Hotchkiss Hires New Head With Global Vision

LAKEVILLE — After a search process lasting almost a year, The Hotchkiss School has found a new leader.

Malcolm McKenzie, a native of Cape Town, South Africa, will become head of the 115-year-old boarding school in July. McKenzie is currently in his seventh year as principal of Atlantic College, a co-educational boarding school in Wales.

"Malcolm is widely recognized as a leading thinker and writer on educational matters, especially those related to global issues, which will be increasingly fundamental to our students’ future," Hotchkiss Board of Trustees President John Thornton said in a written statement shortly after McKenzie was hired as the school’s 12th head earlier this month.

In an interview, Thornton said McKenzie came to Hotchkiss to speak about international education a few years ago at the invitation of Robert H. "Skip" Mattoon Jr., the outgoing headmaster. During his recent interview process, McKenzie taught a two-period class at the school.

"The dimension Malcolm adds is consistent with the direction the world is taking and that we are taking as an institution," Thornton said. "There are certain things about the institution that we regard as enduring and Malcolm exemplifies those qualities to a remarkable degree."

McKenzie, 53, also served for eight years as head of Maru-a-Pula School in Botswana, a leading boarding school in Africa. From 1999 to 2000, between his two stints as a school head, McKenzie served as a fellow at one of Hotchkiss’s rival schools, Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Mass. McKenzie has also taught English at two leading South African universities.

According to its Web site, Atlantic College has about 340 students compared to 574 at Hotchkiss. Atlantic is one of 12 co-educational boarding schools around the world comprising the United World Colleges, an international education consortium.

Founded in 1962, Atlantic says its mission is "to engage young people from all nations in finding peaceful means to bring together a world divided by political, racial and socio-economic barriers."

Similarly, the Hotchkiss mission includes the hope that its students leave "with a greater understanding of themselves and of their responsibilities in a global society." In addition, Hotchkiss has a Global Understanding Fund that sponsors international scholarship and travel for students and faculty.

Thornton, a director at the Intel Corporation and a former chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, is himself a professor and director of global leadership at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

McKenzie will replace Mattoon, who announced last February that after 11 years at the helm, he would retire at the end of the 2006-07 school year. The search committee for the new head was comprised of six trustees and four faculty members. Thornton added that both the committee and 22-member board of trustees were unanimous in their determination that McKenzie was the right choice.

According to Thornton, McKenzie will inherit a strong institution. Two new dormitories are under construction and the refurbishment of the old gymnasium is underway. In addition, since Mattoon’s arrival the school’s endowment has tripled to more than $317 million — an amount that is the envy of many colleges and university.

And last year Mattoon accepted a set of recommendations from the school’s Curriculum Review Committee, which enumerated a set of skills — "the foundations of learning" — each Hotchkiss graduate should have, along with the reinforcement of those skills across the curriculum.