Andy Abbott's January Newsletter Message
Change is afoot! Between faculty and staff retirements and the natural rotation of department chairs, next year we will have some new faces on campus and some new leadership at the helm.
Earlier this week I announced to faculty and staff that I have named new chairs in seven departments, six transitions to take place this summer and another in summer 2011. In mathematics, Julie Harris will replace Anne Rossi; in history, Mark Smith will replace Christopher Hinshaw; in art, Anne Martin will replace Howard Jones; in English, Ellie DesPrez will replace Rick Sandler; in modern languages, Allégra Clément-Bayard will replace cochairs Susan Carleton and Emily Younger; and in science, Sandi Mueller will replace Margaret Bahe (beginning in 2011).
Retirements will further change the Burroughs landscape. In addition to Jim Lemen’s retirement, Susan Carleton, Mary Harris (science), Hazel Jensen (science) and Barb Dailey (bookstore) have indicated their intention to retire. The searches for their replacements are now underway.
The role of the department chair may be unknown to many in the community. Each department is chaired by one teacher who leads the discussion about the direction of the curriculum in that discipline, who organizes the professional development for its teachers, who determines the departmental budget and wish lists, who evaluates the teachers in that department, and who helps me hire new faculty.
Many years ago, Burroughs adopted a system of rotating the heads of the academic departments on a seven-year cycle to keep the departments from stagnating by constantly bringing in new ideas and new leadership. As Keith Shahan was reaching his final year as the head of school, he made a conscious decision not to appoint new department chairs because he wanted the new head to be able to name her or his own new team. As a result, he held on to a couple of chairs for an extra year and, due to the natural rotation of the rest of the departments, it turns out this year, every academic department except for classics will name a new chair.
I am deeply thankful for the work that all of the outgoing chairs have done to build and maintain the current academic program and feel of the school, and it's important to note that all of the current chairs will retain their responsibilities for the rest of the school year. At the same time, I am so excited for each of these new chairs, all of whom have proved themselves as master teachers in their subjects, and I expect great things from their leadership.
As you know, we are also deep into our search for a new athletic director. We had more than 70 applicants for the job, both internal and external, and are in the midst of interviewing six extremely strong candidates from all over the country. The first visited campus January 13, the last will come to campus on January 27. While Jim Lemen is truly irreplaceable, I am thrilled with the quality of the applicants we have. During their visits, they are meeting with Student Congress, the Faculty Executive Committee, the principals and other administrators, interested current parents, the entire physical education staff, and a group of alumni who span six decades of Burroughs athletics. To be sure, it is a full day.
When the new athletic director is named, I will invite him to join me and all of the new department chairs this summer for some time together to discuss the direction of the school. While I look forward to working with each of these new chairs individually, I am also looking forward to working with them as a team, so that we can begin to collaborate more across disciplines and communicate with one another clearly to ensure that we are all aware of the different pressures and demands that we place on students and that they complement one another appropriately.
—Andy Abbott
