Chatham Hall 101 Reimagined for Newest Generation of Turtles

In summer 2022, Frankie Beyer stepped into the new role of assistant director of community life and wellbeing and was charged with reimagining Chatham Hall 101 for a post-pandemic world.

“My focus has really been about the skills our students need to have to be successful at Chatham Hall,” she said. “I’ve really looked at how we can teach them those skills during their first semester here so that they can be the most successful.”

Reinstated in fall 2022, Chatham Hall 101 once again helped New Girls acclimate through weekly meetings centered on topics strategically timed to match the life of the School.

“We’re helping them navigate those first ten or so weeks of school and preparing them for the roadblocks and challenges that they’re going to face before they face them,” Beyer explained.

To kick off the program, participants learned about support structures at the School — everything from how and when to use an Advisor to where to go for assistance with technology. The group also learned about the Honor Code, Purple & Golden Rule, and White Flag, tenets upon which Chatham Hall’s community norms are founded.

“We did that before our Picnic Honoring the New Girls and our Honor Chapel where everyone at Chatham Hall signs the Honor Code,” Beyer said. “We wanted to make sure our new students really understood what the Honor Code means here before they signed it.”

Also in Chatham Hall 101 curriculum is study skills timed to be taught ahead of students’ first big projects, and social-emotional skills such as navigating relationships.

“For a lot of our new students, this is the first time that they have lived away from home and away from their parents,” Beyer said. “They’re living in community all day, every day. There’s not really an off time when you don’t have to interact with other people, so we want to help them learn good communication skills and how to deal with conflict in a healthy way.”

The program partnered with the One Love Foundation, a nonprofit founded to honor the unnecessary and tragic death of Yeardley Love by engaging young people through films and conversations about healthy and unhealthy relationship behaviors.

“We discuss relationship behaviors in terms of a romantic relationship, but also in terms of friendships,” Beyer said. “It has helped students recognize how their friendships are going, and if they need to have some open communication with their friends about how to make their relationships better and stronger.”
These lessons had an impact on this year’s new students.

“Chatham Hall 101 helped me settle into life at school by showing me how to navigate uncomfortable social situations that might arise in a boarding school environment,” reported Marilyn Mack ’26, who enjoyed the real-life scenario format of the lessons.

For Anaiah “Ana” Charway ’26, having Honor Council members lead some of the programming was invaluable, as were the scenarios Mack noted.

“Chatham Hall 101 helped me settle in by teaching me how to manage my classes and friendships, and keep a balance between the two,” she said. “I learned about different ways to solve problems and how to make the best use of your time during the day. The Honor Council came in to teach us about how to use our emotions to solve problems and about being an upstander instead of a bystander. We were in groups and were given fake scenarios to see if we could come up with the best solutions for the problems.”

It is a goal of Beyer’s that all of the lessons and activities in Chatham Hall 101 contribute to building community at the School.

“We’re hoping that the girls are taking away some tangible skills but also hoping that a big takeaway is that they feel at home and like they have a place here,” she said. “It helps them get to know other students, start to have those tough conversations, and learn just what it means to be a true student at Chatham Hall.”

Introducing Chatham 401 
In spring 2024, Chatham Hall introduced a new program to help seniors feel ready to take on the world off campus. The health and wellness focused Chatham 401 program not only equips these students with more life skills, but offers them a space to ask questions before heading off on their next adventures.

Expanding on lessons taught in both January Term and College Counseling, the inaugural Chatham 401 was led by Nurse Lynne Maddox and content was specifically chosen to introduce skills and knowledge to care for oneself in the world outside of Chatham Hall.

Sessions focused on the broad topics such as medication management, first aid care, self care, and medical insurance. Students were able to ask questions and explore everything from ending an unhealthy relationship to understanding the drawbacks of popular energy drinks to where to find reliable health-related information online. How to stay healthy, manage time efficiently, and be proactive about one’s own health and wellness were also discussed.

While discussing caring for one’s self, Maddox mantra was: “Just do it. Only you can take care of you. Find what you need to do for self care and make that a priority. You are worth taking care of!”