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Meet the Middle School’s new assistant director, Jamie Asaka ’96
amie Asaka ’96 freely says that she was “a handful” when she was a student at Lakeside. She was even voted “class clown” in the senior class poll. But that’s actually part of what equips her so well to be the Middle School’s new assistant director, succeeding Michael Nachbar, who left to become the director of Global Online Academy (see page 14 for more on Nachbar). In her new job, Asaka draws on the wisdom she acquired from navigating her own rocky adolescence. She gives great credit to the crucial support she had from key Lakeside faculty and staff, and hopes to be an equally strong role model for Lakeside’s Middle School students. Asaka has a bachelor’s degree from Pitzer College, a master’s degree in education administration and principalship from Seattle University, and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Washington. She taught in the Teach for America program in Chicago and for two years at Seattle Public Schools’ Meany Middle School (since closed), then returned to Lakeside in 2003 as a Middle School life skills and English teacher. She also coached MS soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. Since 2008 she has been chair of the Upper School Student Support Team, co-chair of the US Student Life Department, and Family Support Program coordinator. Asked what excites her most about her new post, she says, “I really love middle-school-age
students,” partly because her first teaching job was at a middle school and partly because for her those were the most challenging years. “Young people of that age are so consumed with questions of identity, physical and emotional changes, and the transition to greater independence,” she says. The key is “allowing them to have some freedom and flexibility to explore who they are within some safe responsible boundaries. I’m excited to approach the work with that understanding.” ■
Review of diversity plan launches This fall Lakeside began a strategic review of its diversity and inclusion efforts, as the school prepares to hire a new director of diversity. The impetus is the retirement last June of T.J. Vassar ’68, the school’s longtime diversity director. Before making a new hire, Head of School Bernie Noe says,“We wanted a clear sense of what we want the person to do when he or she starts.” Lakeside’s commitment to diversity as a major component of its mission will not change, Noe says. But with Vassar’s retirement, it’s a logical time to set next goals and to consider strategies for reaching them, says Noe, noting that the school’s diversity efforts have not been examined in a systematic way for about four years. “The strategic review will be a major undertaking that involves faculty, staff, students, and members of the Board of Trustees and Alumni Board,” he announced at the opening-of-school meeting in late August. A group of administrators began groundwork last spring, including visiting other schools and researching other diversity leadership models. In October, the all-school diversity committee, made up of members of the faculty, staff, and administration and including department heads of both the Middle School and Upper School, convened to launch the review. On Nov. 29, a day reserved for professional development activities, representatives from various facets of the Lakeside community will gather to give input and discuss ideas. “We’ll finish that day with a clear direction of what we want to do,” Noe See page 51 in the says, “and then Class Connections sort out how to give life to this section of this sense of direcmagazine for more tion.” The school about T.J. Vassar’s expects a new plans in retirement; diversity plan read this magazine’s and a new direcprevious profile tor to be in place of Vassar at www. by fall 2012. ■
lakesideschool.org/ magazine.
TOM REESE
Faculty news
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