Center for Ethical Leadership and Service

We believe that every person has inherent worth and deserves to be seen, heard, and valued. Our community draws strength from difference—of background, identity, and perspective—and from our shared commitment to learning with and from one another.

Through DEI programming, dialogue, reflection, and collaboration, we help students understand themselves and others, learn to operate with a grounded sense of empathy and awareness, and act courageously to create inclusive communities and to lead with conscience, building authentic belonging wherever they go. 

We believe that we all have an obligation to make a difference in the world, to contribute to the greater good, and to respond with purpose to the needs of others. Service learning is an essential part of our school culture and the student experience. 

Through our Community Service programs in every grade at NCS, students engage with their local communities, build moral responsibility, and develop the skills of service-learning as they understand the importance of discovering, exploring, and supporting their communities.

We believe that, in an increasingly complex and interconnected world, ethical leaders must build their cross-cultural competency and understanding of the world. Global Programs is critical in providing students with a window into the broader world around them and opportunities to engage with it. 

Through our Global Programs, students experience, research, and reflect on issues beyond their immediate environment, building global perspectives, learning how to engage with empathy, collaborating across difference, and self-reflecting through independence. 

CELS is inherently interdisciplinary. Its work cuts across academic disciplines and connects co-curricular and extra-curricular life. 

On one level, CELS programming invites collaboration among the DEI, Community Service, and Global Programs offices. On another, it engages with academic classes, advisory programs, our chaplains, arts, athletics, and more. CELS enables students to integrate what happens in the classroom, on the field, and on the stage, with time for reflection and exploration of themselves and their connection to their community and the world.

By weaving reflection, action, and academic inquiry, CELS ensures that ethical leadership is not a standalone module, but a lived dimension of the NCS experience.

• Diversity Forum
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Cathedral service and programming
• Faculty and staff professional development
• Student leadership development conferences
• Service project days with community partners like Excel Academy, Sacha Bruce Youthwork, and Armed Forces Retirement Home
• Faculty/Staff and Parent/Guardian SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) seminars
• Affinity groups and alliances
• Upper School Equity Board, which plans and executes Diversity Forum
• Upper School Intersectionality Council
• Black Parent Alliance
• Upper School Service Board, which plans Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service and other Upper School service events
• Governing Board Diversity Committee

• Lower School Respect, Integrity, Service, and Enjoyment (RISE) covenant and curriculum to build community and create a safe and inclusive space for every student
• Middle School programming on Ethical Leadership
• Upper School CELS seminars in 9th and 10th Grades on identity and community engagement
• A required 60 volunteer-hour service commitment, completed in Upper School, that includes structured reflection for each student
• International exchange programs and trips providing language and culture immersion and learning (recent programs and trips include the London exchange with St. Paul’s Girls’ School and trips to Costa Rica, Spain, Paris, and Taiwan)
• Access to external extension study programs, semester- or year-long academic studies away from NCS

• Unique fellowships and independent projects to propose, plan, and execute original research and analysis on a range of topics. Many fellowships include travel, often aboard, to conduct research.
• Haile Climate Change Fellowship: Established in October 2022 by the parents of NCS alumnae, this fellowship gives NCS students an opportunity to explore a climate solutions pathway that addresses one aspect of the climate crisis. Students are encouraged to look at climate change through different lenses—economics, scientific, political, societal, and/or design. Through self-directed research or by joining an existing program, students can offer ideas on what communities might do to be better prepared for climate impacts; how to reduce emissions from specific sources or greenhouse gas emissions; or how to accelerate the more widespread adoption of clean energy resources. 

Students also are welcome to offer ideas on how societal and geographical challenges associated with combatting the climate crisis can be addressed. Similarly, global issues also can be addressed, including how to incentivize the participation of all nations of the world to join the climate fight and how protecting and restoring natural resources such as forests, grasslands and wetlands can have an important impact.