Hamilton Scholars

The Hamilton Scholars is a fully-paid educational program open only to Gold award winners and a select number of Silver award winners each year. It begins following receipt of the Hamilton Award in the spring of the award winners' junior year. Designed as a four-year program, Hamilton Scholars covers subjects not normally available to high school or undergraduate college students. Topics explored include the preparation of a personal vision statement, personal career development "mission" plan, goal development and setting, time management and entry-level organizational issues.

Hamilton Scholars is designed to supplement traditional college education so that students emerge from college employable in a field of study that furthers their personal vision and development plans. Once the program is fully developed we intend to make it available through AHFA trainers and publications so that it may be replicated in communities across the country.

Each of the four years in the program includes an academic-year curriculum running from September to April, plus an intensive week of leadership training called the Hamilton Leaders Academy during the summer months.

As of July, 2008, two years of the Hamilton Scholars program have been introduced. Programs for the third and fourth years are in the planning phase.

The first year program culminates in a week-long Academy experience in Seattle, and the second year concludes with an international service experience in a Central American country. When operational, the third-year Hamilton Leaders Academy program is planned for an East Coast location and the fourth-year program will return to Seattle.
 

Hamilton Scholars Educational Program (the "Program") Curriculum Goals

The Program has four broad curriculum goals: transition; empowerment; heritage and character education; and leadership development.

Transition. Transition is concerned with the rapidly-changing environment students face as they move from their home and high school setting to college and the work place. The first-year program centers around the college admissions process and adjustments that students will face when they go to college. In subsequent years, transition to the post-college world dominantes the curriculum. Students learn proper written and electronic business communications, methods to use when applying for jobs and graduate school, and organizational behavior. 

Empowerment. The AHFA empowerment curriculum is designed to help students develop a passion for an attainable future vision and the strategic planning skills to begin the journey toward that vision's attainment. In the first academic year, students focus on a personal vision statement and a seven-year personal development “mission” plan. In subsequent years students learn how to manage their time effectively and to break up long range objectives into shorter attainable ones.

Heritage and Character Education. Heritage and character education are taught using case studies, many of them drawn from the life of Alexander Hamilton, that remain relevant today. The objectives of this curriculum area are to broaden student knowledge of America's history and heritage, and  to foster appreciation of how at critical times American leaders have relied on their core values as a basis for difficult ethical decisions.

Leadership. At the AHFA leadership training is concerned with the state and conditions under which people who guide, direct and manage groups of individuals as well as small and large organizations develop their skills, mature, succeed -- and sometimes fail. Our first-year program is concerned with self-leadership through the development of the personal vision statement plus the seven-year personal development plan. Later program years focus on leadership of others, using case studies to train students in entry-level leadership techniques applicable to a collegiate environment and ultimately to organizations of various sizes, whether private or public.