Where you put it all together.
The Inquiry Program
If you’re looking for a self-initiated challenge, then the Inquiry Program at Cate is up your alley.
Cate is powered by curiosity and enriched by a culture of inquiry. Our objective is to equip students to be lifelong learners who possess the mindset, passion, and skills to know how to pursue their education in a manner that is collaborative, disciplined, and impactful.
Central to enabling such a mindset is an inquiry approach to learning which challenges students to make close observations, ask insightful questions, and develop connecting and often interdisciplinary inferences. From this, students ultimately share their findings in ways that are effective as well as rewarding to them, their peers, and the broader world.
2025 Inquiry Day Presentations
Featured Project: Alison Wang ’25: Independent Inquiry into Cate’s Overlooked Histories
Through a self-directed project, Alison Wang ’25 explored the lives of Asian immigrant laborers who lived and worked on Cate’s campus from 1910–1947. Blending immigration history with archival research, she examined how institutional memory is shaped—and whose stories are left out. Her work highlights the power of inquiry to surface silences in the archive as meaningful evidence.