Endowed Faculty Chairs & Instructorship Established

BB&N has achieved a significant milestone with the establishment of its first two fully funded Master Teacher Chairs and one Future Leader Instructorship, thanks to the extraordinary generosity of three early donors to the Opening Minds Campaign. This exciting news was shared by Head of School Rebecca T. Upham during her closing remarks at the November 1 Greater Boston Alumni/ae Association Faculty Celebration.

Honoring our Master Teachers

By establishing the School’s first-ever fully endowed faculty chairs, BB&N gains an important, tangible way to celebrate the outstanding dedication and talent of our finest teachers. As a proven way to honor senior faculty for excellence in teaching and faculty leadership, the chairs recognize established faculty members who have made exceptionally valuable contributions to the life of the school.

Supporting our Future Leaders

While attracting new extraordinarily talented teachers has been an ongoing priority for a number of years, we currently have faculty across our three campuses who we hope will rise to be the future leaders in our School community. It is imperative that we attend to this mid-career group now if we want them to remain at BB&N and become the next generation of master teachers.

Our Goals

The Opening Minds Campaign has identified endowment needs of at least $12 million to address faculty compensation, professional development and a stage-of-life benefit program that will support all our faculty. Within these objectives, the Campaign has been seeking specific financial support to honor our distinguished senior faculty while addressing the recognition and retention of talented and dedicated mid-career faculty who will become our future leaders.

It is hoped that by the end of the Campaign in 2010, at least three fully funded Master Teacher Chairs (one on each campus) and six or more Future Leader Instructorships (two on each campus) will have been established.

Our Success to Date

To support the Campaign’s $12 million goal for faculty endowment, a $6 Million Faculty Challenge Program was launched last year which has successfully raised a $2 million pool that is being used to match, on a 1:2 basis:

- all new commitments for faculty endowment of $100,000 or more,

- additional gifts from previous Campaign donors to reach the $100,000 giving level, and

- additional gifts of $25,000 or more from those who have already given to the Campaign at the $100,000 level.

As of November 30, just over $2 million has been raised in qualifying matching gifts toward the $4 million goal, and nearly $7,757,000 has been raised for faculty endowment toward the Campaign’s overall goal.