Welcome, Parents of Alumni!

Each year at division commencement ceremonies, Rowland Hall proudly honors faculty who have demonstrated exceptional teaching and mentoring.

The Sumner/Larsen Excellence in Teaching Faculty Awards

Each year, the Sumner/Larsen Excellence in Teaching Faculty Awards are presented to outstanding faculty members in each division who have demonstrated a love for teaching and excellence in their fields. This award was established in 1985 by Kit Sumner and family, who have shown an unparalleled commitment to Rowland Hall for three generations. In 2022, Kurt Larsen, who shares the Sumners’ high regard for Rowland Hall’s faculty and dedication to the school, joined Kit Sumner in funding this award to increase its impact. The renamed Sumner/Larsen Excellence in Teaching Faculty Award is one of the highest recognitions of excellence in teaching at Rowland Hall.

Congratulations to the following recipients.

Beginning School: Melanie Robbins, kindergarten lead teacher

Melanie Robbins is, first and foremost, thoughtful. Her deep thinking—about teaching, young children and their families, curriculum, colleagues, and life itself—not only feeds her, but often sets her apart. Her insights into her students, which she frequently shares through humorous vignettes, are grounded in careful observation and a rich understanding of child development. If you’re lucky enough to converse with Melanie about what’s best for young children, prepare to leave feeling inspired and excited. Despite her gentle demeanor, she is a bold and unwavering advocate for allowing little children to be little—while earnestly acknowledging them as fully human people. Colleagues and school leaders alike know they can count on her for thoughtful, curious, and constructive dialogue on a wide range of topics. She’s always eager to learn something new, reminding us often that her teaching will never be “laminated”—that is, never fixed or final. Like her young students, it’s always growing. For more than a decade at Rowland Hall, she’s held space each day for children to grapple with the real stuff of life: balancing individuality with community, finding freedom and grounding in nature, the value of self-sufficiency—and, more recently, how to safely build and cook over an open fire.

Lower School: Susan Swidnicki, McCarthey Campus music teacher

Susan Swidnicki’s impact is far-reaching, consistent, and deeply felt. Every week, she engages with 442 students—more than any other Rowland Hall faculty member—and every child from 3PreK through fifth grade knows the sound of her voice and the joyful learning of her classroom. This year alone, Susan prepared for no fewer than 11 concerts and music shares, led a weekly lunchtime chorus, and guided students through the Lower School Chorus Concert and the All-School Chorus Concert. Her dedication doesn’t end when the bell rings. Susan accompanies the fifth grade to the symphony, attends after-school recitals and Puttin’ on the Arts, and never hesitates to give of her own time to support and celebrate students. Susan brings that same spirit of care to colleagues. This year, she collaborated on multiple interdisciplinary music and art integration projects. Her ability to see the connections between disciplines and to make those connections meaningful for students is a hallmark of her teaching. But what truly sets Susan apart is her heart. She is deeply curious about her students as people. She listens, adapts, and connects. She believes in the transformative power of music, and the importance of her work shines in every lesson she teaches and every child she mentors. She is a tireless, kind, and inspiring presence in our school community, and a remarkable educator in every sense of the word.

Middle School: Sam Duffy, PE teacher

Sam Duffy is a role model, leader, and community builder who’s made an extraordinary impact on our Middle School and community at large. Sam brings energy, positivity, and a deep sense of purpose to everything he does. His classes focus on inclusivity and personal growth, helping students build positive self-identity, resilience, and collaboration skills, and empowering them to develop lifelong habits that support their physical and mental well-being. Sam radiates enthusiasm and care, seeing every student as an athlete and every day as an opportunity to help them build their confidence, teamwork, and perseverance. This year, Sam launched a new eighth-grade PE elective, already a student favorite, that offers choice, personal challenge, and variety in how eighth graders engage with fitness and wellness. He also developed a strength-training program in the Upper School so popular that student-athletes are meeting before school to participate. Outside the classroom, Sam’s coached a wide range of sports in the middle and upper schools, focusing on sportsmanship, personal growth, and team dynamics.

Upper School: Jeremy Innis, music theory teacher and choir director

Jeremy Innis has demonstrated a love for teaching and excellence in several fields. Perhaps more than any other faculty member in recent years, he’s touched the lives of students through core classes and electives in multiple disciplines and several divisions, as well as through the role of interfaith chaplain, where his infinite wisdom, thoughtfulness, and community-mindedness shone through in the Chapel program, Candle and Carol, and a multitude of other events, from concerts to ceremonies to school traditions. It cannot be emphasized enough how important Jeremy’s words have been to the community, providing food for thought, inspiring reflection, bringing solace, celebrating diverse voices and traditions, and always elevating others. He always knows the right thing to say to meet the moment, whether solemn or celebratory. In the classroom, Jeremy has inspired learning through courses as diverse as World Religions, Ethics, Historical Foundations, Choir, Orchestra, and Advanced Topics Music Theory. His students describe him as kind, patient, smart, inspirational, calm, and calming. His love for the humanities and the arts shines through in his teaching and extensive contributions to the Rowland Hall community.

Cary Jones Faculty Mentor Award 2025

The Cary Jones Faculty Mentor Award is presented to Rowland Hall faculty members who demonstrate excellence in teaching, serve as mentors to others, and contribute to the Rowland Hall community. This award was established through an anonymous gift to the school in honor of Mr. Jones’ dedication to the faculty when he was the chair of the Board of Trustees.

This year’s Cary Jones Faculty Mentor Award has been awarded to Mike Shackelford, political science teacher and debate coach.

Mike Shackelford is well known on Lincoln Street Campus. Whether or not a student has had him as a teacher or coach, they’ve all experienced Mike’s purposeful walk down Upper School hallways, his relentlessly positive and supportive demeanor, or his entertaining announcements at assembly. Mike and his students win numerous awards, year in and year out, such that it is easy to take for granted just how excellent our debate program is thanks to him. What’s lesser known, though, is how Mike serves as a mentor to others and shines through his commitment to our community. Over the years, Mike and his debaters have supported efforts to build dialogue and have provided coaching on listening and working through challenging, controversial issues in a collegial and productive way, most memorably during election season. Mike also helped develop Deliberate Dialogue, a set of skills teachers use to foster critical thinking and productive, open-minded dialogue in the classroom. Mike has stepped up to be an advisor to students in the class of 2027, and serves as an ombudsperson for Lincoln Street Campus faculty and staff who would like additional support in a difficult conversation. He teaches electives in the middle and upper schools, and last year extended his Middle School Model UN and Mock Trial programs into the Upper School. His students are already garnering results; some even ventured to New York City this year to showcase their new skills. This is in addition to the very special Taiwan debate trip he planned last fall. Mike is the ultimate team player and a supportive educator who approaches everything with care, flexibility, generosity, and integrity. He knows when to push and when to pull, creating pathways to elevate everyone around him.

People

At this year’s graduation ceremonies and end-of-year events, student speakers shared reflective and inspiring stories about their experiences at Rowland Hall.

We've posted their speeches for you to enjoy.

Student Voices

In late May, an exciting delivery was made to the Richard R. Steiner Campus building site: 1.72 million pounds of trusses, joists, and other materials that will be used to frame the state-of-the-art learning spaces where students will engage in the transformational learning Rowland Hall is known for.

For months, the site has been a bustle of activity as crew members cleared the land and poured the foundation of Rowland Hall’s new Middle School, Upper School, athletic complex, and performing arts center. And while the community is well aware of this work, its location below the ground level of the McCarthey Campus has made it hard to get a sense of progress. This summer, though, as the recently delivered materials are joined to steel beams and the Steiner Campus truly rises, it will be clear: a new chapter is beginning at Rowland Hall.

“This is nothing short of a major historical moment for the school,” said Head of School Mick Gee. “And it’s been a long time coming.”

The school is in the great shape it’s in now because of its history ... and this is the next step: setting the school up for a bright and successful future.—Head of School Mick Gee

As Rowland Hall’s 20th head of school, Mick has spent much of his first five years (he’ll celebrate his fifth anniversary on July 1) fulfilling the school’s goal to reunite students at one location for the first time in more than four decades. And while Mick’s headship will forever be tied to this moment, he sees himself as one of many stewards who made the Steiner Campus possible—a guardian of this moment in Rowland Hall history.

“The school is in the great shape it’s in now because of its history,” said Mick. “At the moments when it was needed, leaders of the school made the decision to move campuses, expand, and purchase land. That’s why we are where we are, and this is the next step: setting the school up for a bright and successful future.”

While Rowland Hall’s one-campus master plan was unveiled in 2007, the campus’s soccer fields were the only piece of that plan to be completed between that year and 2020, when Mick joined the community and inherited a phased approach to the new campus: to first build a new Middle School and gym, then, in the following years, an Upper School with a performing arts center and gym. It wasn’t long into Mick’s tenure, though—and particularly when he began working on the school’s newest strategic priorities—that he began to ask questions that shaped the campus that’s rising today.

“They were beautiful but conventional spaces,” Mick remembered of the Middle School building plan. “And they didn’t factor in areas that a school of our stature should be offering,” such as research labs and maker’s spaces. Mick was also concerned, based on soaring construction escalation costs, about the affordability of the project. He thought, “It’s a question if we can afford it now; it’s certainly a question if we can afford it in five or ten years’ time. It seemed pretty high risk to delay much further.” So Mick went to the Board of Trustees and asked: Can we instead build everything we need all at once?

“The board was excited to consider that,” he remembered. “There was strong leadership in terms of being flexible and considering all our options, like financing.” In March 2022, the board voted on the strategic use of debt and an elevated capital campaign to allow Rowland Hall to build all facilities at once and, said Mick, allow “many more students to experience the new building on a much sooner timeframe.”

Mick has always been clear that while the Steiner Campus’s state-of-the-art facilities are themselves exciting, what’s most important is the transformational learning they make possible. From flexible-use classrooms to maker and community spaces, the Steiner Campus was thoughtfully designed to meet the needs of students, both today and in the future, and to support Rowland Hall’s newest strategic vision, another area of focus during Mick’s first five years.

While Mick’s first year was unexpectedly and largely defined by COVID-19, he also spent much of that time thinking about Rowland Hall’s vision for the foreseeable future. Mick knew he would need to lead the charge for a fresh strategic plan, following the completion of Rowland Hall’s 2014–2019 iteration. By fall 2021, he had established a Strategic Planning Task Force comprised of faculty, staff, and trustees, which was asked to identify both a strategic vision and the priorities that would bring that vision to life. He asked the group to think big.

“We didn’t want to set the bar too low—it was all about setting the bar as high as it can be and having a vision that has meaning for our students when they leave here,” said Mick.

The vision borne of that work, Developing People the World Needs, is definitely a high bar, and it’s had a big impact. Since its launch in spring 2022, that vision, and the four priorities driving it, have helped Rowland Hall further stand out as a top school nationally—one that’s redefining what education looks like by creating life-changing programs that prepare students to be critical, creative thinkers and communicators.

Perhaps the most inspiring outcome of this strategic work is tied to faculty’s enthusiastic response to the call to design authentic learning experiences, and to seek out opportunities for students to work on solutions to the world’s hardest problems. This is the kind of learning that most inspires students, and it’s changing the conversation around what learners of all ages are capable of. Today, Rowland Hall students are engaged in more hands-on work than ever before (impressive, considering the school’s history with this kind of learning), and our oldest students capping off their high school experiences in truly impactful ways, including presenting original work at national conferences and publishing research in academic journals.

We’re getting a reputation nationally in that area, our students producing real work and creating and advancing knowledge.—Head of School Mick Gee

“We’re getting a reputation nationally in that area, our students producing real work and creating and advancing knowledge,” said Mick. “That’s something we don’t always see high school students doing and think is not possible, and that’s not the case.”

Proving students’ capabilities has been a major part of Mick’s career. A former science teacher who’s worked with students in the UK and the US, Mick has seen firsthand how students benefit when teachers go beyond just teaching subjects like science, English, history, and math, to teaching students to see themselves as scientists, writers, historians, and mathematicians. It’s an approach that engages students, and gives them permission to follow their own interests, explore deeply, see themselves as capable contributors, and find meaning in their studies.

“That world has changed dramatically, for good and bad,” said Mick. “Now, students want to know why they’re learning something, why it matters. I think that’s a good thing.”

Making space for deeper learning is also allowing Rowland Hall to redefine what academic rigor means, particularly in the independent school space, and to prove this doesn’t mean sacrificing high quality or challenging academics.

“Rigor is often equated with volume and speed,” said Mick. “Our Advanced Research classes are our most rigorous, but they’re not focused on volume and speed. Depth and understanding define those courses—that’s more rigorous and less stressful. Students are working at their own pace, with outside mentors. They’re creating final projects that are presented to experts in the field. They do all that at a level that shocks people.”

As a result, Rowland Hall’s program has been touted widely and is gaining prominence as student achievements are highlighted in local and national publications, faculty and staff are sought out as regional and national resources, and our vision is shared among independent schools (consultant Tim Fish, former chief innovation officer at the National Association of Independent Schools, often uses Rowland Hall’s strategic work as an example of a clear, meaningful vision). And as the school’s reputation is growing, so is the community.

“The substance of doing real work and kids having these experiences is driving people here,” said Mick. This includes faculty and staff who seek out, and will even wait for, opportunities to work at Rowland Hall, as well as families—the school just reported one of our highest enrollment cohorts ever for 2025–2026, including our largest incoming ninth-grade class. It’s an exciting indicator of how, five years into his headship and with the support of the community, Mick has masterfully guided Rowland Hall through a period of transition and growth, defining a clear vision and a commitment to transformational learning that’s actively shaping what is possible in education.

People

Isabelle Buhler always puts children first.

In her 26 years at Rowland Hall's Beginning School, Isabelle has led with kindness, empathy, and the steadfast belief that children, no matter their age, are capable of doing hard things and accomplishing great things. Over the years, she has taught every level from 2PreK to kindergarten, but she is ending her tenure at the school with the four-year-olds—an age group she has come to deeply love and appreciate.

Isabelle lights up when she talks about the transformation she sees in her students throughout the year. “This is really when the kids become learners. They hear about being engineers and writers and authors and mathematicians and artists and scientists, and all this becomes alive with the children,” she said. “They talk with a lot of confidence about what they know how to do and what they are learning.”

The 4PreK curriculum holds a special place in Isabelle’s heart because of how well it supports these emerging learners. This is the year when students begin sounding out words, using inventive spelling, and building their identities as writers and builders.

This curriculum has so much richness. There are not many schools in the country that value the work of preschoolers like we do.—Isabelle Buhler, 3PreK lead teacher

One of the hallmark projects, the pumpkin study, spans the entire year. Students grow and harvest pumpkins in the fall, study all aspects of the gourds, including watching them decay in the winter months, and, in the spring, plant seeds for the next class of learners.

“This curriculum has so much richness,” she said. “We are lucky at Rowland Hall that this work is valued. There are not many schools in the country that value the work of preschoolers like we do.”

Isabelle’s personality makes her uniquely suited to teaching four-year-olds. She strikes a rare balance of comfort and control: she’s able to guide a group of energetic, overtired children with patience and care, and then sit down next to one to soothe them to sleep at naptime. She is both a no-nonsense leader and a soft place to land.

“She is one of the best preschool teachers I have ever known. She manages to hold really high standards for kids; that makes them feel good,” said Beginning School Principal Emma Wellman. “But she also delights in their silliness and their jokey four- and five-year-oldness, and it’s very common to get one or the other. But to have them both in such balance is a really special thing.”

While the children are Isabelle’s top priority, they are not the only beneficiaries of her deeds and actions. She also made sure to take care of their parents. After all, kids cannot thrive if their parents don’t, and as anyone who has ever raised a child can tell you, the early years can be rough. There are lots of books available, but the practical advice is what matters most.

“She has helped coach so many parents through those moments that are often really tricky for them, in a way that is supportive of the frazzled nature that is young parenthood,” said Beginning School and Lower School Assistant Principal Brittney Hansen. “She talked to them about practical things like sleep and nutrition, and are you building routines for your morning to help your children get to school and be successful. She did that work beautifully year after year after year.”

She has helped coach so many parents through those moments that are often really tricky for them, in a way that is supportive of the frazzled nature that is young parenthood.—Brittney Hansen, Beginning School and Lower School assistant principal

Isabelle made a point of making everyone feel supported and seen, including her colleagues. She loved being a part of the Rowland Hall team, reveled in their victories, and supported them in the hard times. She served as the first ombudsperson for the Beginning School when the program opened, and always had her finger on the pulse of the faculty and staff in the building.

“She was extremely candid. Not gossiping, always with the best of intentions,” said former Beginning School Principal Carol Blackwell. “She would always be positive but would bring me issues that other faculty didn’t feel comfortable bringing to me, always with the intent to make the school better.”

The best way towards improvement is learning, and in her career, Isabelle was a constant learner. She sought out what was new and what she could be doing differently. She also wanted to improve the school as a whole and served on too many committees to count, including the one that designed the Beginning School on the McCarthey Campus.

“She really helped make the Beginning School cohesive,” said Carol. “That’s someone who helps build the fabric of your division.”

Perhaps the best example of Isabelle as a teacher and leader happened during the COVID pandemic. Young children are notoriously sticky and touchy. That’s not a good thing with germs around. But Isabelle had one goal in mind: to keep things as normal as possible.

“They needed to be at school. That was safe for them,” she said, “We had them change their masks quite often because it was disgusting. But soon they forgot they had them on, and they never got sick and never missed a day of school.”

Isabelle is more than learning and compassion. She also has a mischievous side, which makes her colleagues feel deeply loved. When former 4PreK teacher Kate Nevins had a significant birthday, she had a sign made for “elderly parking.” And she made Principal Emma Wellman feel welcome in her first year by sending photos of teachers “napping” and “leaving” during the school day when Emma was at a conference.

“It meant a lot to me. She knew me well enough to know that I would find that hilarious and took the time to connect with me,” said Emma. “She only does that for people she respects and loves. So it’s a gift if you get that.”

I will always be a part of this school.—Isabelle Buhler

Isabelle has already left Rowland Hall. She had to, because she puts children first. In this case, it’s her grandson Luke, who was born late last year and needs the attention only a grandmother can give. She is now in Alaska, caring for him. However, that doesn’t mean she has forgotten her students at Rowland Hall. She is now doing Zoom talks with them and introducing them to Luke. She also promises she will be back.

“I am not leaving forever and ever. I am retiring as a full-time teacher, but I will be back. I am hoping to contribute to the school in other ways. I will always be a part of this school,” she said, “They will hear from me again, whether they want it or not.”

After all, the children come first.

People