Words from the Rector
Where are you going, girl?
I remember applying to Chatham Hall. Vividly.
I remember the words of my application essay about why I wanted to be Rector. I remember arriving on campus for my visit - dinner at a teacher's house the first evening, jogging through town the next morning and spotting the School buildings on the hill with the sun rising behind them, the aggressively friendly questions from the girls I met, and the energy when everyone gathered in the Well for Assembly.
That Assembly is what I had come to campus to experience, actually. I had seen a picture of it on the Web site, and I wanted to know what it felt like to have the whole school gathered in that beautiful front hallway. Community.
During my application process, I was focused on the next few months (getting through the interviews) or, perhaps, the next year (getting to know the place, getting settled in, learning the job). Much like you, as you look at private schools, I imagine. Will I fit in? Will I make friends there? Will I do well? Will I be happy?
Those of us at Chatham Hall know the questions you are asking about your future. We have our eyes fixed on guiding you through your application, greeting you when you visit, cheering when you arrive as a New Girl, and helping to make a new home for you here. The next few months. The next year or so.
We are also looking farther into the future. We are thinking of you in ten years or more.
So, shift your focus with me for a few moments to think about where, ultimately, you will be going with your life.
Here are three facts to consider:
- The top ten jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.
- By the time you are 38 years old , you will have 12-14 different jobs.
- My hunch is that of the 12-14 jobs, ten of them have not been invented yet.
Several months ago, I asked the mother of a Chatham Hall senior, an engineer at a leading computer-related company, what, in addition to her training as an engineer, she needed to be successful. She said that the answer is simple. That day she had been on the phone talking simultaneously with a person from Jerusalem, a person from Ireland, and a person from Portland, Oregon. They had a problem to solve together.
So, what does a school need to provide you so that you will be successful in this world? You will need to be comfortable in a global workplace. Able to adjust to a rapidly changing world around you. Adept at solving problems. Clear and precise in writing and speaking.
Worldliness. Adaptability. Creativity. Communication.
Plus integrity. Why integrity? Because we are in a world where information comes at you fast and relentlessly. All the time. Every day. If Enron and the world financial collapse tell us anything, it is that the crises in our world are not caused by lack of information but by people with all of this information and no integrity.
These are the key elements in a Chatham Hall education.
Where else will you find a school where you will converse with the major female leaders of the world? Be in a community where one of four girls has worked in the townships of South Africa? Build robots, make movies, act Shakespeare, study Chinese, engineering, and veterinary science? Be challenged to write and speak with precision, maturity, and conviction in every class? Find a moment of peace in the Chapel? Discover that you can be a winning athlete? Leave your backpack, iPod, or laptop anywhere on campus without fear of it being touched? Have a best friend from Nepal, Germany, Ghana, Ecuador, or Scotland?
That is the school of the future. That is what Chatham Hall is today. Small school. Big experience.
Come and see what we are proud of. Meet our students. Meet your future.
Gary Fountain, Rector
