The Prefect System

A linked chain appears on the CGA Crest, signifying that friendships forged at Culver can last a lifetime. If you as CGA alumnae, there's a very good chance they will tell you that friends made during their first months at Culver Girls Academy became friends for life.

Culver encourages an environment of warmth, openness, and support fostered by faculty and staff and cultivated within the dormitories by student leaders to maximize opportunities for girls to learn important life skills and practice leadership roles. By tradition, each new girl entering CGA becomes a "Little Sister" guided with help from a "Big Sister" in a mentoring role. Special activities are programmed during orientation and during the early part of the school year to ensure that new girls are well cared for as they make the adjustment to living away from home and being a student at Culver.

Freshman year at Culver fosters a sense of belonging as girls from communities throughout the nation and the world discover new friends and become valued members of the Culver community. Certainly freshman girls learn about time management and study skills as they tackle the rigorous academic subjects taught in the classrooms of Culver, but they also learn valuable lessons about citizenship, leadership and life skills, the importance of the Honor Code, health and safety, and making wise, informed choices. 

Throughout freshman year, girls learn important lessons about the values symbolized in the CGA Crest. If they learn those lessons well, they earn the honor and privilege of wearing the Crest on their blazer.

An open book and blazing torches aptly represent sophomore year at Culver Girls Academy, as girls gain knowledge and learn to light the way for others. Sophomore year at CGA affirms character strength. Girls learn the benefits of collaboration and develop the confidence to become excellent leaders. Sophomores memorize and recite the CGA Leadership Oath, pledging to put the powerful words into action. 

Girls are fully engaged at Culver – in the classrooms, on the stage, on the athletic fields. Whether learning lessons in leadership from the back of a horse as an Equestrienne, courageously performing a solo in front of an audience in Eppley Auditorium, or taking a leadership role in the dorm, sophomore girls gain self-awareness – not only of their personal talents but also their personal potential, affirm their character strengths, and absorb knowledge and wisdom from their peers, their mentors, and their instructors. Sophomores grow in mind, spirit, and body through Culver's integrated curriculum that emphasizes the cultivation of character. 

By the end of sophomore year, the girls have studied the history, importance, and structure of the CGA Prefect System, and are prepared to take on leadership roles in the governance of their dorms.

The broadswords and balanced scales on the CGA Crest signify strength and justice. Junior year girls at Culver learn to become strong and just leaders who can truly make a difference who can truly make a difference in the lives of others by practicing ethical decision-making and effective leadership. 

The CGA Prefect System parallels democratic government and allows girls to self-govern, lead each other, take on responsibility, and serve as role models. At Culver, girls participate in activities and exercises to promote the understanding and adoption of specific virtues and values – the cardinal virtues of compassion, moderation, justice, courage, and wisdom, and the essentials of ethical decision-making: integrity, commitment, vision, communication, critical thinking, self-discipline, competence, and responsibility. 

Experience gained serving through the CGA Prefect System allows girls to discover firsthand that virtuous behavior is critical when leading others. Junior girls learn to listen well and to be compassionate, open-minded, and non-judgmental. They learn proper ways to resolve conflicts, how to establish achievable goals for themselves and their peers, and learn to be part of a leadership team that works together in a spirit of collaboration. Working together, they develop shared goals, strategies, and plans for their senior year.

Symbolic of service and success, the star and the laurel wreath shown on the CGA Crest frame the CGA Leadership program designed to prepare students for success in their senior year at Culver, and beyond. By senior year, the lessons of leadership have been learned and integrated, and the young women are teaching and empowering others, mentoring, modeling high standards, and holding others accountable.

Seniors at Culver Girls Academy are prepared to lead their peers and their school. This doesn't mean they "rule the school." Rather, they practice servant leadership and lead others by example, modeling the high standards to which they hold others, as well as themselves, accountable. Now it is their turn to be the leaders of Culver: communicating a vision, setting goals, and delegating responsibilities. Most importantly, seniors are training and empowering younger students to become the future leaders who will follow in their footsteps. 

During this pivotal year, guest speakers and interactive workshops challenge students to ready themselves for transition to the next stage of life.

From their first day on campus, CGA students have been challenged to serve others as members of their dorms, teams, clubs, the local Culver community and globally as well.  With Service as a value embedded in our Leadership Plaza, students are expected live out service – others before self - on a daily basis.  As developing leaders, they are challenged to identify community needs through discovery and empathy and then connect with others to seek to meet that need. Seniors have collaborated to address social justice inequities and to promote more sustainable practices.  They serve to support the more vulnerable members of the community in schools and retirement homes and enable others to share their perspectives through workshops and presentations.   

Graduating seniors are given time to reflect on their work in service to the community and write a service leadership essay to celebrate the lessons learned and the growth through striving, failing and striving again.  Seniors are now ready for the future that awaits them in an ever-changing global world beyond the Graduation Arch, the symbolic passageway from Culver Girls Academy to the larger world beyond. 

Throughout their Culver careers, the virtues and the lessons represented by the Crest have moved well beyond the image sewn on their blazers and are now etched deeply into their minds and emblazoned on their hearts. Indeed, the young women who graduate from CGA now personify the virtues and values of the Crest they have worn with so much pride. They have become shining stars – true Culver daughters – deserving of laurels and praise.