Dear Taft Community,

It has been an exciting year at Taft. Peter Becker became our 6th Head of School and he, Amy Julia and their family have made a smooth transition to life at Taft. I want to thank all members of the Taft faculty, staff and all of you for making Peter and his family feel so welcome. I know that Peter has already met many of you this year and he and I look forward to many more of these meetings. Head of School transitions are important events in the life of a school and Peter's first year has been a happy, promising, and productive time. This is due in large part to the foundation built by Willy and Grant Porter, our strong and dedicated senior leadership team, and the school’s staff and faculty.

This Spring on campus has been joyful and busy. We had our Spring Board of Trustees meeting, reunion weekend and the upcoming graduation weekend. The Spring Board meeting was a culmination of a full review of our governance capabilities. The Board has updated its committees, practices, term limits and importantly created a Committee on Trustees to evaluate the performance of the Board and vet new trustees and potential non-trustee committee members. Our new Committee on Trustees will create more opportunities for our alumni within our Governance structure and as such this process will now replace the annual alumni trustee vote. The voting process has yielded wonderful alumni trustees over the years but it also resulted in unnecessary disappointment for worthy individuals (and their friends) who lost the vote. Our goal is to include more alumni via this nomination process which we will communicate transparently through the school’s website, the Bulletin, and social media. If you know of a member of the Taft alumni body who would bring important expertise to a board committee or to the board, please email nominations@taftschool.org. The committee will review all nominations. Of course, one of the many strengths of Taft is the breadth and depth of expertise in our alumni body. We anticipate the good challenge of having many more worthy candidates than available positions.

Alumni Weekend was a wonderful and sunny event. We bid goodbye to four amazing individuals who will retire this year and who have served Taft for a combined 164 years: Susan and Steve McCabe and Baba and Peter Frew. I attach my comments from the Saturday installation event for Peter Becker and I reiterate our gratitude to these giants of Taft. It was also nice to meet many of you for the first time and see others that I have not seen for decades. I was honored to meet three individuals from the class of 1949. What struck me most from speaking to alumni was that while our experiences as students may differ, we share a deep love for the school. I, for one, remember keenly how hard it was as a teenager from Switzerland to assimilate into a New England boarding school culture. Yet I emerged stronger, and more resilient. The reality that our experiences can vary greatly is one we need to embrace as we consider how to remain engaged, and strengthen our school. Let’s make sure that more and more Taft graduates can look back with fondness on their Taft experience and not only say that Taft changed them for the better but that Taft was a healthy experience filled by strong relationships with friends and teachers.



Lastly, graduation is upon us. As a parent of three Tafties, my wife and I will see our youngest daughter graduate from Taft. I am thankful that the school has prepared her, and her classmates, well for a bright future in an ever-changing world. It is this ever-changing world, that the Board, faculty and staff will need to grapple with as we begin our work on our new strategic plan. Peter and the Board are excited about setting challenging goals for Taft as we look forward to the second quarter of this century. We will always aim for excellence in all we do at Taft, while keeping our motto front and center.

I am so thankful that you have taken the time to read this letter and I hope that these regular communications give you a glimpse at the enormous work which happens on a daily basis at our school. I want to thank our faculty, staff, and Board for another successful school year, and wish all of you a wonderful summer. I look forward to seeing many more of you next year at Alumni Weekend.

Sincerely,

Sarkis D. Izmirlian II '90, P'20,'22,'24

Chair, Board of Trustees