80 Students Participate in Close Up
How do you get Belen U.S. Government students to test their political wits with 200 high school students from California, Texas, Michigan, Louisiana, Oregon, and New Mexico?
By having them participate in the Close Up program in Washington, DC.
With the Presidential Inauguration on January 20 and the Women’s March on Washington the next day, 80 Belen students and teachers arrived on January 22 for the new President’s “First Week.”
With an extra dose of excitement in DC, the students visited the magnificent monuments and memorials before getting into extensive discussions on political issues of the day. Our students got first-hand experience debating peers from across the country with decidedly different points of view!
Capitol Hill Day brought nine distinguished Belen alumni to the Rayburn HOB to recount their Belen memories and life-lessons learned. When House Foreign Affairs Committee Staff Director Eddie Acevedo ’01, Secret Service Special Agent Manny Vasquez ’90, and Department of Homeland Security Deputy John Barsa ’84 needed to excuse themselves a little early because they were on-call to be with President Trump that morning, the group got a dramatic sense of Belen’s impact in government.
Another highlight of this year’s Close Up was getting to explore the newly opened National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Along with the Newseum, Embassy Row, the works of Daniel Chester French, the Changing of the Guard, and the National Gallery of Art, Close Up always instills an uplifting surge of patriotism.
The middle school Close Up program, Founding of a Nation, is set for April.
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.