The Principia
Interoffice Correspondence
Date: January 18, 2008
To: The Principia Community
Fm: David Anable, Chief Executive
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I promised you an “occasional letter” to help keep us all in touch, and to break down those “silos” in which we all tend to get isolated. So here goes for No. 2.
First, a warm welcome “back” from your Christmas and New Year festivities – which may already seem ages ago! The longer I’m here the more I realize the hard work and dedication you all pour into this wonderful institution. “Bud” Krogh (alumnus, lawyer, and former Nixon White House denizen) visited the School recently to give a terrific speech on integrity. Instantly thereafter he sent me a long email lauding all the great students, teachers, and administrators he had met in three hectic days; the stimulating classes and exciting athletic events he had attended; the intelligent kindness he had encountered everywhere on the campus. It was a wonderful tribute to all involved.
I, too, relish my contact with the lively and unselfish thoughtfulness so evident on both campuses. As we move into 2008, we can look forward to fresh opportunities to express the vitality needed for progress and renewal. King David sang it beautifully in Psalm 65, “Thou crownest the year with thy goodness…”
New College President
One of the “crowning” events that started the year was the Trustees’ appointment of Jonathan Palmer to become the new College President. Our official announcement January 2 gave you some sense of the scope of his qualifications. Several of us have also been able to talk with his colleagues at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. They hold him in extraordinarily high esteem and are very sad to lose an individual of such immense talent, drive, and character.
As many of you know, Jonathan has already visited both campuses as President-elect. He will be attending two days of the College’s four-day AQIP strategy sessions in Chicago next week. He will be visiting us here again several times before his July 1 starting date. We are very grateful that he is joining us, and that Tom Fuller is holding the fort during the transition with such grace and competence.
Other New Leadership
Two other important leadership positions have now been filled from a roster of excellent candidates. Gretchen Newby has been hired as Marketing Director and will be moving from Michigan to begin work March 1. We are in the final stages of hiring a new Chief Advancement Officer and anticipate an announcement of this decision as early as next week. More detailed information about these two new hires will be forthcoming in the near future.
Several other leadership positions are open, or opening up. The College expects to search soon for a Dean of Enrollment Management to fill, with wider responsibilities, the former role of Admissions Director. Those who have carried the added load during these transitions deserve a huge vote of thanks, including Peter Stevens, Barbara Blackwell, Becky Barthelmess, and many other unsung heroes.
We shall soon lose the many talents of College Dean of Students Chestnut Booth and College Athletic Director Lee Suarez, both of whom are retiring within the calendar year. In addition, School Athletic Director Brad Warrick has just announced his plans to move to Florida at the end of the current school year. Search committees are being formed to find worthy successors for these positions.
I much appreciate the thoughtful effort put into these and other search committees, not least the Presidential search committee (and I am not referring to the current national election campaign!). As a general rule, we need to keep these committees small and agile, three to five people, advised where necessary by those with specialist knowledge.
Trustees’ Meeting
The Trustees will be gathering for three days in St. Louis February 21-23 for their annual “retreat.” One focus of the meeting will be a discussion of the recommendations of the Governance Committee. The Board’s own size, role, and methods – as well as the most appropriate management structure for The Principia as a whole – will be among the topics considered. As a result of a conscious policy of renewal, two-thirds of the Trustees are newcomers, having joined the Board within the past year. As many of you know and some have already utilized, the Trustees have set up an open process whereby anyone can nominate candidates for the Board using the nomination form available on the Trustee web page.
Cordstrap
This remarkable Dutch company was willed to Principia by a generous friend, Fred van Eck. It has grown in value from $12 million on receipt in 2000 until it now represents roughly $130 million of our endowment. The Dutch foundation we created to hold this asset for Principia contributes gifts to our endowment, scholarships, and abroad programs from the company's profits.
Cordstrap manufactures straps, lashings and other equipment used in anchoring loads of all sorts on trucks, trains, ships, and so on. It has offices around the globe and is expanding into China and India, among other places. It built a plant in Racine, Wis., a few years ago and has been busy expanding production there ever since.
A vast new plant outside Amsterdam is due to be dedicated in April. The company is sponsoring a trip for a group of Trustees and Principia executives to attend the ceremonies April 8-11. We also plan to use the visit to Europe to hold promotion and recruitment meetings for the School and College in Britain and, perhaps, Germany.
Communications Policy
The committee charged with writing an ethics code for all Principia student publications and broadcasting entities was at work over the Christmas Break. David McFarland and Blair Lindsay are in touch with committee chair, John Hughes, as they all prepare to present a draft ethics code to me and the heads of the College and School.
We all believe deeply in freedom of the press, and this principle of democracy is spelled out in Principia’s Policy 9. Of course, the Pilot, the Voice, and our new web-based radio programming all have a dual role – providing information as well as education. They will be held to the highest standards of journalism and will teach this to our students. All content must, for example, be thoroughly edited and checked for accuracy and fairness. As with virtually all other American publications, the “Publisher” – in this case either the College President or the Head of School – has the responsibility for, and where appropriate the final word on, what goes into print or on the air. When asked, I will be happy to assist or advise in this process. I look forward to spending many hours reading and listening to first-rate, informative, and lively journalism. As an editor friend of mine once said to me, “I have not lost faith that the significant can be made appealing.”
Personnel Policies
As I mentioned in my last letter to you all, I discovered on arrival here that Principia has been struggling for some time to establish fair and efficient employment processes. We need to continue this important work. The goal is to make sure that good work is recognized and valued, that fair systems are in place to protect each individual, that opportunities for growth and job development are understood and available, and so on. Here are a few aspects of this:
- Following intensive discussions with departments throughout Principia, HR is distributing a thoroughly updated and revised Employee Handbook. HR will be conducting workshops for all administrators, directors, and managers on how to use the Handbook, following this up with sessions for all employees. The HR website will carry the complete Handbook as well as information and forms about benefits.
- Among many other things, the Handbook contains a revised version of the Memorandum of Agreement that is signed by all incoming employees. This version leaves out the previous specific references to “gossip” and “loyalty,” which have been part of the Memorandum of Agreement for decades. On reflection, it was decided that these were redundant, since fully covered by the Matthew Code and Policy 17. I want to emphasize, however, that this does not open the door to destructive gossip. Mrs. Eddy made it very clear that she understood the damage that “tattling” could do, and she banned it in her household.
- The College has been developing evaluation systems for faculty, and Marilyn Wallace has been doing the same with the School faculty. Meanwhile, HR has been working on evaluation systems for all staff for several years, using the quality management approach. This has allowed departments to develop what is basically a single system while adapting it to the department’s individual needs. We hope that most departments will have begun implementation by late spring or early fall, at the latest.
- I want to make it clear that HR wishes to be and should be viewed as a resource, not a substitute, for the decision-making by campus heads, administrators, faculty, and staff. HR offers technical expertise, current data, and information about best practices and fair processes regarding salaries, contracts, and benefits, as well as making sure we all uphold the standards set out in the Purpose and Policies. HR does not make final decisions on these issues.
New CE Web Page
FYI, in another effort to improve communication, we have built a Chief Executive web page. There you can find copies of these newsletters and other information about this office. It also provides a way to get in touch with the CE office.
Grapes off the Grapevine
My goodness, don’t rumors proliferate like rabbits ….
Two recent ones, neither of which contains a shred of truth, are:
- That Eliestoun, the original mansion on the College campus, is about to be bulldozed off the face of the bluffs (in fact, we are working on ways to rehabilitate it);
- That there are plans to close the College in two years (utter nonsense).
Let’s make sure we check our “facts” before passing them along to anyone else!
Conclusion
In closing, let me thank you all for your understanding and support. It is greatly appreciated. No one individual carries this idea called Principia forward. That must be a cooperative endeavor, a collective listening to Love’s guidance and direction, a readiness to put self aside for the good of the whole. The James Moffatt Bible translation of I Peter 3:8 is relevant for us all: “Lastly, you must all be united, you must have sympathy, brotherly love, compassion, and humility, never paying back evil for evil, never reviling when you are reviled, but on the contrary blessing. For this is your vocation, to bless and to inherit blessing ….”
I look forward to seeing you all at the Joint Faculty/Staff meeting in Elsah on February 1.
Warmest wishes,
David
