Strategic Vision

For 50 years, the Center for the Living Arts has served as an artistic home for our students as they developed their creative voices. Because we are rooted in Westtown’s commitment to environmental and financial stewardship, we have chosen to build on the excellent bones of the existing structures and reimagine the Center for a new era. Westtown’s Visual and Performing Arts program is devoted to the education of a new generation of artists who are informed, empowered, collaborative, empathetic, and prepared for leadership of a better world through creative expression, and the new Center for the Living Arts will truly reflect our program’s aim and the school’s mission. Our commitment to process, collaboration, and innovation, to guiding student artists of all disciplines to realize their individual gifts, to be inspired by their beautiful surroundings and excellent faculty, and to shining their own Inner Light are the foundations of this new vision for the Center for the Living Arts.

My wife and I eat dinner in the dining hall almost every night. When I scan the room, the diversity at the tables of eight is awesome and so much greater than when I was a student in the 80s.Preparing students to lead requires building cultural competency and developing an eagerness for different perspectives. That happens in and out of the classroom. The more we can have those spaces reflect the world, the better.

When we have a better understanding of who we are, including the many intersections of our identities, we can better understand and learn about the multifaceted identities of our community. We can be more open and less judgmental of one’s experience. We will be able to name and recognize the privileges or lack of privileges we have, learn more about our own unconscious bias and be motivated to engage in the ongoing work to stop acting on them. From this we can form the foundation to create anti-racist structures that will allow all of our community members to be included and have the support to thrive and share their gifts to their fullest potential.

As the Director of Facilities, Westtown School’s pursuit of carbon-neutrality shows a commitment to the health of our students, employees, community and world. Since starting at Westtown in February 2019, I have learned that so much has already been accomplished towards this goal. Our electricity is purchased as 100% wind power. Geothermal heating and cooling systems have been added to select dormitories and campus housing. We have solar panels to support our electrical consumption at the Athletic Center and our boiler plant runs on natural gas. We also have building controls in place to ensure efficiency in our energy usage. Westtown’s dedication to this goal has and will continue to create an environment for our community that will be educational, sustainable and fiscally responsible.

As Westtown strives to build an inclusive and equitable community by intentionally broadening its commitment to socioeconomic diversity, we want our talented, high-financial-need students in each division to feel a real sense of belonging and to feel valued. By having equal access to resources and empowering programmatic experiences like their classmates, our high-financial-need students will be able to pursue their aspirations, to be full participants and contributors, and to thrive at Westtown from a platform that is more level and less restricted due to finances. Thank you for sharing our vision and for advancing this vital endeavor.

Auxiliary programming at Westtown School currently includes summer camp, after-school care, and facility rentals. Increasing our revenue in these programs, and expanding our program offerings, is an important focus of our Director of Auxiliary Programs. Guided by our Auxiliary Programs Strategic Plan, they will continue to develop admissions-driven programming that is both fun and educational, and will enable us to expand and strengthen our brand for years to come.

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Getting outside gives children the space and time to connect with and learn about the natural world, about growing food, and understanding the human relationship with the land. Food and the growing of it are levelers of society, and students, with seeds in their hands, become the progenitors of our shared humanity. Our hands-on program centers around connecting students to the land, to the stories of those who farm and care for it, and to each other. Understanding the way nature feeds us and how local acts have global impact is an important aspect of our curriculum.

At Westtown, we believe that academic knowledge is not enough to produce stewards and leaders of a better world. Because of this, we emphasize and prioritize the social and emotional development of our students. Beginning in Pre-Kindergarten our students are exposed to an intentionally planned and sequenced social-emotional curriculum. The skills of effective communication, thinking critically about interpersonal relationships, and promoting empathy for others are continuously revisited. Our students learn to solve interpersonal conflict through discussions that ask them to view the situation through the eyes of another. Rather than provide solutions to our students we ask them the question of “How might we?” so that they can learn to solve problems on their own.

Last year during a car ride home, my first grader asked me, “Did you know you can be a chagemaker and a peacemaker?” He had been studying Barack Obama and Malala Yousafzai. When he arrives in my 8th grade English classroom, he will read Jackie Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, learning how shared stories have the power to disrupt oppression. He will partner with our sister school, Heritage Academy, in Ghana, and use design thinking to address some of their — and our — most pressing challenges. In Upper School, he might listen to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie decry the danger of the “single story” and then debate onstage the ethical questions of Antigone, still relevant today. His peers will be students from around the world, thanks to Westtown’s boarding program. My goal as a teacher (and a mom) is to provide him the tools — empathy, curiosity, confidence, and creativity — he will need to solve a future we can’t predict. Though we are not Quaker, I was drawn to teach here sixteen years ago by Westtown’s mission. Every day in the car, my choice has been affirmed.

Westtown offers a purposeful education that exceeds the goal of ensuring that our graduates go on to remarkable colleges and universities. Across all three divisions, we offer an education that orients students towards more ethical and equitable living in the world. Westonians are called to consider how differences—be it class, race, gender, sexuality, ability, nationality, or faith tradition—make a difference. In that understanding, Westonians are called to engage meaningfully with human differences so as to come to a keener understanding of their own subjectivity and work collaboratively towards ushering forth a more just world. This is undoubtedly challenging and fearsome work, but watching young people rise to the challenge has been a career-defining experience.

The social and emotional growth of our students ensures they have more access to academic success. An essential part of that progress, and building students’ DEI/SEL toolbox, is recognizing and honoring the varying students’ identities, creating a safe space of belonging, and dismantling systems that affect our BIPOC and marginalized students whether their difference exists in religion, class, gender identity, and ability.