Rensselaer, NY – The Doane Stuart community enthusiastically welcomed Pamela J Clarke as the new Head of School in an installation ceremony held in the Golub Interfaith Chapel on Monday, September 15. The ceremony was attended by alumni, faculty, staff, past and current parents, trustees, current students, and local leaders. The celebration provided the Doane Stuart community the opportunity to formally welcome Mrs. Clarke and her family and to commemorate this important day for the school.
Mrs. Clarke brings a wealth of experience to Doane Stuart, having served as Head of the Trevor Day School, an independent school for 800-plus students in grades N-12 in Manhattan. Before her time as Head of School at Trevor Day, Mrs. Clarke was Head at the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. She is also a board member of the New York State Association of Independent Schools and the Harlem Academy.
While she joined the Doane Stuart family officially on July 1, Monday, September 8 marked the latest first day of school in a career inspiring the children and adolescents at ten different schools. In addition to her service as Head at three schools, Ms. Clarke also worked as a crisis intervention officer at an inner-city school in Boston, taught English and classics at the Groton School in Groton, MA, and taught English in the mornings and skiing in the afternoons to 7th and 8th grade American students at a small school in Switzerland.
Addressing members of the school community, Mrs. Clarke spoke about her vision for Doane Stuart, “…the vision for our future is not mine alone… the input for those decisions comes from within the school, from the many voices that love Doane Stuart. It comes from the family that we have, and I am honored to join that family.”
Mrs. Clarke also described the passion the Doane Stuart teachers bring to their classes, “Our Doane Stuart faculty is inventive and passionate, and we allow them to follow their passions and teach to their strengths. All schools are organic, and independent schools have a freedom to create themselves – to create curricula, and to create a school culture that fosters learning,” Mrs. Clarke said. “The result is that at the heart of the school is a very real core of empathy and compassion that produces an environment in which students and teachers like and respect each other, in which we all learn together.”
Dr. Michael Thompson, a clinical psychologist and school consultant who speaks internationally and has worked with hundreds of Heads of Schools, delivered the introduction for Mrs. Clarke, whom he has known for over twenty years, “In Pam Clarke, Doane Stuart has found a visionary leader and a passionate person.” He continued, “Pam knows what inspired teaching looks like. She was that teacher herself. Pam also has a good feel for students. She cares about children. They have always been at the center of her life both as a teacher and a mother. I know that like any true educator, she is trying to see the world through a child’s eyes. Always. She is not a bureaucrat. And you need the leader of a school to always put the child at the center.”
In closing, Mrs. Clarke described the responsibilities of a school in preparing students for the unknown, “We are preparing our students for a future we cannot imagine – our kindergartners…will reach their peaks in the workforce as forty-five year olds in 2054. Our seniors will be forty-five in 2041. We can’t predict what they will need to know; we can only try to equip them with the skills we imagine they will need: critical thinking, creative problem solving, advanced communication skills, a global perspective. Our students will always need integrity, will always need the ability to build meaningful relationships, will always need to walk in someone else’s shoes. And they need to sustain the planet, to sustain the educational process, and to sustain the quality of thinking we keep pushing them to achieve.”
Mrs. Clarke is a graduate of Vassar College (A.B. Greek), Yale University (A.M. Classics), and Harvard University (C.A.S. Course work (30+ credits) and post doc practicum; Ed.M. Counseling and Consulting Psychology).
