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29, 2013
hwchronicle.com/news
bids farewell
News A9 President Thomas C. Hudnut joined Harvard School for boys in 1987 as headmaster, has presided over a merged HarvardWestlake since 1991 and is retiring after 26 years of service.
t emphasizes importance of balance in education
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was the perfect merger,” said visual arts teacher John Luebtow, who started Harvard’s visual arts program in 1971. Without any hesitation, Hudnut said the performing arts needed the most attention after the merger. “How much of a orchestra can you have from six kids?” Hudnut said, referring to Westlake’s orchestra. Hudnut said that Performing Arts Department Head Ted Walch’s arrival in 1991 was “the key to the overall success of the performing arts.” “Performers and athletes have in common both what they’re getting from their pursuit and what they’re giving to the people who are watching and listening,” he said. A professionally trained opera singer, Hudnut doesn’t need to nathanson ’s see any recent awards John Luebtow to know how far the choirs have come. time, “I know how good our singeams ers are,” he said. ships g the BUILDING TO EXCELLENCE hletic A December 1995 Los Angeles Times story “A Science n the Teacher’s Dream in Studio said. City” detailed the new Munger Science Center, the first new building at the merged school. “Our approach to science [...] necessitates first-class facilities,” Hudnut told the Times, justifying the $13 million cost of the building equaling to LAUSD’s science budget. nathanson ’s This all-out attiJohn Feulner tude to building projects has been guided by , has Hudnut’s inclusion of teachers be se- in the design process, Building ” Committee Chair John Feulner said. Just as Hudnut believes the o fac- opening of Feldman-Horn Galediate lery increased student interest allow- in Visual Arts and expects the that “school’s fortunes in swimming lines. rise in pace” with the Copses —that Family Pool.
campus
CHANGES AT THE TOP By 2006, Hudnut had served for 19 years as both the school’s public face and the man in charge of all of the school’s dayto-day needs for the students and faculty. “It was just too much,” Hudnut said. “I don’t think I was paying adequate attention to any of the jobs’ components let alone all of them.” The Board of Trustees approved splitting Hudnut’s position as headmaster into two. Jeanne Huybrechts as the first Head of School would run the school’s daily operations while Hudnut, as President, would manage the school’s external affairs, dealing with alumni and fundraising. Hudnut moved from his Seaver office, once open to anyone dropping in, to the house he works in today. “I have lost the kind of easy contact that I always enjoyed with faculty and students,” he concedes, though he teaches a Choices and Challenges class and his “Hudnut-isms” are constant presence on posters around campus. Recently, students dressed as Hudnut to celebrate his birthday. “Fortunately, I continue to get to know some students, but not with the degree of intimacy that I enjoyed for so many years,” he said.
applicant pool has made it more difficult to get into the school. Hudnut said it was “tremendously important” to continue making the school “as affordable for as many possible and has spent his last year raising money for the new Thomas C. Hudnut Scholar Endowed Fund that will allow six students every year to attend the place he helped build.
CODA The Kutler Center, the latest addition to campus, has “added cubits to intellectual life,” Hudnut said. But he’s not as sure about the future of online education. “Teaching machines can’t replace teaching humans,” he says, shaking his head at the idea that self-taught courses are the future. Even as his time here comes to a close, he remains focused on the school’s future, starting off sentences with “We need… We need… We need…” “Everything is ending well, he concludes. “There of course have been a
few blips along the away—a major unhappiness with a student death.” Under his left sleeve, he wears an orange “Strikeout Leukemia” bracelet to honor the life of Chris Robinson ’13. “Even with last year, a good one and even when there are blips, I hope I have been helpful to those involved,” he added. Last Friday, he laid out items from his office for any faculty to pick up. Someone suggested leaving his Santa hat, which he wore for
years dressing up as Santa, for his successor, Rick Commons. Emphasizing the “personal relationship between administrators, teachers, students and their families,” Hudnut left a few words for the next President of Harvard-Westlake. “The leader of this school has to be invested personally in the people who work in the school and the people who attend the school,” Hudnut said. “And this has to be an almost palpable sense of involvement and affection and respect.”
AID AND DIVERSITY Hudnut describes the ideal Harvard-Westlake student as both “adventuresome by nature” and also, “resilient.” “There are going to be bad grades, parts in plays that you don’t get and teams that you don’t make,” he said. “You need someone who can deal with the negatives that crop up during adolescence and rise above.” The school now is significantly more diverse than the one Hudnut arrived at partly due to an increased commitment to financial aid in the last decade. Currently, around 20 percent of students reCHLOE LISTER/CHRONICLE ARCHIVES ceive some form of aid. The consequently “constantly ‘BE A FORCE FOR GOOD’: President Thomas C. Hudnut opens the 2010 school year outside of Ahmanson increasing and improving” Lecture Hall by unveiling a bronze Wolverine statue, which has an identical copy on the Middle School campus.
Thomas C. Hudnut’s tenure as Headmaster of Harvard School for boys and President of Harvard-Westlake has overseen the growth of the school into an institution which has more than 1600 enrolled students and 200 faculty members on two campuses and was named the 12th best private high school in the United States by an April 2010 Forbes Magazine article.
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MORGANNE RAMSEY/CHRONICLE
OPENING CEREMONIES: Hudnut, right, looks on as Janis Horn and Leonard Feldman cut the ribbon dedicating Feldman-Horn Art Center. Throughout his tenure, he oversaw numerous construction projects to improve and replace facilities on both campuses.
FOREIGN RELATIONS: Hudnut speaks to students at the Hankuk Academy in Seoul. “Most of our students are going to [work] with their eyes on the other side of the Pacific ... I wonder whether we are doing enough to address the issues of the Pacific Rim,” Hudnut said.
FINAL NOTE: Hudnut performs “Cantique de Jean Racine,” with the Chamber Singers at the final choir performance of the 2012-13 school year. “I’ve always thought that visual and performing arts contribute mightily to the vitality of the school,” Hudnut said.
2013 - Hudnut retires from H-W
STEPHANIE BOSWELL/CHRONICLE ARCHIVES
GRAPHIC BY JACK GOLDFISHER, MICHAEL SUGERMAN AND NOA YADIDI