Kicking off the search for the new Head of School, Peter Currie ’74, incoming President of the Board of Trustees, announced the 12 members of the Head of School Search Committee this past Friday. The committee convened for its first meeting on Monday.
Daniel Cunningham ’67, Susan Donahue ’70, Louis Elson ’80, Amy Falls ’82, William Lewis ’74 and John Steiner ’83 were selected from the Board of Trustees to join the committee. Currie will also lead the committee throughout the search process.
Phillips Academy faculty nominated Clyfe Beckwith, Instructor in Physics and Cluster Dean of Flagstaff, Catherine Carter, Instructor in Classics, and Diane Moore, Instructor in Religion and Philosophy, to be part of the committee.
Currie shared the names of the members of the Phillips Academy community who were selected to take part in the Search Committee in a letter to Phillips Academy faculty and staff.
The Search Committee consists of seven trustees and five individuals from Phillips Academy’s faculty and staff.
The faculty members were selected through a survey created by The Faculty Advisory Committee (Adcom) that was sent of to faculty a few weeks ago. The survey consisted of three rounds of voting and resulted in three faculty-selected members for the committee.
Christopher Jones, Instructor in History and member of Adcom, said, “Peter Currie asked Adcom to oversee the election of three faculty members to serve on the search committee. So Adcom basically organized the elections over Survey Monkey and asked the faculty to vote online.”
Currie also directly appointed Linda Griffith, Instructor in English and Dean of Community and Multicultural Development, and Steve Carter, Chief Operating and Financial Officer, to join the committee.
In a letter to the faculty, Currie discussed the significance of Steve Carter’s role as the only member of the Phillips Academy Staff on the Search Committee. Carter has also worked heavily with the school’s finances as Chief Operating and Financial Officer.
Currie also mentioned that Oscar Tang, former President of the Board of Trustees, was originally intended to take part in the search process in his letter to the faculty. However, Tang declined the offer to focus his efforts on the Campaign for Andover initiative.
The Head of School Search Committee officially met for the first time this past Monday in the Mural Room of Paresky Commons. Future meetings have yet to be scheduled, however, the committee will continue to meet over the next few months.
Beckwith said, “As of right now, this is a committee that is simply trying to find the best candidate for the [Head of School] position.”
The committee will also be working closely with members of a global search firm named Spencer Stuart’s Education and Nonprofit Practice to aid the committee in narrowing down candidates to succeed Barbara Chase as Head of School.
Michele Haertel and Mary Gorman will be the primary representatives from the firm that will be interacting with Search Committee.
The committee’s next step in the selection process has yet to be announced.
