Search Committee Update Oct 24

October 24, 2017

Dear WT Community,

My colleagues and I on the Head of School Search Committee are making great progress in our search and wanted to update you on our most recent activities and the next steps in this process.

Over the past weekend, with the guidance of our search consultants, we conducted a robust and thorough interview process with our eight semi-finalists. Each candidate toured our facilities and the city prior to sitting down with us for a lively conversation. The interviewing process was rigorous – each candidate met with us for 90 minutes and was asked the same broad array of questions, covering all aspects of school leadership including faculty relationships, board work and relationships, hiring and firing of faculty and staff, fundraising experience, and diversity and inclusion issues. We are confident that the candidates were given an equal opportunity to showcase their candidacies, and that we were given adequate time to follow-up with them on additional questions that arose during the conversations.

As a result of this process, we have narrowed the list to four finalists. We are very excited to welcome these candidates back to campus so that they can introduce themselves to the WT community. With broad and deep experience in school leadership, and with qualities that fit well with our culture, they each have much to offer WT. We are proud to present them to you and feel confident that our process brought out the very best and brightest.

The visits will be arranged over the next few days and will likely take place in the first weeks of November. The visits will encompass two days, with time set aside to meet faculty and staff, parents, administrators, alumnae/i, and students at both campuses. We encourage as many people as possible to participate in this stage of the process. We will share the schedule with you, and will let you know about each finalist as his or her visit nears so that you can be prepared to meet and evaluate these individuals yourselves. Your impressions of them, and your feedback on their visits, will be an invaluable tool in our evaluation process. A survey will be available for providing this feedback.

In the meantime, thank you again for all of your support and interest in this important development in the history of the Winchester Thurston. We will be in touch again soon.

Sincerely,

Paul Rosenblatt
Vice President, WT Board of Trustees
Search Committee Chair