This is the final installment in a short series of articles that aim to clarify the business of running a school. Read more about the importance of the endowment in the words of Chris Pasterczyk.
Understanding Our Endowment I have a great job. I love teaching. I love physics. And I love watching young people solve problems. I love physics because it’s a way of understanding what happens in the natural world around us every day. Events may seem random, but there’s always a pattern. I love my students because they’re fun, interesting and a little wacky. They’re at a developmental stage where they’re trying to figure out how to be a grown up. I like helping them figure that out. Through physics, I try to teach lessons they can apply in and out of the classroom, like making good decisions, communicating well, and collaborating with others. They learn a lot of that through group work. For example, last year, I had a group of Class I students doing independent projects demonstrating principles of physics. One team created a high-speed projectile that shot ping-pong balls, and another experimented with Jell-O cubes to determine the properties of gelatin. It seemed like destiny, of course, that before the semester was over, these two groups would come together to shoot ping-pong balls at Jell-O. Well, they did, and they caught it on film with an ultrahighspeed video camera that the department recently purchased. (Not every school has these high-speed video cameras, but luckily at Nobles, we do.) With it, we saw amazing things— among them a wave pattern we never expected to happen. They tried it again and again in different configurations and kept seeing the wave pattern. You should have seen this group of kids crowded around the camera—excited, engaged—waiting to see what would happen (and these were second-semester seniors, no less). That’s when real learning takes place: when students discover something because they’re truly curious, not just because it’s going to be on the test. What does physics have to do with the Nobles endowment? More than you might think. First, a bit of explanation about the endowment. Nobles’ endowment is a pool of money that the school invests, and each year it spends a small percentage of the interest income. An endowment is often described as a “nest egg for the future.” When I hear the head of school and business manager discuss the financial health and well-being of Nobles, I pay attention because I know it affects every corner of campus. But
Nobles’ endowment isn’t just about the future. Because our endowment provides 13 percent of the school’s annual operating budget, the endowment is very much about today. Every year, that 13 percent helps the school do a lot of things—like purchase lab equipment that helps students really engage with their learning. My understanding is that the school needs to grow that 13 percent to 20 percent to help hold the line on tuition, making sure Nobles remains an open and diverse community that lives its mission. That’s a bold idea, particularly in economically challenging times. Quick segue to science: You know who else had bold ideas? The famous English physicist Sir Isaac Newton, who developed the Three Laws of Motion. Newton’s First Law, for example, states that an object in motion wants to stay in motion unless an external force is applied to it. Think of Nobles as that object. This is a school in motion—on an upward trajectory. Nobles is in a good position, with a well-maintained campus, new facilities, strong applications and a balanced budget. Nobles wants to stay in motion—to keep offering an outstanding education that inspires leadership for the public good. But external forces are out there, lurking, like the rising cost of an independent school education. Then there’s the reality that Nobles’ tuition doesn’t cover the cost of educating a student, and that our financial model as it currently exists may not be sustainable. The school must increase the percentage of the budget contributed from the endowment each year from 13 percent to 20 percent. And because Nobles is restricted by how much endowment income it can spend, that means we need to raise more money for the endowment. That will keep Nobles “in motion” in the here and now.
fall 2013 Nobles 21