The STRATEGIC VISION for Penn Charter’s future is organized around six goals, each with a set of strategies.
Timothy Lynch was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a deadly brain tumor, when he was in graduate school studying botany at the University of Vermont. Following surgery to remove the tumor, Lynch was told he had nine months to live.
Goal 1: Quakerism
Lynch underwent radiation and chemotherapy – and completed his master’s. And then his PhD. He married, began a teaching career, became a father. And he became a bit of a medical mystery. “It’s unheard of that someone would survive 23 years,” Lynch said of his disease. Lynch joined the Penn Charter science faculty in 1997 and was granted a sabbatical last winter and spring to work with scientists at the University of Pennsylvania who are searching for a cure for GBM. Lynch worked alongside the Penn researchers on their experiments, including an investigation of the actual tumor that doctors removed from his brain, preserved in their laboratories, and then shipped to the researchers at Penn. The Penn team is fascinated by Lynch’s survival and hopes to find a clue in his case that can lead them to a cure. Lynch, who continues to work in the Penn labs one day a week, returned to the PC classroom in September. He came back with new knowledge and experience to share with his students and a deep appreciation for a once-in-a-lifetime professional development experience. The PC sabbatical, Lynch said, helped bookend his cancer experience. “Who gets to survive this in the first place, then who gets to go back and maybe help with a cure?” he asked.
Goal 2: Content
Goal 3: Teaching Promote excellence in teaching by supporting faculty to develop and advance their professional practice.
Goal 4: Time Goal 5: Space Goal 6: Financial Sustainability
Educating Students to Live Lives that Make a Difference A Strategic Vision for the Future of William Penn Charter School
That was in 1991.
Lynch, above left in a lab at Penn, talks about his personal story and his sabbatical in a 12-minute video at penncharter.com/lynch.
