A MESSAGE FROM OUR NEXT HEAD OF SCHOOL

Dear Frederick Gunn School Community,

Earlier this spring, the Board of Trustees honored me with the invitation to be our 12th Head of School. Having spent the last five years here as our Assistant Head for Teaching and Learning, I know the Gunn community well and, as I was able to share with our students at the start of the Spring Term, Frederick and Abigail’s vision has remained inspiring to me every day. That is a rare quality. Our digital world ensures that our minds are filled to overflowing with the latest findings and up-to-the-moment happenings. It can feel like we are doing something wrong by returning to ideas, and texts, that ground us in ways of thought and experience. As I have spent time with Frederick’s and Abigail’s thinking, however, I find the foundations of their approach in sympathy with much of the current research on what our students need today to learn and thrive. So I am compelled to honor our history at the same time that we improvise on it in our 21st century campus.

Here are just a handful of the ways that Frederick and Abigail were tapped into some of the timeless truths of what students need: Students need to be surrounded by trustworthy adults who are looking out for them with hope. Students need opportunities to fail forward. Students need belonging and empowerment, what Frederick called “a community of equality.” Students need fun and rest. Students need to be inspired.

As I look toward the coming years, what I see is that there is no boarding school in the world more sincerely focused on the future of education than The Frederick Gunn School, while remaining true to our founding ideals. What we stand for is rare and beautiful. We believe that the world needs us to be people who are always learning, not fixed in our mindsets but open, striving to understand ourselves and others. We believe that high school students have incredible capacity to learn about themselves, how they best learn and grow, to investigate what they care most about in the world, and to set themselves on a path towards innovative, civic-minded impact in the world. We believe in fun and rest as essential to living a well and happy life. We understand that competition and risk-taking build our determination and resilience. We accept that no community can exist without a bedrock of trust, and so we commit ourselves to building trusting relationships between students and teachers. This kind of earnest idealism is hard to find, but it was all laid out for us when Frederick and Abigail set themselves the task of putting into place what they called “an ideal of a school.”

It is our students who drive our ambitious focus on the future. Highlanders are incredible kids. They are open-minded and openhearted, and they are looking to be a force for good in the world. When they are on the field, they represent Gunn with pride, fair play, and grit. On the stage, they lead with heart. In our classrooms, they are explorers. Our students are amazing not because they are perfect, but because they are capable and committed, and that’s what we are all here for. We are a school that cultivates confident and caring young adults to thrive as innovative, active citizens. We are a community built on the belief that trust between students and teachers cultivates a life of learning and strength of character. We work hard, compete fiercely, and have a lot of fun. This is what it means to have the heart of a Highlander.

I am also struck by the fact that I am the first Head of School to be called to The Frederick Gunn School, since our 11th Head, Peter Becker, oversaw our name change and began his tenure as the Head of School of The Gunnery. What I love about the story of “The Gunnery” is that it was named as an honorific to our founder. That honor and inspiration has gained speed and momentum under Peter’s leadership, and I would venture that no Head of School here will be looked upon in the coming years as having had more admiration for Frederick Gunn, or more dedication to the honoring of our founder, than him. Peter has led this school with a level of commitment that has inspired all of us each and every day. He cares deeply about students, understands them well, and, at a moment full of possibility for this school, asked us to boldly imagine our future, and then roll up our sleeves and commit ourselves to making it a reality. Please read the tribute to him on page 4 and join me in my deep gratitude for his leadership and best wishes for his path ahead as the Head of School at Taft.

If you want to understand what commitment to seeing our founding values brought up to 21st century standards looks like, we have been gifted this embodiment in the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Center for Innovation and Active Citizenship, set to open in January 2024 right in the heart of campus. If nothing else brings you back to campus, I hope experiencing this building will. With “The Lizzie,” our academic spaces on campus will clearly rival any school in the country. This building is the new hub between the Quad, Bourne, and the Glade, and it activates a greenway from the new upper parking lot down through the Quad and across to the athletic campus. (See page 18 for an update.) Campus looks and feels different than it did five short years ago, and I sincerely welcome you home to experience the transformation.

There will be many opportunities in the days ahead for me to outline how I hope my leadership will drive The Frederick Gunn School to even greater success. For now, I simply want to say thank you to the Search Committee and the Board for entrusting me with the leadership of our school. I am enthusiastic and clear-eyed for the work ahead, and I, along with our amazing and committed faculty and staff, am going to need many partnerships, with our alumni and friends; the amazing town of Washington, Connecticut; and the families who join us in this story. Please be in touch. Our strength is in the integrity of our future with the inspiring stories of our past, starting with our bold and fearless founders.

Always learning,

Emily Raudenbush Gum Incoming Head of School