Lincoln Academy Head of School David Sturdevant, a teacher and administrator with 33 years of experience, plans to lead by example in his new post.
“I like to think the head of school is the head learner,” Sturdevant said during an Aug. 1 interview in his office.
“I think everybody at school is in a learning community, and I like to model that behavior,” he said. “I always try to be learning something myself, from other people here at school and in other places.”
Sturdevant started work July 1. He spent his first month meeting with school employees and moving into his office.
“I invited every person who works at Lincoln Academy to set up a meeting during the summer,” Sturdevant said.
The meetings provide an opportunity to talk to faculty and staff “about what they do and what they’re interested in, and just to meet people on a more one-on-one basis,” he said.
He has also been busy with Lincoln Academy Board of Trustees meetings about various projects underway at the school, including the applied technology and engineering center and the first stand-alone dormitory.
The school has bids from contractors for the technology center project. “We’re looking at those right now and deciding how to proceed in that venture,” Sturdevant said.
“The goal is to build that center as soon as we can, and the goal for the dorm has been to have that built and ready to go by the fall of 2014,” he said. “Construction would ideally start on one or both projects as soon as possible.”
The dormitory, like the Hall House, will provide space for the school’s growing boarding program.
Sturdevant, as the former principal of Fryeburg Academy, has experience as a leader of a town academy with a boarding program. About 155 to 160 of Fryeburg’s 630 students live at the school.
Sturdevant thinks Lincoln Academy, where 32 boarding students will start classes next month, is well-poised for success with its boarding program.
“I think the academy is a very attractive school for boarding students,” he said. “The school has a great curriculum. It can serve the needs of many, many students, and it’s in a great location that’s attractive to students.”
“I happen to believe a town academy model is a great match for a boarding program,” he said. “The students coming into the school from other parts of the country and other parts of the world get to experience a comprehensive, more experiential, perhaps more well-rounded education than they might at certain other places.”
A boarding program can also help make a school like Lincoln Academy sustainable, especially in times of declining local enrollment. “I think it’s a piece of the puzzle,” Sturdevant said.
“The town academy model, with a boarding program, allows you to keep your class sizes small, it allows you to keep a variety of courses in your curriculum offerings … and a huge benefit is, it allows you to be a culturally diverse campus in an increasingly global society with a global economy,” he said.
Sturdevant grew up in Illinois, north of Chicago.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in literature with a minor in music and his English teacher’s certification from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., and a master’s degree in education from Plymouth State University in Plymouth, N.H.
He was an English teacher at Wheaton-Warrenville High School in Wheaton, Ill. and Hartford High School in Hartford, Vt. before beginning a 28-year career at Fryeburg Academy in 1985.
He came to Fryeburg as an English teacher, became the dean of students, then director of curriculum, started an alternative school program in the early 1990s and advanced to assistant headmaster. He became the school principal in 2009.
He also has recent experience as a college instructor, teaching classes in literature and writing at White Mountain Community College in Conway, N.H. during his late career at Fryeburg.
Sturdevant was one of two finalists for head of school at Fryeburg this year. The academy’s board of trustees ultimately selected Erin Mayo, a private school administrator from Dallas, Texas. The school has never hired an internal candidate, Sturdevant said.
“At the same time I was looking at that job, I was looking at other head-of-school jobs around the country and even in different parts of the world,” he said, including the Lincoln Academy position.
The Lincoln Academy Board of Trustees hired Sturdevant in March.
The role of the head of school at Lincoln Academy is to provide a vision for the school and work to protect the school’s independence, Sturdevant said.
“I think my biggest priority for the school is to support the school’s mission and to continue working on the school’s mission,” he said. He also feels he needs to “experience more of what happens here as the new school year starts and as this current year progresses.”
Lincoln Academy already fulfills its mission as a comprehensive, independent school, which “serves the needs of all types of students, students with varied interests and aptitudes and attitudes” very well, Sturdevant said. His focus will be “to keep providing a strong, comprehensive curriculum that benefits everyone.”
Sturdevant and his wife, Elisabeth “Beth” Sturdevant, live in Borland Hall, the head-of-school residence across Academy Hill Road from the Hall House.
Beth Sturdevant was an English teacher, director of alumni and public relations, and a cross-country and track coach at Fryeburg Academy before a career change to nursing.
She plans to spend the couple’s first six months in the area getting to know the community and the school, David Sturdevant said. She will work in the Lincoln Academy nurse’s office for a few weeks when school starts to cover for an absent employee, he said.
“I think that will be a good place to start getting to know the students and faculty,” he said. “I suspect after Christmas sometime she may start investigating some nursing opportunities in the community.”
The couple has three adult children: Jonathan, a fundraising consultant who works with nonprofits in Chicago; Amy, a nurse who lives and works in Kansas; and Daniel, a private school teacher in Raleigh, N.C.
“Both my wife and I feel very welcomed to the community,” David Sturdevant said. “People have been very friendly and welcoming, and we love the area, we love being here at the school, and we’re very excited about moving forward.”
