Dr. Grauer's Column - Voice

Voice
(Introduction to the 2017-18 Annual Report of The Grauer Foundation for Education)

The founding purpose of The Grauer School is to give voices to teens. Thanks to the phenomenal passion of our faculty and the exciting growth of our research office, we are able to both achieve that noble purpose, and to demonstrate its achievement with evidence. We know Grauer alumni to be courageous, kind, and creative individuals and team members, wherever they go. And now, after all these years, as our alumni grow in numbers and the data keeps getting richer, we can prove it. (Interestingly, this year marked the addition of the first alumni member of our Board of Trustees, Alex Levine, class of 2007).

People from all over the world are drawn to the philosophy and culture of The Grauer School, many years in refinement. What does this chart mean to you?

2017-18 was a milestone year of our campus completion campaign, seven years in the making. This campaign included all of "phase three" classrooms and labs, the Loewy Linz Innovation Center, Domino's Art Studio, the Justice Center for Performing Arts, the bell tower, the rooftop classroom, and many other beautiful features, many more years in the dreaming. Grauer alumni parents and board members David Meyer, Craig Gertz, and others have shepherded these building programs with phenomenal expertise and brought vision into reality. Grauer families have consistently doubled independent school norms in philanthropic giving and, were it not for this, little of the above would be possible. Grauer is parent-built.

This year's "Annual Report" displays an infrastructure more refined than bricks and mortar can. In a great organization, every part and every individual shares the intelligence and values of the whole, as they must, and all are in constant motion. This is "culture."

Year round, scholars, educators, parents and friends from all over the world visit or correspond with The Grauer School in order to study our methods, philosophy, and uniquely developed culture. What they find is a masterpiece in organizational development, divided up into interacting centers and programs, each deeply reflecting and advancing those methods and philosophy, each producing distinctive and durable work in its own right. The student or follower of The Grauer School can see the structure, practices and worthiness of our organization transparently in our "Annual Report."

The "2017-18 Annual Report" includes the collected annual submissions of each program or center head at Grauer, summarizing and evaluating how their shared work and leadership contributes to the whole. Pick your favorites—each one or any one embodies the DNA of the whole.

My own role in this, as Head, is in continuing to bring unique, creative, strategic insights and efficiencies to our cause, to the work we do, and to the decisions we make large and small. Going forward with our buildings solid in the ground, my own primary aspirations entail (1) making sure we don't overdevelop and that we stay green and grassy, (2) keeping our unique vision and roots alive in a world that drives us hard towards institutionalization, and (3) endowing our school for the benefit of our faculty and our future scholars.

There is nothing I know more important for the stability, sustainability, and goodness of our school than endowment. With very low debt and full build-out, not many schools are as secure as Grauer, empowering us to dream of twenty years down the line: imagine a $20 million endowment fund enabling all students, regardless of financial need, to gain access to this life-changing program. In my opinion, this would make The Grauer School the best small independent school in the world. Filling our classrooms with students who are passionate and qualified through all business cycles is not only the best thing we can do for our community, it is the best thing we can do for our faculty and alumni.

The Grauer School is generally known as a "small" school, primarily in light of our times, which are characterized by a proliferation of bigger and bigger institutions. And yet, readers of this entire Annual Report, will not fail to be astonished at the diversity, collaborativeness, and "bigness" of all we do. The Grauer School is alive. I hope it stays wild at heart, too.

I don't know what national or global attitudes about college or career will be in twenty years' time, but I hope to leave no stone unturned towards enabling us to sustain this beautiful, connected small campus of purposeful, creative/entrepreneurial, resourceful learners and teachers, seated eye to eye deep in discourse, travelling the world together, and learning by discovery.

Click on the button below to read the 2017-2018 Grauer Annual Report on our website:

Grauer Annual Report