Message from the Head of School

How Mayfield “meets the wants of the age”

I rely heavily on our founder, Cornelia Connelly, for inspiration on a daily basis, but never more so than over the past few months. Cornelia’s beautiful and progressive Holy Child mission for her Society and her schools speaks so clearly to us even now, almost 200 years after she began her work of love and faith. Striving always to “meet the wants of the age,” Cornelia embraced change and challenge. She used her own suffering, disappointment and trials to learn, grow and develop, and she urges us to do the same.

Since its founding in 1931, many people have helped Mayfield to “meet the wants of the age.” This year we celebrated the 100th anniversary of our beautiful home at 500 Bellefontaine, and we remembered with great gratitude the generosity of the Strub Family, which allowed our school to expand and flourish. We celebrated their gift throughout the school year with a series of joy-filled events, culminating in our very successful “Rhapsody in Red” benefit at which we honored the Strub family, and especially Sr. Elizabeth Strub, SHCJ, who has dedicated her life to service and faith.

Over the past few years—thanks to our amazing faculty—we have also been working to “meet the wants of the age” in our academic programming across the disciplines, including STEM. After reenvisioning our curriculum and expanding our STEM offerings, Mayfield Senior School students now have, more than ever before, the opportunity to delve more deeply and broadly into advanced science and math classes, and are excelling at a national level.

Our extra- and co-curricular offerings as well as professional development initiatives have also grown to include an important focus on justice, diversity, equity and inclusion (JDEI). Thanks to the help of courageous alums and other members of our community, we have been examining our practices and reflecting on how we can more fully live Holy Child Goal 4 and create a school environment that is more nurturing, sensitive and respectful.

It is not sufficient to have begun well; you must also persevere with courage and finish with resolution.

CORNELIA CONNELLY

Finally, as we were forced to close our campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our entire community rose to “meet the wants of the age” with creativity and innovation. Our faculty continued to teach with enthusiasm and dedication, our students continued to learn with energy and engagement, and our parents and benefactors continued to support our entire community with generosity and love.

Thanks to the amazing vision of many—especially Assistant Head of School for Academics Toi Treister ’82—we were also able to “meet the wants of the age” by transforming our beautiful senior-year traditions so that we could all stay safe and healthy. Graduation, in particular, was so special. I cherish the memory of each and every one of our 77 individual ceremonies—a beautiful tribute to the amazing Class of 2020.

As Cornelia Connelly said: “This is the time to ask for great things: faith, zeal, generosity, humility, charity.” We humbly ask for the continued health and safety of our community as well as the wisdom and courage to keep moving forward, remembering that “it is not sufficient to have begun well; you must also persevere with courage and finish with resolution.”

With Love and Gratitude,

Kate Morin