RE Log Spring 2019

2 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2018 From the Pagoda Mid-February can be a trying time at Ransom Everglades. We are well into the second semester, and June seems a long way off. Seniors continue to await college results, and students and faculty members alike can find our day-to-day challenges daunting. And this February, the construction on campus has posed challenges in terms of logistics and, yes, in terms of morale. However, as I walk around the campus, all that I encounter inspires and invigorates me. I see a school community that is alive, thriving and evolving. No one can miss the reality that our collective pursuit of excellence continues to gain momentum, that as great as we are, we can be even better. That this excitement about the future pervades our students, our faculty, our parents, and our trustees speaks volumes about Ransom Everglades. Obviously, purposeful evolution takes time. It also takes sweat, energy and inspired people who know how to make things happen. This magazine, all about inspired evolution, highlights our school in a time of transformation. Former board chair and current trustee Eric Mendelson likes to say that the board recruited me for this job back in 2013 because I don’t tolerate complacency. He frequently reminds me that Ransom Everglades has been around for 116 years, and that longevity didn’t happen by accident. It happened because the school continued to push the boundaries and reinvent itself. Our mission is transformative. Certainly the most visible aspect of the school’s evolution is the construction of our state-of-the-art STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Center. It will be a place in which students work collaboratively and manage conflicts and differences to help address the most vexing problems in today’s world. The STEM Center will help our students develop the skills and habits of mind to become catalysts of breakthrough innovations to solve challenges in transportation, manufacturing, agriculture and other fields. Less visible but supremely important is our board of trustees’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiative, designed to enhance the student experience at RE and more effectively prepare our students for college and the world beyond. The DEI initiative reflects our unwavering commitment to making RE a more diverse community, one that embraces all races, cultures, ethnicities and socio-economic status. Some might say prioritizing inclusivity is long overdue; I am proud that it’s happening now, and I commend our board of trustees for standing behind this initiative. We have no illusions about the energy and the idealism necessary in the pursuit of this goal, and I assure you that this commitment will be increasingly reflected in our recruitment of students and faculty, and in our curriculum. As trustee Elizabeth Barash Murphy, the chair of our board’s Student Life and Inclusion Committee, says in the story that begins on page 16, “This is not symbolic. This is imperative.” This magazine also celebrates the 30th anniversary of our Black Student Association, taking us back to the earliest days of an organization that inspired a transformation of campus life that continues to this day. (See story on page 10.) It wasn’t easy for our BSA pioneers, who came together from a variety of backgrounds to support one another and provide an outlet for discussion and education. They weren’t on a crusade; they were simply trying to make RE a better Transformation “No one can miss the reality that our collective pursuit of excellence continues to gain momentum, that as great as we are, we can be even better.”