The School sees all students as individuals, encourages them as necessary, challenges them as appropriate, and inspires them to become moral leaders in a complex, secular world.
To empower excellence in every student, inspiring lives of great intellect, passion, and purpose, and a determination to better the world.
The story of Canterbury School is one of a values-driven, student-centered community whose springboard into its second century has been marked by extraordinary momentum. Our academic program prioritizes intellectual rigor and innovative mindsets and has led generations of students to their greatest individual outcomes. Moreover, the differentiating role of our Catholic heritage as the foundation of a service-minded interfaith community continues to fortify a commitment to moral leadership and fuel a mission that remains relevant and resonant.
Yet, even as we are bolstered by this momentum and affirm the foundational commitments that continue to define and drive our program, we acknowledge continued challenges. How do we retain the core values that brought us with strength to this time while also ensuring our ability to thrive in the 21st century? How do we go beyond preparing students for college and ready them
for a world that will push them in ways we cannot yet imagine? How do we go beyond teaching young people the importance of values and empower them to live and lead with those values for the betterment of others? This is the calling before Canterbury School.
The strategic plan that follows not only declares a path to fulfill that calling but reflects our bold assertion that
Canterbury is the best small boarding school, a leader and model for how students can—and should—be mentored intellectually, spiritually, socially, emotionally, and physically in their journey from adolescence to adulthood. Our plan is exciting and aspirational, worthy of our past, vital for our future. And to be sure, its success relies on what we all share: an unrelenting commitment to providing the transformative high school experience that current and future Canterbury students need and deserve.
Our plan is the synthesis of an 18-month community conversation and strategic visioning process that includes the voices of a diverse set of Canterbury stakeholders. The planning solicited input from students, parents, faculty, staff, administration, alumni, and trustees through focus groups, surveys, listening sessions, working committee meetings, and highly generative discussions about what makes Canterbury Canterbury. Together, we carefully examined the School’s strengths and challenges, explored opportunities and ideas to advance the School’s mission, and created a framework for forward-looking, program-strengthening initiatives.
With great intention, our plan is anchored in all that we hold paramount—People, Purpose, Program, and Permanence—and draws out a set of strategic imperatives central to realizing our vision for Canterbury’s future. These imperatives serve as enduring points of focus as we anticipate the demands of tomorrow while delivering the most comprehensive educational experiences that our students need to live, learn, and lead with purpose today. Finally, the plan conceptualizes myriad opportunities from which our lofty strategic imperatives can produce real, tangible results.
To put it simply, there is nothing more critical to Canterbury’s success than the people learning, living, and working on our hilltop. Every member of our community animates our mission and inspires and preserves our School culture. Our students develop in impressive and transformational ways as young adults. And our faculty and staff mentor these very teenagers as teachers, advisors, coaches, dorm parents, and community members.
Attract, retain, and generously support a diverse community of students, faculty, and staff of exceptional character, caliber, and mission alignment.
• Endow scholarship programs to attract an extraordinary community of learners and ensure equitable access to the Canterbury experience.
• Enhance compensation and benefits structures that effectively attract, affirm, and retain talented employees who sustain Canterbury’s culture and mission.
• Create a Teaching Commons—physical space, technology, and resources dedicated to faculty professional development—that will foster collaboration and mentoring and support the continuous application of innovative approaches in pedagogy and the curriculum.
• Endow graduate school funding for early-career teachers to promote their commitment to and success in boarding school education.
• Build and/or renovate faculty and student housing to enhance our residential community.
Grounded by values and a deep sense of purpose, our students develop an understanding of the role they play in the lives of others. To that end, never in the history of our School has it been more important and impactful for the Canterbury community to lean in with even greater conviction
to our mission. Therefore, we must continue to embrace our responsibility to enroll and graduate students who are not only prepared academically and socially but who are also prepared and inspired to be “moral leaders in a complex, secular world.”
Amplify our commitment to providing students with experiences that foster ethical citizenship, servant leadership, global awareness, and social responsibility.
• Endow the programming of the D’Amour Center for Faith, Service & Justice generally and the Social Justice Series specifically.
• Fund opportunities for all students to participate in service immersion programs as an integral part of their Canterbury education.
• Develop a certificate program to guide and distinguish a course of study for students in ethics, service, and justice.
• Implement an institutional-wide DEIJ roadmap to guide and hold our community accountable for building and sustaining a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and just school culture.
• Deepen our commitment to sustainability and environmentally conscious practices while further incorporating this critical global issue throughout our program.
An infrastructure of robust academic curricula, excellent athletic and artistic opportunities, and programming to support our students’ emotional well-being is essential to propelling our graduates on journeys that lead far beyond strong college preparation and placement to lives of great intellect, passion, and purpose.
Assure the most comprehensive boarding school experience that leads to transformative learning and the best individual outcome for each student, prioritizing academic excellence, well-being, and outstanding co-curricular programs.
• Centralize academic and college counseling programming/spaces into an Academic Hub to strengthen student success through increased access, communication, collaboration, and support.
• Expand the Health & Wellness Center facility and resources, as well as wellness education programming, to ensure our ability to care for the physical and socio-emotional well-being of our students.
• Grow the academic course of study in areas that provide meaningful real-world connections, such as entrepreneurship and financial literacy, innovation and design, digital citizenship, and the Life Worth Living program.
• Upgrade our academic spaces to reflect the excellence of our teaching and learning, particularly in Old School House and Hume Hall.
• Upgrade our athletic facilities to support and develop our student-athletes by renovating the Athletic Center and Pigott Arena.
The work before us to secure Canterbury’s financial infrastructure is not only critical to safeguarding our School’s future but necessary to sustain our present Saints community. There is no strategic imperative more crucial to the long-term success of Canterbury. While the concept of permanence may be aspirational, this Strategic Plan—and the leadership of our School—will be guided by and held accountable to this core principle.
Secure the financial strength and sustainability of our School.
• Achieve bold growth for Canterbury’s endowment and increase support for the Annual Fund by deepening the commitment of alumni and parents, and increasing the engagement of young alumni, into a self-perpetuating culture of philanthropy.
• Design and implement a long-term strategic enrollment model to ensure consistent and predictable revenue streams.
• Create an actionable, measurable, and prudent financial roadmap for each strategic plan initiative, ultimately leading to the launch of a capital campaign to secure new sources of funding to achieve our strategic objectives.
ConclusionFirmly rooted in our conviction that we are the best small boarding school, this plan seeks to elevate and strengthen the transformational nature of the Canterbury experience. It trusts our unique ability to provide students with opportunities for powerful learning and personal growth. It is confident in the enduring importance of our institution and the higher purpose that it serves. Finally, it is a plan that assumes a constant process of re-examination and re-invigoration. It will leave Canterbury nimble, revitalized, and well-resourced in 2028.
And so we go forth with a commitment to these new ideas and opportunities and with a determined resolve to implement them. Indeed, we go forth empowered by People, Purpose, Program, and Permanence, excited for Canterbury to emerge as an even stronger and truer version of itself.
Our strategic plan provides general direction for Canterbury for the upcoming years and intentionally allows for flexibility in terms of how and when to act. As we progress, we acknowledge that the opportunities before us will evolve and change.
The School and Board of Trustees recognize that securing the necessary resources will also shape the implementation and timing of the plan.
