About EWS

School Mission Statement

onoring its founder’s vision, Emma Willard School proudly fosters in each young woman a love of learning, the habits of an intellectual life, and the character, moral strength, and qualities of leadership to serve and shape her world.

An Emma Graduate

The following statements about the outcomes of an Emma Willard education have been developed and affirmed by our faculty. They serve as the foundation for our curricular and co-curricular programs.

 A graduate of Emma Willard School…

• will develop facility with a common academic vocabulary through mastery of the competencies, both content and skills, of each discipline.
• will value integrity in all her endeavors.
• will be aware of the impact of her gender on how she views the world and how the world views her.
• will be able to generate her own questions, hypotheses, and assumptions.
• will demonstrate the ability to gather and evaluate from any relevant source the information needed to answer questions, test assumptions or hypotheses, revise and support theses, solve problems, or make decisions.
• will be able to synthesize creatively and critically her own experience and that information most useful to the challenge with which she is engaged.
• will have mastered a variety of forms of expression (written, spoken, artistic, performance) to communicate the knowledge she has gained, and ultimately to articulate the beliefs she holds and her interpretations of her world.
• will value and practice wellness which will include learning to find a balance between her expectations of herself and her resources.
• will cultivate the spirit of intellectual exploration, and develop the self-assessment skills and the self-discipline necessary to be an independent learner thereby bringing shape to her passions.
• will develop the ability to make effective decisions.
• will understand that not all good decisions have good outcomes, and will accept responsibility for the outcomes of the decisions that she makes.
• will understand the lens through which she views the world and respect individual differences of experience and perspective while recognizing the importance of shared values within a community.
• will have the tools to succeed in college.
• will be able to work effectively both collaboratively and individually.
• will be able to build the connections among disciplines that will enable her to understand the interdisciplinary nature of knowledge.
• through grappling with experiences of success and failure, will gain an understanding of and confidence in her strengths and in her ability to persevere in the face of adversity.