Offshore Leadership | Ashley Hall

Offshore Leadership Program Overview

With its rich maritime history, Charleston offers the perfect backdrop for an academic program centered on tall-ship sail training. Ashley Hall’s Offshore Leadership Program has distinguished itself as one of the School’s signature programs building leadership skills and a deep love for one’s natural surroundings.

Upper School students apply for the competitive program each spring and participate the following academic year. Their experience includes learning about Charleston’s maritime history, celestial navigation, marine biology, and study of the classics including Plato’s seafaring credo “ship, shipmates, self.” The class is capstoned with a week-long voyage crewing a tall ship along the east coast.

The program provides a transformation experience that instills confidence in girls. A national survey recently released shows girls’ confidence nose-dives 30% in middle school which affects the rest of their lives.* Ashley Hall’s Offshore Leadership Program combats this directly by instilling confidence at vulnerable time in a girls’ life and prepares her for long-term success. It is an excellent example of the inquiry-based, experiential learning that Ashley Hall believes cultivates self-reliant, independent thinkers.

NEW IN 2024

Now in its sixteenth year, the Offshore Leadership Program is also going through an exciting transition. In the spring of 2024, it will partner with World Ocean School, a non-profit specializing in providing educational sailing experiences, to sail on the Denis Sullivan, a replica of a three-masted Great Lakes schooner. The program will also officially become a year-long course offering rather than an extracurricular commitment. 

“The transition to a class will offer a deeper experience,” explains Upper School faculty member and class instructor Roscoe Davis, Ph.D. Specifically, there’s a philosophical basis of the OLP experience, he explains, that will be developed even more within a class structure. “Students have always started by self-identifying their weaknesses and reflecting on what they’d like to improve on. It’s all about leadership – and you can’t be a leader of others unless you’re a leader for yourself first.” 

Learn more about Ashley Hall signature programs

*The Atlantic: How Puberty Kills Girls’ Confidence, by Claire Shipman, Katty Kay and Jillellyn Riley.

Media Coverage

One of its kind in the country, Ashley Hall’s Offshore Leadership Program has garnered national media coverage over the years. Enjoy a few articles below.

Voice of America Radio

Full Court Press with Greta Van Susteren

The Post and Courier Newspaper 

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Ashley Hall is a K-12 independent school for girls, with a co-ed preschool, committed to a talented and diverse student population. We consider for admission students of any race, color, religion, and national or ethnic origin.
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