From the Desk of the Head of School- August 28, 2020

8/28/2020

Dear Harding Community,

I know you are used to receiving weekly communication from me regarding the plans to safely welcome our students back to campus, and I know I speak for many of us here when I say that it feels great to have full and busy classrooms again. The rooms may look different, but there is no shortness of laughter, excitement, learning and collaborating.

The subject of this email, however, is not COVID-focused, but rather about an important issue that will impact the entire Harding community – the decision to change our school mascot. For a while now, the Board of Trustees has been moving in this direction in connection with our deepening diversity, equity, and inclusivity efforts and the strategic planning process over the 2019-2020 school year.

This past June, the Board of Trustees and I received a letter from members of our faculty and staff that outlined why they (and others in our Harding community and student body) feel it is time to change the mascot. In their words, “a mascot is a symbol – a representation of values or personal characteristics. Schools that hold animals or elements in nature as their mascots often make their selections based upon characteristics that can serve as inspiring metaphors for human behavior such as: soaring to heights, strength, growth, resilience, etc. We aspire to have a mascot that embodies our values as a school and is reflective of our current and future school community. As many confederate references/statues/flags are being removed across the country, we feel it is imperative to disassociate our school with a time of war and slavery.”

The Board of Trustees and I support this request and the desire to select a mascot that embraces our community’s values and inspires all of the pre-K–8 children and families we serve and celebrate. As the Head of School, I, along with the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees, have charged our Board’s Access and Inclusivity Committee to create a task force of individuals who represent key stakeholders in the school’s community, including faculty, staff, students, alumni, past teachers and past trustees, to lead us through this effort and create a process that is inclusive, thoughtful and transparent.

It is the goal of Harding Academy, above all else, to provide our students with a safe, welcoming environment in which to learn, and I am proud of our students, faculty and community for championing this issue.

The process outlined by the Access and Inclusivity Committee for selecting a new mascot has been devised to ensure we hear from as many members of this wonderful community as possible. It will go as follows:

In this Sunday’s Compass Connection, you will receive THIS LINK to a Google document, wherein you or your students are invited to suggest new mascot ideas. We strongly encourage you to include a rationale for your choice (e.g., the traits, characteristics or symbolism you think it embodies and why you think it would represent Harding Academy well), as this rationale will be a major part of the selection process.
The “idea/brainstorming” period will be open for two weeks, so don’t wait too long to share your suggestions.
The task force mentioned above will narrow the suggestions from our Google document down into a working list of viable “candidate” options which will then be handed over to middle school student leadership
This year we will hold a special election wherein our students will choose from among “candidate” mascot options. The winner will be announced and adopted as the new Harding Academy mascot on Election Day.

I want to acknowledge, as the letter from our faculty does, that the history of our school is rooted in the politics of the 1970s and that, although we are choosing a new mascot, we will not shy away from our past. We will continue to be transparent about it and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow.

I am looking forward to jumping into this process with all of you. I encourage you all to use your imagination to the fullest and help us come up with the perfect mascot for Harding Academy!

Sincerely,

David Skeen Matt Abrams

Head of School Board President

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