Parent Forum: Director of Diversity and Inclusion Search Meet with consultants
Schlesinger Library
Dear Country School Parents,
With the recent announcement of Lynn Sullivan’s departure from the Office of Community Development, I have begun to consider how best to address the needs of the school including identifying opportunities and priorities for the next several years. Over the last two weeks several members of my administrative team and I have held meetings with various constituent groups in which I have shared my initial thinking about priorities while also inviting these groups to share their hopes for and sense of responsibilities associated with this important position. These meetings – with fellow administrators, faculty and staff, parents and trustees – have led to important conversations and yielded helpful observations that have served to inform next steps.
It’s worth noting that we are considering various models for the work ahead. One such model, for example, would be to decouple community service/service learning from diversity & inclusion work. The argument has been made that to bundle all of these responsibilities into one job is to ask too much of a single individual. Furthermore, even as both community service/service learning and diversity & inclusion are critical elements of our mission and program, there is a school of thought that suggests that to couple these efforts serves both to dilute each single effort and even confuse the vision and goals for each. We hear these concerns and want to imagine alternative models. So while we have not yet concluded that this will be our direction, we are open to this and other creative solutions to the challenges ahead.
In anticipation of launching a search for our next director, I have assembled a search committee chaired by Director of Enrollment Management and Financial Aid Pam Safford and VP of the Parents’ Association for Community, Diversity & Inclusion Jawanda Staber and composed of faculty, staff, parents and trustees, as well as retained an outside search firm to assist us with the work ahead. John Faubert and Ada McElroy, from Carney, Sandoe & Associates, will come to campus Wednesday, May 24, for their inaugural visit (Bios of CS&A Consultants).
During this visit they will meet with a number of important constituent groups as a way to better understand our culture as well as to hear from all of you perceived strengths and weaknesses relative to community service/service learning and diversity & inclusion work. We recognize that we are starting this search late in the year, so we are also preparing for the possibility of developing an interim effort for which we might hire consultant partners to help us for a year on our way toward an eventual hire; should this be the path on which we find ourselves, we will also seek leadership from within the school community, perhaps starting with members of the search team.
Please consider this an invitation to join John and Ada on May 24 at an open forum for parents, 8:30-9:00 a.m. in the Schlesinger Library. We understand that many of you have obligations that will prevent you from attending but we nonetheless encourage anyone who can come to do so. No need to RSVP.
With the recent announcement of Lynn Sullivan’s departure from the Office of Community Development, I have begun to consider how best to address the needs of the school including identifying opportunities and priorities for the next several years. Over the last two weeks several members of my administrative team and I have held meetings with various constituent groups in which I have shared my initial thinking about priorities while also inviting these groups to share their hopes for and sense of responsibilities associated with this important position. These meetings – with fellow administrators, faculty and staff, parents and trustees – have led to important conversations and yielded helpful observations that have served to inform next steps.
It’s worth noting that we are considering various models for the work ahead. One such model, for example, would be to decouple community service/service learning from diversity & inclusion work. The argument has been made that to bundle all of these responsibilities into one job is to ask too much of a single individual. Furthermore, even as both community service/service learning and diversity & inclusion are critical elements of our mission and program, there is a school of thought that suggests that to couple these efforts serves both to dilute each single effort and even confuse the vision and goals for each. We hear these concerns and want to imagine alternative models. So while we have not yet concluded that this will be our direction, we are open to this and other creative solutions to the challenges ahead.
In anticipation of launching a search for our next director, I have assembled a search committee chaired by Director of Enrollment Management and Financial Aid Pam Safford and VP of the Parents’ Association for Community, Diversity & Inclusion Jawanda Staber and composed of faculty, staff, parents and trustees, as well as retained an outside search firm to assist us with the work ahead. John Faubert and Ada McElroy, from Carney, Sandoe & Associates, will come to campus Wednesday, May 24, for their inaugural visit (Bios of CS&A Consultants).
During this visit they will meet with a number of important constituent groups as a way to better understand our culture as well as to hear from all of you perceived strengths and weaknesses relative to community service/service learning and diversity & inclusion work. We recognize that we are starting this search late in the year, so we are also preparing for the possibility of developing an interim effort for which we might hire consultant partners to help us for a year on our way toward an eventual hire; should this be the path on which we find ourselves, we will also seek leadership from within the school community, perhaps starting with members of the search team.
Please consider this an invitation to join John and Ada on May 24 at an open forum for parents, 8:30-9:00 a.m. in the Schlesinger Library. We understand that many of you have obligations that will prevent you from attending but we nonetheless encourage anyone who can come to do so. No need to RSVP.
New Canaan Country School
New Canaan Country School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin and are afforded all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, or disability in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, financial aid policies or any other school-administered programs.
