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FROM
THE HEADMASTER Headmaster Richard A. Hawley began teaching at University School in the fall of 1968. Educated at Middlebury College, Cambridge University and Case Western Reserve University, where he completed a Ph.D. in political philosophy, he went on to chair US's social science department, to direct the guidance program as dean of students and to serve as director of the Upper School before being named headmaster in 1988. He has taught courses in history, government, economics and philosophy, coached baseball, tennis and basketball and served as advisor to the student newspaper and literary magazine.Dr. Hawley has lectured and spoken extensively on child development and topical social issues. He is one of the founders and past president of Boys' Schools, an international association of schools and individuals dedicated to the education of boys in schools designed specifically for them. He has written more than a dozen works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry including the novel The Headmaster's Papers, which won a number of literary prizes. His non-fiction works include The Purposes of Pleasure, Seeing Things, The Big Issues in the Adolescent Journey, and Boys Will Be Men. His poetry collections include With Love to My Survivors and St. Julian. His most recent book, The Headmaster's Wife, was published recently. It is a special pleasure to extend this electronic welcome to University School's web site. While it is quite a challenge to convey all that is happening on our campuses, it is just the right kind of challenge-as this is an especially lively time in the life of University School. University School was founded in l890 by Newton Anderson, a visionary young engineer who could see no reason why boys could not learn deeply and classically - and still put their best ideas and schemes to Practical use. The school he created would combine standard scholastic coursework with vigorous applications of technical skills. This school, with its then revolutionary range of performance and athletic activities, became Cleveland's and the nation's first "country day school," where a boy could prepare for the leading universities in the land without having to leave home to board. Since its founding, University School has grown and transformed itself considerably, moving from its confined downtown campus in l926 to then nearly rural Shaker Heights in l926. Here, under the firm leadership of one of the country's legendary headmasters, Dr. Harry Peters, the School became widely known for its rigor, its athletic muscle, and for its excellent record of college placement. The post war baby boom created the need for still more space, and in the late l960s an extensive new high school campus was acquired and developed in the woodlands of Hunting Valley. Today the Shaker Heights campus is the commodious home of the 450 boys in our first nine grades (K-8), and the Hunting Valley campus enrolls 400 high school boys. As
it happens, we are once again in a building mode. This past summer
we completed a remarkable new athletics and physical education center
in Hunting Valley, followed in January by a fine new theatre and
science complex at Shaker. Work will begin soon on a technologically
exciting arts and technology facility - which will be for us a global
learning center - also at Hunting Valley. This facility will include
dramatic new choral and instrumental chambers, new dark rooms, greatly
expanded shops, a black box theatre, a recording studio, film-making
center, many practice and rehearsal spaces, galleries, and interactive
theatres for distance learning, on-line conferencing, and tecnologically
The facilities, though exciting for us, are of course only the shell over what matters: an inspiring and rigorous program of studies and activities for the boys. Our mission states that we intend to help each boy as far along his personal range as he can go. Because each boy is different, we must be small and intimate and attentive enough to recognize and respond to these differences. As we state it, "we want U.S. to be a school in which every boy is known and loved." We have also, perhaps not surprisingly, found ourselves happily at the hub of a resurgence of interest in boys' schooling. The now widely acknowledged differences in the tempo and style of boys' and girls' learning, the different points of arrival for critical learning and social skills, have served to reconfirm the value of humanely conceived schools for boys. University School has been greatly enriched by its continuing work with The International Boys' Schools Coalition. I hope our site will help you to discover who we are, what we are doing, and why we are so enthusiastic about doing it. My colleagues and our boys welcome your interest, comments and concerns.
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