Message from the Board of Trustees

Head, Hand and Heart

By Nicholas Thacher (L60), Board Chair The ancient epistolary greeting — “I take pen in hand” — seems curiously inapposite in these days of wordprocessing and e-mail; yet I have been thinking about the phrase as I embark on the challenge of serving as Jack De Nault’s successor as Chair of the OVS Board of Trustees.

First things first: On behalf of the broad constituencies of our school, I offer our deep collective gratitude to Jack for more than three decades of service and leadership of the Board. Working closely with our departing President, Michael Hall-Mounsey, he guided us through a period of enormous challenges, not least of which was the devastation of the Thomas Fire. Now, it seems, blessings are upon us; thanks to the hard work and extraordinary generosity of so many loyal OVS alumni, staff, parents and community friends the Upper Campus wreckage has happily receded into the past.

“Pen in hand” I can report that these are exciting times for the Ojai Valley School: settling into our impressive new facilities on the Upper Campus and planning significant improvements on the Lower Campus, welcoming a dynamic new Head of School, celebrating the successful conclusion of our fullterm accreditation by the California Association of Independent Schools and addressing a variety of major recommendations issued by our CAIS visiting team. The Board has prepared a formal “charge” for our new leader, Lars Kuelling; it will be shared with all constituents when our school year is launched in September.

What will come as no surprise is that fundamentally the “charge” from the Board is grounded in the longstanding progressive mission of our educational community, what we might call the “eternal values” first articulated by Edward Yeomans nearly a century ago. In 1938, in Talks In and About Schools, Yeomans complained that “For a long time society has put a premium on the head and dethroned the hand.” But, he added:

In order to make our little — our very little contribution … we people in the newer sort of school make more of handwork than they do in the conventional school ... My own conviction is that half the time of schools should be devoted to handwork, associated with the head work, with history, literature, mathematics, music and dancing and arts in general.

“Pen in hand,” he makes an ambitious claim for what he terms handwork:

I am thinking more of its value in producing a symmetrical life — and the sense of competence which makes a man or a woman feel peculiarly, and joyously, at home in the world — and more than willing to promote good will and peace on earth.

Students of history may find the reference to “peace on earth” explicable, even gently ironic, given the 1938 lurch towards war; but what struck me as I read Yeomans’ short essay was his abiding commitment to “symmetry,” a term which has suffused the Ojai Valley School mission since its inception and continues to exert its siren call to us all as we embark together under new leadership in common stewardship, seeking to retain the delicate educational equipoise between head, hand, and heart.

Ousmane Fofana joins OVS Board

Ousmane Fofana was appointed to the Board of Trustees in June. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Economics from Howard University and a Master’s degree from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Fluent in French, English, and Bambara, Fofana has worked for non-profit, private, bilateral and government agencies from West Africa to Japan. He currently serves as a Senior Program Officer for Population Services International (PSI), particularly the Impact Malaria Program, which was awarded at about $160 million over five years to advance progress in malaria service delivery and operational research in countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Fofana and his wife, Miku, live in Maryland and look forward to more frequent visits to California to visit friends and participate in OVS events.