Avenues New York’s Golden Tiger Award Recipients Announced

Avenues’ Golden Tiger Award is given by our R&D department each year to colleagues who have demonstrated a courageous commitment to innovation in their work. 

In order to be eligible, candidates must have made contributions toward promoting student interests and achievement, school operations or parent engagement, or have introduced new processes or techniques that make Avenues a better school. Past recipients include faculty members responsible for developing several new programs and initiatives at Avenues, including the Avenues Language Learning Intensive (ALLI) program, the Avenues Humanities Center and the Moonshot Lab.

This year's New York campus recipient is Morgan Jones, our director of community engagement and partnerships. Morgan has been recognized in particular for his work supporting Co.Lab (Community Lab).

Co.Lab is an experiential service-learning program offered as part of our biannual J-Terms, offered in January and June. Students who opt in to Co.Lab work in teams to research, understand and solve a problem in their local community, working alongside and learning from partner organizations. Having cultivated meaningful partnerships with multiple community organizations in New York City since taking on his role, Morgan was ideally placed to facilitate several transformative Co.Lab projects for our students.

With Morgan’s support, 11th grade students joined up with Covenant House, New York City’s largest organization serving youth experiencing homelessness, and one of Avenues New York’s long-term partners. As part of a Co.Lab project on the cost of living in the city, 11th grade students visited Covenant House and met with staff and service users.

Meanwhile, 10th grade students tackled a project related to environmental and climate justice. With Morgan’s support, they extended their research to include visits to the Mayor’s Office, the Department of Sanitation, and City Hall.

It wasn’t only faculty and staff who were honored for their courageous commitment to innovation in New York. This year, for the first time ever, an Avenues student was given a Golden Tiger Award. Junior Renee Cai was recognized for her bold, self-directed project to create an original magazine, Hi, Science, and for her work expanding its reach to other Avenues campuses and schools outside our ecosystem.