designed a leadership opportunity for students in Kindergarten through Level 6. The Level 6 students trained to be Ambassador Coaches to pairs of homeroom reps in Kindergarten through Level 5. The coaches create their own lesson plans and teaching materials to effectively coach the younger students to welcome guests to their classrooms.
Level 7 Interview Skills
The Institute works with Level 7 students on how to set up, prepare and conduct an interview at a local service organization for their IB Community Project.
Proven results at Sacred Heart Model School
In addition to other initiatives, ambassador and mentor programs and the Presenting Yourself workshop occur each year. Even with little programming occurring in 2020, the results over the last five years are impressive:
- 170 level 6 Ambassador Coaches trained 160 student ambassadors in kindergarten through level 5.
- 25 SHA students led eight servant-leadership activities and discussions with students in Levels 7 and 8.
- Sixty students have participated in the Presenting Yourself workshop since 2018, where they learned interview skills and communication etiquette.
Leadership at Sacred Heart Preschool
Sacred Heart Preschool believes that the earlier students can learn leadership the sooner they can make a positive difference. Through a curriculum framework that supports developing the whole child and emphasizing social-emotional learning, SHP is creating caring, compassionate, and competent leaders.
SHP has embraced multi-generational mentorship to provide tangible role models for students. The Ursuline Sisters of Louisville visit SHP classrooms periodically and together they participate in activities to build community. The Level 3, 4, and 5 students at Sacred Heart Model School read to the preschool students and freshmen theology students from Sacred Heart Academy visit throughout the year. These mentor opportunities allow for the preschool children to see leadership in action from a broad range of ages, skills and groups.