In September of every year, soaked under a lingering summer sun, the Hun community gathers on the Mall for the annual Concovation ceremony to start off the new year.
The day prior to Convocation, however, welcomes a unique group of students back onto campus: incoming ninth grade students. These ninth grade students begin by meeting with their advisors and participating in team bonding activities.
To make this day work, a lot of behind the scenes work is done by another team of people: The Hun School Peer Leadership Program.
The peer leadership program is made up of around forty juniors and seniors who completed an application at the end of the 2024-2025 school year and were selected from a large pool of applicants.
Over Labor Day weekend, the peer leadership cohort met back at school for a three-day retreat to prepare for freshman orientation, plan for the 9th grade retreat in September, and further develop their leadership skills, both as individuals and as a cohort.
At the end of the three days, peer leaders were put into groups of two or three as their “co-leader” for freshman advisories, and also into larger Exec groups, composed of four to five peer leader pairs.
As Neil Sadhu, an eleventh grade peer leader, excitedly explains, “you get to mentor kids, freshman specifically. And you get to talk about the Hun community.”
As peer leaders to a freshman advisory, assigned at the beginning of the new school year, peer leaders act as a liaison between freshman and their advisors. In other words, younger students are provided with an additional point of contact to use as a supportive resource.
Although peer leaders only stay with the advisories for one year, the connections they make during this time leave a lasting impact.
10th grader Kendall Kasper still remembers her peer leaders from last year; “My experience with my peer leaders was very inclusive,” she said, “they made all of my advisory members feel included…they invited me to sit with them at lunch sometimes, and they’d say hi to me in the hallways and just make me feel welcome.”
Now that the school year is in full swing, peer leaders have taken more of a backseat role, further developing their leadership skills in weekly meetings and helping out around school when needed. However, they are still active, providing a yearlong commitment and bond with their 9th graders and with each other as a cohort.
