Focus on the Colwell Center
This essay is another installment in a series of stories by Isabel Magnus ’27 about topics of interest to the SJA community.
The Colwell Center for Global Understanding at St. Johnsbury Academy was launched in 2003 with the goal of becoming a forum for sharing knowledge, exploring different cultures, and helping students achieve a better understanding of the world. The Colwell Center hosts guest speakers, coordinates international and domestic trips for students, and organizes an annual visit for 30 students from the academy’s sister school in Tokyo, Japan.
International Trips for SJA students in the past have included Florence, Italy to learn about art, Spain, Argentina and France to practice languages, Japan to experience a vastly different culture, and Asia, India, and Ghana for service trips. This school year’s trip offerings include Barcelona in February, Japan, Greece and Mongolia in April and Alaska in June.
Next year’s proposed trips include Peru in November, Ghana, and Florence in February, Ireland, India, Germany and Prague, Blue Ridge Mountains, and Japan in April, and the Atlantic Coast in the summer of 2026.
The Colwell Center also hosts a guest speaker series featuring academics, diplomats, and other leaders, many of whom visit the academy from the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard. The Colwell Center focuses on hosting speakers from around the world who have unique perspectives on current issues to share with Academy students. One of the most interesting speakers, according to the director of the Colwell Center, Glenn Ehrean, was a female general from the People’s Liberation Army in China who, when pressed by Academy dorm students from China for answers about the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square demonstration and massacre, dismissed and evaded the questions saying that she had been in Beijing that day and had seen nothing out of the ordinary. Juniors and seniors interested in hearing more than just a speaker’s public presentation have the opportunity to join the Colwell Scholars program, which allows them to have dinner with Colwell speakers and engage with them in a more direct and personal way.
Finally, the Colwell Center coordinates a program with SJA’s sister school, Kaijo Gakuen, in Tokyo, Japan. Every year, 30 Japanese students are hosted by SJA families and can experience student life at the academy. They attend classes, participate in activities planned for them in the afternoons, hold a cultural fair for the SJA community, and spend time with their host families over the nine days. Many get to try new things like skiing, snowmobiling, and eating sugar on snow for the first time while staying in Vermont. At the end of their stay, the students and their host families enjoy a special dinner with singing, dancing, and skits performed by the students from Kaijo Gakuen.
