While Sallie Batchelor takes an extended maternity leave through the fall of 2014, Carl Bewig, former Director of College Counseling at Andover, Anya Brunnick, who has worked in college counseling at Exeter and Lawrenceville, and Aya Murata, Cluster Dean in Pine Knoll and Advisor to Asian and Asian American Students, will join the college counseling team.
The three will start at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year. Batchelor will continue to work with students, primarily her group of Uppers, through the end of this school year. Students will also have an opportunity to meet their new college counselors in May.
Murata will become a permanent college counselor. Bewig and Brunnick will serve one-year positions as college counselors.
Bewig and Murata will split Batchelor’s current students and each take half the group, about 25-30 students. Brunnick will primarily begin to work with new Seniors, Post-Graduates and returning students who were on leave or at School Year Abroad programs this year.
Sean Logan, Director of College Counseling, said that he decided to split the group because it would be difficult to find one qualified person to take all 50 of Batchelor’s students. He hopes this will allow the new counselors to focus on getting to know their smaller groups.
“In terms of minimizing the disruption, to have three highly qualified new counselors is probably the best-case scenario that I could have envisioned,” he said.
Bewig worked at Andover in College Counseling for over 25 years and will return this year after retiring three years ago. Since retiring, he has continued to consult with various college counseling programs and helped do pro bono work, according to an e-mail that Logan sent to the students who will work with Bewig in the fall.
Brunnick has worked in admissions at Middlebury College and in college counseling at both Exeter and Lawrenceville.
Murata has worked at Andover for 20 years, but never in College Counseling. She spent her first six years at Andover in the Office of Admission and has worked as a house counselor as well as Advisor to Asian and Asian American Students and Dean of Pine Knoll Cluster.
Murata said that she was interested in the College Counseling Office as a new way of interacting with students, as she has worked in many other areas of student life. After leaving her post as Cluster Dean this spring, Murata wanted to stay full-time at Andover, and said that she though college counseling would be an interesting new experience.
