A Campus Reimagined

When Megan Cover began her headship at GPS in 2021, three institutional goals guided the school year. One goal, “A Campus Reimagined,” inspired Cover to explore how our buildings and grounds meet our mission to foster a culture of curiosity, exploration, pride, and lifelong learning. Consideration of the school’s master plan guided much-needed renovations while research as to how current interior and exterior spaces best serve our students and faculty galvanized future projects.

For the 2022-23 school year, one of three new institutional goals, “Pride in Our School,” perfectly dovetailed with the prior year’s objectives. While instilling pride in our school certainly extends beyond updating the buildings and grounds, campus improvements can significantly impact the experience of each girl. Cover explained, “By respecting our environment, we realize our collective responsibility to leave our spaces better than we found them for our girls and future generations of GPS students. Through our renovations, we ensure that each space reflects a learner-centered culture that optimizes teaching and learning.”

Certainly the most dramatic transformation, the sleek updated Mills Complex Lobby reflects the commitment to common spaces that celebrate community and connection and features a new main entrance, a relocated welcome reception area for all guests and students, a redesigned theater entrance, dedicated student art installation spaces, a historical showcase, Chapel Talk reception area, Advancement reception area, and updated restrooms.

Led by the Dean of Health and Wellness, Beverly Blackwell, our new Health and Wellness Center serves as a place where students can find balance and support. Our school nurse, Melissa Nati, has met the challenge of offering a welcoming space that focuses on the wellbeing of each girl, and our Middle and Upper School Counselors are available as resources for any and all students.

This summer, significant improvements were made to the Upper School humanities classrooms. With walls deconstructed to allow room for social distancing during the pandemic and outdated flooring, furnishing, and lighting, the spaces lacked the aesthetics to promote a love of teaching and learning. Students will return this fall to renovated classrooms that better reflect innovative and inspired discussions.

The official spirit store for GPS, The Bow was previously situated in the Upper School off the Rotunda. Last summer, ground broke on a new location for the store, now a welcome addition to the Athletic Commons just outside the Main Gym, which allows better access for all. In early 2023, The Bow reopened with extended hours and expanded merchandise offerings.

Sometimes campus improvements aren’t necessarily planned, but kismet. A second institutional goal for 2022-23 called for “Community, Connection, and Engagement.” Naturally, this goal prompted Cover to outline a plan to “build connections within the greater Chattanooga community to grow a vested culture of partnership, service, generosity, and responsible citizenship.” So, when Chattanooga community members and GPS | McCallie family Franklin and Tresa McCallie reached out to Cover with a proposition, she was eager to listen.

The pair generously offered to gift the school with one of their prized possessions—a bright yellow sculpture of a young woman holding a parasol. Cover immediately said yes. “We were so thrilled that she accepted,” said Franklin McCallie. “We knew GPS was the perfect home for her.”

McCallie (as you can surmise from the surname) has a special connection to GPS: his great aunts were Grace McCallie and Eula Jarnagin, two of the original Founders; Grace’s brothers, Spencer and Park, founded McCallie School in 1905.

After graduating college and marrying, the couple moved out of state for more than two decades. While living in St. Louis, Missouri,

McCallie’s sister, Helen, GPS Class of ’67, introduced the McCallies to friends Peg and Blanton Whitmire. McCallie said, “The Whitmires graciously invited us to their Kirkwood home for dinner. As we walked in their backyard, Tresa and I exclaimed over a beautiful statue that reigned over their garden. This, of course, was the ‘Lady with the Umbrella.’” For another 20 years, they would continue to visit the Whitmires and the sculpture by Brother Mel Meyer, a Marianist brother and nationally recognized St. Louis artist.

Imagine their shock when, after having returned to Chattanooga, the McCallie were informed the sculpture had been bequeathed to them following the passing of the Whitmires. “We immediately said that we could not accept,” McCallie said. “But Richard Whitmire was adamant that, since his family was spread all over the world, the sculpture required a loving home, and his mother and father had determined we were that home.”

Following years at their Southside abode, the McCallies moved to Alexian Village last year, thus needing to rehome the sculpture. In gifting it to the school, McCallie’s one request was “to dedicate the sculpture to the three Founders who made their mark on Chattanooga, on education, and on young Southern women who would follow them in living productive lives.” We think she looks right at home here.