The crowd—a mix of students, teachers, administrators, and parents—waits eagerly at one end of the lobby outside Lyndon Institute’s Alumni Auditorium. At the other end, senior Jac Piluso appears, drawing cheers from the crowd. A big grin spreads across his face as he races down the carpet pulling…half a canoe.

Though, in truth, what started as half a canoe has been transformed into something much more—part wheeled cart, part Viking ship complete with dragon head and sail, its hull filled with drinks and snacks ready to sell, as Jac explains, at track meets and games, with the proceeds going to support student travel.

It’s been a long day of presentations from the students in English teacher Dick McCarthy’s inaugural Pursuing Passion course, a companion class to Pursuing Purpose, now in its second year. The two courses have helped form the backbone of the Vail Scholars program, an initiative to encourage students to push themselves in new ways both academically and through community engagement.

“It’s been a journey,” Piluso told the gathered crowd inside the auditorium during the earlier part of his presentation as he introduced a short film he’d created to chronicle the endeavor. “There were some roadblocks along the way, but I got through it with lots of help.”

He, like his peers earlier in the day, was taking the audience through his Keel Project. “A Keel Project is like a Capstone Project, only better,” he noted. “Because what you do correlates both with what the school needs and with your own passions.”

He explained what he called the project’s “four pillars”: “There is identifying the problem or need, deciding on your goals, developing a process, and creating your criteria for success.”

For Piluso, his project revolved around a somewhat funny, if a bit strange, premise—what do you do with half a canoe? As it turns out, quite a bit. For Piluso, it gave him an opportunity to draw from his experience working with his family’s hot dog stand business and create something that served a need—offering concessions to athletes and visitors to LI sporting events that didn’t have any.

His presentation followed fellow senior Daegan Hever’s. Like Piluso, Hever’s passion is for business. Presenting his slides, Hever explained that a big part of the challenge of the Keel Project, and the course in general, is turning a personal passion into something tangible and real. “It was hard knowing where I was going to go with it in life,” he told the crowd. “This class helped me understand how to do it.”

Hever’s original plan was to create a website. “But as I got into it, I realized that I needed to do more. So I decided to teach a J Term class as the basis for my project.” 

Hever designed a course for aspiring entrepreneurs around starting a business. “We focused on the ABCs. Achieving expertise, building connections, changing roles.” 

As part of his research, Hever met with LI alum and local entrepreneur and community developer Evan Carlson, who helped by offering his own expertise and experience.

For Hever, learning came not just through his research and outreach but largely through managing his J Term class. “I quickly realized that teaching is not easy,” he said, drawing laughter from the audience. “It made me really appreciate how hard a job our teachers have working with kids.”

As you might imagine, the Keel Projects reflect a wide range of topics and passions. For senior Amelia Cornelius, who is also this year’s valedictorian and recipient of UVM’s Green and Gold scholarship, passion means politics. 

Her presentation, which came earlier in the day, reflected that passion. “I focused on the theme of ‘Politics, Identity, Character’ by looking at modern politicians, particularly presidents, through the lens of physical appearance,” she told me later.

While Piluso and Hever’s presentations took place in the auditorium, Cornelius’s was given in the more intimate setting of the Sever Conference Room in the school library and drew from her months of research that culminated in a 50-page dissertation.

After her presentation, Cornelius deftly handled a series of questions from her peers. What does the education system need to do to educate voters? How are things different outside the US? Other questions focused on the process. How did you do your research? How do you handle your own bias? What’s the difference between the student you are now versus when you started the process?

Her peers were clearly in awe. “This is the best presentation I’ve ever heard in my life,” one said. “Keeping a person interested for that long is hard,” another observed.

“Presentation day was one of the most notable days in my high school career,” Cornelius told me. “I usually hate having to give presentations, but I felt so prepared for this. All of the Keel presentations were great. It was nice because we were all there for each other.”

Overall, Cornelius came away from the class with an appreciation for the experience. “The class was really enjoyable,” she said. “It gave us a chance to become who we are. And I loved the freedom that came with it. You kind of got to develop your own schedule, which was exciting but required a lot of self-discipline.”

For McCarthy, Pursuing Passion has been a satisfying follow-up to Pursuing Purpose. 

“When we first put together the concept for the Vail Scholars program we kind of had a vision for what this class might look like,” McCarthy said. “The idea was always to have two courses and that students in the honors track could take at least one of them as part of earning their honors diploma.

“Part of the framework for both classes revolves around a question—when it comes to school, if grades didn’t matter, then what would?”

While Pursuing Purpose focuses on stewardship and the spirit of community engagement, with an emphasis on the school’s transferable skills of problem solving and collaboration, Pursuing Passion takes those elements and adds self-direction as a point of emphasis. 

“It’s similar to St. Johnsbury Academy’s Capstone class. Students identify a passion, and embark on independent study in pursuit of it. So much of schooling asks students to work on getting better at stuff they’re bad at. There’s nothing wrong with that, but this course takes a little bit of a different approach, asking students to work on getting better at something they’re already good at, which is a refreshing change.”

While each student is responsible for tackling an individual project, the students spend the year together, working on their ideas and supporting each other in that work. 

“We start the year with a skill survey,” McCarthy explained. “It’s important for them to key in on what they’re both good at and what they really care about.”

First semester focuses on developing their projects, culminating in a fifteen page research paper. What are experts’ opinions on their area of study? How can the student add their voice to the subject? What do they know now that they didn’t know before? 

Along the way, students are required to find a mentor outside the classroom who is a specialist in their topic to work with and use as a sounding board.

Second semester is about putting the research and planning into action, executing on their vision, completing their Keel Project and preparing for their final presentation, which is open to not just their peers, but faculty, staff, and parents. 

This year’s projects covered a range of endeavors. In addition to Piluso’s portable Viking dispensary, students painted murals on the 3rd floor, crafted a mighty arch at the entrance to the nature trail, developed a cross country running course on the trail, started a new volunteer club, started a rock band and established a framework for future student-led music ensembles, and taught J Term classes in business and fashion. 

Why the “Keel” Project?

“I borrowed the idea from when I was Head of Lower School [grades 9-10] a few years ago,” said McCarthy. “We used to talk about the idea of ‘filling the boat,’ of living a full, rich life in school. And it was in keeping with LI’s nautical Viking theme. The keel is part of the structure of the boat that helps anchor it, keep it steady and moving forward. It offers direction and stability.”

As the students—particularly seniors—set off for new horizons through turbulent times, it’s hard to think of a better metaphor.