Their task will be a difficult one.  Hackley’s next Headmaster will have to be both a jack-and-master of all trades: adroitly managing the school’s financial situation, expanding its sustainability and global education initiatives, leading a tight-knit and strong community, and ensuring that Hackley continues to provide a rigorous education to its students.

“What makes this search both interesting and challenging,” Trustee and search committee Co-chair Ted Mathas explained, “is that you really need somebody who’s got the ability to go wide and go deep.” Finding a single individual who can fill each of these myriad and sometimes disparate roles is essential to maintaining the diversity and breadth of a Hackley education.

The school is doing the utmost to find such a candidate, as difficult as it may be. In an effort to attract the highest quality applicant pool, the search process will remain largely cordoned-off from the school community. As Mr. Mathas put it, “A fully transparent process might result in a B- applicant pool, whereas one with confidentiality [like the current one] could attract an A applicant pool.”  The need for confidentiality is important: current heads-of-school are unlikely to apply to a job with an open, transparent hiring process because the very act of applying could damage their reputation at their current school.

While we respect the need for some confidentiality, it is absolutely essential that the search committee insure that both students and faculty have a voice in the search process.  Failing to do so would make it extraordinarily difficult to find a Headmaster who “fits” the Hackley community – the students and faculty are, after all, the largest two groups of people here every day.  Both confidentiality and transparency are important in the hiring process – confidentiality to attract the best applicants, and transparency to insure that those applicants are satisfactory to everyone in the Hackley community. The search is an issue of balance – the board must delicately weigh these two seemingly opposing interests during the search process. While including students and large amounts of faculty in the search process would likely deter strong prospective applicants, the board must provide a way for students and faculty to provide persistent input into the process. Furthermore, they must build trust with the community of students and faculty so that we can feel confident that this input is being listened to, and keep students and faculty updated on how the search is proceeding.

Early signs are encouraging that the committee is taking this responsibility to listen to the community seriously – Spencer Stuart, the outside firm retained by the committee, has held meetings with both faculty and student government. But there is still cause for concern. The committee has no official outlet for persistent student input, and the faculty only compose two of the thirteen board members. While initial meetings with the consultants show that the Board is interested in community input, they aren’t enough. Students and faculty need a way to provide regular input, and feel assured that they are being listened to.  Even if meetings with the consultants continue, if the committee itself still feels distant to Hackley students and faculty it is difficult to assure them that the committee is really listening.   While we have no doubt that the Trustees on the committee will do their utmost to find a great headmaster for Hackley, establishing personal trust through face-to-face interaction would go along way towards assuaging the community’s concerns.  Yes, the committee will undoubtedly do an excellent job on its own – but building this trust with the rest of the community is critical to maintaining Hackley’s inclusive, open-dialogue environment.

Mr. Mathas, the chairman of the committee, explained that the next head will have to be “an extremely good listener, as there are a wide array of constituencies that are critically important to Hackley.”  “Having each of these constituencies heard,” he continued, “allows us to maintain Hackley’s inclusive environment.”  Fittingly, the same is true of the search committee itself: if the committee doesn’t listen attentively to each and every voice in the community, the Headmaster they find may have an awfully difficult time finding his or her place in it.  The committee must continue to hear student and faculty input, and work to build valuable trust.  It is a difficult task, but necessary to insure the success of the Headmaster search.