Hicks to head The Hotchkiss School

LAKEVILLE — The Hotchkiss School has announced that Dean of Faculty Kevin Hicks will replace Malcolm McKenzie as head of the 121-year old independent co-ed boarding school. McKenzie, who came to the school in 2006, will leave in July to be the founding head of school of Keystone Academy in Beijing, China. Hicks will be the 13th head of school at Hotchkiss, which is considered one of the top preparatory schools in the world and has 598 students from 29 countries.Hicks has been at Hotchkiss since 2010 and is associate head of school in addition to being dean of faculty. His promotion was announced in December in a letter to Hotchkiss community members from Jeannie Weinberg Rose, who is president of the school’s board of trustees.Divinity backgroundAccording to the letter to the Hotchkiss community from Rose, Hicks holds “a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale and a Ph.D. in English from Princeton. He has taught English at secondary schools and colleges, coached high school and collegiate lacrosse, and served as associate director of admissions at Bennington College. “Immediately before coming to Hotchkiss, Kevin served for five years as the dean of Berkeley College at Yale University.”Hicks and his wife, Cornelia Cannon Holden, have one child, Zuleika Alice, who was born in April 2011.“We on the board are eager to work with Kevin in building on the strategic initiatives that Malcolm McKenzie has advanced with courage and creativity,” Rose said in her letter. McKenzie is currently traveling in Antarctica with a group of students and faculty. Earlier this year, Hotchkiss shared information about McKenzie’s future life in Asia. “I have for many years wished to start a school, and to have the opportunity of doing this in Beijing is a dream,” he said in the report, posted on the school’s website in May 2012. “I am deeply drawn to China, and Beijing is a city of great cultural, intellectual and artistic ferment.” He has been working with Ed Shanahan, the retired headmaster of Choate Rosemary Hall, on plans for Keystone since August 2011. Shanahan will be the school’s founding president.Keystone will teach students in grades one to 12, with full boarding from grade seven. Instruction will blend “the best of the American independent boarding school tradition … with the best of the Chinese pedagogical tradition,” McKenzie said in his May letter.“In essence,” he said, “Keystone Academy will offer a world-class preparation to Chinese students for study at American and other English-speaking universities, and allow them to remain in China until they leave for college. They will thus retain a clear sense of their own heritage, culture and identity.”McKenzie’s tenureIn his letter of resignation to Rose in November 2011, McKenzie said, “The purpose of my letter is to confirm that I intend to leave Hotchkiss in the summer of 2013, at the end of my sixth year as Head of School. You and I have discussed this timing, and have agreed that I shall serve Hotchkiss for an additional year beyond the end of my current five-year contract.”In her response to his resignation (both letters are posted on the school’s website), Rose said, “In 2005, the board, working with the faculty and various school constituencies, committed to a strategic direction that would make Hotchkiss a leader in 21st-century education. “Through leadership and innovation, Malcolm has done a great deal to refine, build upon and realize this collective vision. It is too early to commemorate his accomplishments, as much remains for us to do together. Nevertheless, I want to highlight a few of his achievements thus far.“Malcolm came to Hotchkiss with a passion for academic excellence and educational innovation. With his exceptional intellect and broad range of experience, he led a rigorous process of curricular reform as he built upon the recommendations of a schoolwide academic review. Our new curriculum embraces cross-disciplinary teaching with depth and purpose, particularly in the innovative Core Humanities Program. The curriculum also grounds learning in both the immediate and the global environment. “Building on a key element in our Environmental Initiative, Malcolm has made the farm an integral part of the school and an innovative tool for experiential teaching and learning. He has deepened the school’s global awareness and fostered in our community an appreciation of the unfamiliar. He has attracted outstanding students and faculty — individuals who display impressive diversity in background, interests and personality, all while sharing the same commitment to curiosity and character. Malcolm has made Hotchkiss a warmer and more open school.“We look back on Malcolm’s time in Lakeville with deep appreciation.”More than 100 resumesThe Search Committee co-chairs were John E. Ellis and Eleanor G. Long. In a letter to the school community during the search, they said, “Over the course of the summer, we vetted over 100 serious resumes and met with a wide range of individuals who were helpful to us in identifying possible candidates.“We narrowed the field to 15 resumes of top-quality and serious candidates in August. During September and October, the committee narrowed the field to five candidates and hosted a series of semifinalist interviews. “The interest in Hotchkiss has been high, and the field of candidates remarkably impressive.”