At Prep, faculty and administration hope to lay curricular and extracurricular foundations for students’ lives on campus and beyond. This year we have seen a physical manifestation of such foundations rise in front of us each day, as the Bachmann Collaboration Building takes shape at the north end of campus. Just as the concrete floors and steel beams will support hundreds of students in their learning next fall, so too do we aim to continue building and maintaining an intellectual and conceptual framework for deep understanding that faculty can pass on to students.
To help themselves and their students grow, faculty take advantage of generous professional growth funding each year, leading to new understandings of disciplines and pedagogies. On campus, faculty growth happens through informal conversations in the faculty room, visits to each other’s classrooms and presentations by colleagues, all nurtured and sustained by curiosity and connection.
A spirit of collaboration exists within our faculty, whether teachers are teaming up for a class, reaching out to their colleagues for advice or seeing the world through their students’ eyes. Faculty have organized journeys that span Los Angeles and the globe and put their unique spin on the One Book, One School concept. You can read about some of their thought-provoking innovations in the following pages.
As you’ll see throughout these articles, the concept of the classroom takes on many forms. Learning happens everywhere and anywhere. We anticipate that the Bachmann Collaboration Building, which will open in fall 2020, will enhance Prep’s culture of deep collegiality for faculty and students, encourage crosspollination among disciplines and provide space for all students in all grades to encounter and embrace new and challenging ideas.
Sarah Cooper
Dean of Studies, History teacher
Beginning 2020-2021: Assistant Head for Academic Life
Vanessa Walker-Oakes
Dean of Faculty, History teacher
Beginning 2020-2021: Assistant Head for Student Life
