Extraordinary Vision
EXTRAORDINARY VISION, A Campaign for Rowland Hall
From Generation to Generation: Creating a School for the Next 100 Years
A continual pursuit of educational excellence is the defining characteristic of Rowland Hall.
Today, we stand together at a crossroads, not unlike the one that led us to build an extraordinary campus for our youngest students just a decade ago. The same deep-seated commitment to provide students, today and tomorrow, with the very best education in the best possible environment guides us now as we contemplate plans for the newly acquired land west of the McCarthey Campus.
Generation after generation of motivated Rowland Hall educators and students have proven that a fine, traditional K-12 education is attainable in just about any physical location. However, current and future generations of students – digital learners who will be called upon to analyze, synthesize, evaluate and create new knowledge – require more than a traditional, industrial age school experience.
Buying the Land and Building The Steiner Campus -- $66 million
The largest gift in our school's history and two other significant lead gifts enabled us to purchase the 13.2 acres adjoining the McCarthey Campus on which Rowland Hall will build a campus designed to meet the needs of current and future middle and high school students. Our trustees have unanimously endorsed naming the new campus in honor of The Steiner Family Foundation's extraordinary generosity. The gracious and timely gifts of The Ruth Eleanor Bamberger and John Ernest Bamberger Memorial Foundation and Bob and Wendy Steiner were also essential in making the historic purchase a reality.
A Design for 21st Century Learning
Never underestimate the power of a first impression! The entryway to the Steiner Campus will emphatically state – "You have arrived at one of the finest independent schools in the country." In building a new campus for the next 100 years, Rowland Hall will do more than assemble bricks and mortar. We will embrace the well-established links between healthy indoor and outdoor environments and learning outcomes. Study after study demonstrates improved test scores and increased satisfaction in well day lit and ventilated classrooms. Views of the outdoors and direct access to outside spaces enhance attention and mood. Sustainable LEED-rated school design is one of the fundamental goals of this project and its accomplishment enhances our ability to prepare students to become engaged global citizens. At the heart of the Steiner Campus is the new home for the Middle School and the Upper School, a magnificent learning center where each school division will be oriented around a central atrium and garden courtyard. Classrooms for these divisions will be located in distinctly separate areas to honor the developmental differences between younger adolescents and the more mature teenaged students, yet all classrooms will be within close proximity to shared spaces. In this building, the hallways and commons areas will provide generous space for team-based study, group meetings, and exhibitions of student art and classroom projects. This main building will also house the cafeteria, library, auxiliary learning, and administrative areas. Essential to the design of any new learning environment is an easily adaptable technological infrastructure.
The Middle School
Adolescent students require room to collaborate and engage in active, hands-on study. That is why each new Middle School classroom will be 130-square feet larger, on average, than existing Lincoln Street classrooms, and will be clustered by grade level that allow for team-based teaching. Each learning space will take full advantage of views from the site while maximizing the potential for natural lighting. Faculty will move lessons to easily accessible outdoor classrooms and gardens for applied learning, study, and reflection. Because hallways often become an extension of classrooms, the corridors of the new Middle School will provide commons and nooks for study, socializing, and meeting, in a way that fosters community.
The Upper School
In their extraordinary new environment, Upper School students will excel at the highest level. In all, the Upper School on the new Steiner Campus will be 33 percent larger. Laboratories and specialized spaces will be flexible, classrooms and storage areas will be spacious, and the layout will address a broad array of technological needs. There will be commons areas designed for groups to gather, collaborate, engage in creative pursuits, and relax. Upper School students will enjoy classrooms that are more consistently sized at 600 square feet, and they will access outdoor learning environments and other spaces that provide maximum support for science, art, technology, and media exploration. Technology will be seamlessly integrated and science labs will be flexible and fully equipped with digital enhancements. On the Lincoln Street Campus, the Upper School's wide corridors and hallways have become socially interactive focal points, allowing students to gather, while teachers, parents, and others pass by and participate in the spirit of the community. The new campus will maintain this tradition of active hallways with enhanced "sun lounges" to allow for gathering between lockers.
"Coming to school will be a totally different experience. From what we've seen, the building will be an indoor/outdoor wonderland. Just a gorgeous place to spend time." Upper School teacher
Shared Places
It is easy to imagine how expansive the sense of community will be in the new cafeteria and library -- attractive spaces where students will want to gather and linger. The new cafeteria will be spacious and its location on the western edge of the campus will feature a panoramic view of the Salt Lake valley and beyond. The library, centrally located off the main building's atrium, will be a light-filled, multi-use space for studying, group meetings, and collaborative learning. It will be a haven for reading and relaxation, and a rich resource for technology-aided research.
Physically housing more than 10,000 books, publications, videos and other resources, the library will also be digitally equipped for up-to-the-minute research and study.
Technological Infrastructure
A sophisticated level of technological competency will be expected from our students by the time they graduate from high school, including multicultural, informational, ecological, scientific, and cyber- and media-related literacies. Our students will use technologies that don't even exist today to creatively grapple with critical global issues. Technological learning and the thoughtful integration of audiovisual systems, interactive media, the Internet, and remote collaboration technologies into the school environment is key to providing a 21st century education. The changing nature of these technologies requires a flexible design approach that invites adaptation over time. To supplement and support the latest technology in use in classrooms, the main building will also include general use technology/media labs.
If You Build It, They Will Play
Physical education and athletics are invaluable to a student's overall school experience, providing significant learning experiences outside the classroom and countless opportunities to develop character, self-esteem, self-discipline, leadership and teamwork skills, respect for others, and responsibility. These attributes need room to grow! Our physical education, athletics, and Rowmark Ski Academy training programs face serious space limitations on the Lincoln Street Campus. There's no doubt that all our recreational and competitive athletic programs will immeasurably improve on a new campus that will include a main gymnasium and a practice gymnasium, with ample locker room facilities and equipment storage space. The main gym will have bleachers that accommodate 600 spectators; the practice gym will seat 300. The athletic complex will also feature an indoor track (a significant enhancement for our athletic training during Salt Lake Valley "inversions"). An up-to-date weight room will provide separate cardio and weights areas. The physical therapy room will be easily accessible and large enough to comfortably accommodate necessary equipment and personnel. Areas for concessions and storage will be available within the gym complex. Two sports fields, one for training and one for competition, will be easily accessible on-site for our older athletes, and at the same time highly visible and inspirational for up-and-coming elementary-aged students. Visible also from the street, our athletic facilities will make a statement and could significantly improve our program. The overall boost to a unified school spirit will be something to cheer about!
"It will be awesome to have more athletic facilities of our own! I believe it will create more interest and excitement for Rowland Hall Winged Lion athletics!" Athletic Director
State of the Arts While the Rowland Hall community treasures the remarkable outpouring of artistic creativity in its midst, our current facilities fall short in communicating the significance of art in our curriculum and the life of our school. The Steiner Campus' arts complex will not only give the arts greater presence, its exciting architectural spaces will definitively state that the making of art is a vital and appreciated mode of thought and expression. New, purpose-built studios, rehearsal rooms, performance spaces, offices, and exhibition galleries that are physically integrated into the life of our school will encourage students to opt for extracurricular arts activities and enhance art-making within the curriculum. Our art spaces will become gathering places that affirm our commitment to preparing students to become productive citizens of a rapidly changing world in which creativity and collaboration are highly valued.
While the current Larimer Center for the Performing Arts is a cherished home for our school's theatre, music, and dance productions, the new auditorium will be significantly more functional. Spacious enough to accommodate 475 people, it will be both a performance hall and an active and inspiring place in which the entire Upper School community can come together. Middle School students will also enjoy the grander space for its official school gatherings.
The theatre department will have at its fingertips a smaller performance space, a black box theatre, perfect for teaching and presenting to smaller groups. This space will alternatively serve as an auxiliary small group instructional area.
Visual art and ceramics studios will feature sufficient storage and production space. A new printmaking and drying room will be provided and a computer lab will also be accessible to the art and photography studio, allowing digital media design to be more fully incorporated into the arts curriculum.
The new campus design calls for music facilities befitting the best jazz band program in the state and the school's growing choral music and orchestral programs. It includes a tiered choral room for practice and small performances. Along with separate, acoustically-discreet rehearsal rooms, the proposed band room will have a large practice space that meets the needs of the students while accommodating an audience of 100 people for performances.
The dance program will enjoy airy, studio areas with a spacious lobby that will serve as a breakout space. Acoustical and technological enhancements will make the dance studio an area where careful, choreographic decisions can be made and where works-in-progress can be viewed by small audiences.
An acoustically isolated scene shop near the auditorium, as well as an additional industrial arts shop near the visual arts complex, will enhance several areas of the curriculum and provide a dedicated area for stage set construction and storage, wood and metal working, and fabricating that will support other areas of the curriculum.
"In order for the arts to thrive, we need to have a community that is active, educated, and involved in performances, processes, and community arts outreach projects. When the whole community is on one campus, our ability to come together as artists of all ages and learn to use art as a common language could be exponentially transforming."
Upper School fine art teacher Rowmark Ski Academy New facilities for Rowmark Ski Academy will be located adjacent to the athletic department and integrated into the life of the school with physical spaces worthy of our world-class, elite ski-training program located in the heart of the Wasatch Front. Rowmark athletes and coaches will enjoy direct access to the gym, training, track, and therapy facilities, and convenient areas for efficient loading and unloading of ski gear. In addition, the program will finally have adequate facilities of its own that will include a large ski-tuning workshop with lockers, workrooms for viewing training videos, and conference facilities.
One Campus, One Community
The benefits of creating a facility truly designed for 21st century learning are enormous, yet many exciting possibilities exist in the simple fact of our entire school community occupying one campus. While each school division will continue to support the distinct developmental needs of its students, various intentional interactions will invite possibilities such as:
Building An Endowment for Faculty and Students -- $9 million
The Board of Trustees' most recent strategic plan set a five-year $16 million endowment goal and during this campaign we hope to accomplish a significant first step. For its long-term financial health Rowland Hall cannot continue to depend upon tuition alone to sustain its programs. Just as the annual fund has grown to help balance the operating budget, now we must build our endowment as another source of income to reduce the school's reliance on tuition.
Rowland Hall's Board of Trustees challenges the school community to raise an additional $5 million during this campaign to specifically support two crucially important school goals: increasing student body diversity through financial aid and enhancing faculty development through salaries and training.
Rowland Hall actively pursues a student body that is racially, ethnically, religiously, and socio-economically diverse. Growing diversity enhances our school's greatest strength – its community – a caring place where students, faculty, parents, and alumni work together to create an ethical and supportive learning environment.
Throughout the years, many generous donors have offered financial assistance to students who have benefited from the individual attention afforded by an independent school education, students who otherwise might not have been able to attend such a school because of financial considerations. Rowland Hall benefits in turn from the diverse array of talents these students share with the community. To expand the diversity of the student body, we must increase the availability of scholarships and need-based financial assistance.
In addition to a diverse student body, an innovative and talented faculty drives the school's educational and extracurricular program. Rowland Hall takes great pride in its ability to attract and retain exceptional educators and we are committed to equitably compensating our faculty. This endowment would also ensure that our teachers will stay on top of new information, new concepts, new technologies, and be exposed to the best minds in education.
By funding more training opportunities for our teachers and providing financial aid to increase diversity for our student body Rowland Hall's essential educational foundation will remains strong for generation after generation.
