Staples loves to celebrate its best and brightest. With 12 honors societies spanning six subject matters, students have the opportunity to be honored for a great variety of talents. With one notable exception.
Staples has not had an active chapter of the National English Honor Society (NEHS) for over six years. Now, under the leadership of English teachers Kim Herzog and Lindsay Marlow, Olivia Cohn and Nolan Francis ’26 and Annam and Ayaan Olaswere ’25 are bringing it back under the name Civitas Lumina, Latin for “city of lights.”
“I’ve always been very passionate about English as a subject,” Cohn said. “So, at the end of my sophomore year, when applications for honors societies started coming out, I was waiting for an English application. I asked Ms. Herzog, and I realized that an English honor society didn’t exist. So we got together and started to make this happen.”
In order to re-establish the Staples chapter of NEHS, the student leaders and teachers appealed to the administration, head of the Staples English department, the Westport Board of Education and the national office of NEHS. Over the course of the 2024-25 school year, they worked together to develop a curriculum, vision and mission statement and club criteria, using resources from the previous Staples NEHS chapter, as well as English honor societies from schools around Connecticut as inspiration. Now, the club prepares to induct its first class of members for the 2025-26 school year.
“When I found out there wasn’t a society for English, I went around to my English teachers and started asking ‘why not?,’” Ayaan Olasewere said. “It’s really good to get a group of high-achieving people together and give them a space to do projects for the community at large, and next year, we will finally have that for high-achieving English students.”
As the society gears up for its (second) first year in operation, club leaders hope to cultivate a space where English learners can participate in projects to benefit the larger community.
“A primary goal of the organization on a national level is to “serve society by fostering literacy,” Herzog said. “To that end, we are gathering students who are passionate about literature, about writing, and are motivated to work toward that goal.”
Applications for Civitas Lumina are open to incoming juniors and seniors and will be reviewed anonymously by student and teacher club leaders. Inductions will take place in the fall.
