"As we move forward, it’s important that we continue to offer students the faculty and facilities that will allow them to go into the world for that next level of their life experience."
Advancing Faculty Leadership
CA’s classroom lessons extend far beyond the usual textbook curriculum, as the teachers — also historians, poets, engineers, and accomplished artists in their own right — imbue daily discussions with insights from their fields of expertise. By providing the faculty with the tools they need to realize their potential, we will improve the quality of the educational experience, as well as the school’s ability to hire and retain the best teachers.
This program will support the faculty and our curriculum in a variety of ways, with both resources and technology. The plan proposes to give faculty the opportunity, as well as the space, to brainstorm, design, and document new curricular ideas, unleashing creativity and collaboration across academic departments, similar to the spirit of Google’s so-called 20 percent time. It would also give teachers the chance to conduct deep curricular reviews, to consider how we can improve on what we already do well or where we could reimagine offerings, and to fortify the course catalog to the greatest degree possible. All of these efforts will help us fulfill our ambition for more multidisciplinary collaboration, unleashing the greater talents of our community.
One of CA’s distinguishing strengths is the wide-as-you- can-dream array of courses available to students. We owe this range to CA’s faculty, who bring the force of their intellectual curiosity to the curriculum. On the far left, Gretchen Roorbach guides a student onto the Sudbury River for her class, Applied Environmental Science: Water Conflicts at Home and Abroad. Left, student-teacher relationships remain a hallmark of the CA experience.
Invisible History, Authentic Learning
Just a mile from the CA campus, across from the Old North Bridge, stands an unassuming, wood-timbered farmhouse filled with little-known history. A mere 544 square feet, the Robbins House was home to three generations of free African Americans who lived in Concord while slavery was still legal in the United States. “These were free black people who were relatively successful and active in civil…READ FULL STORY