Stockbridge – In a bold initiative to complete the integration of the visual and performing arts into the humanities, Berkshire Country Day School, the independent school for students in preschool through ninth grade, has unveiled plans to transform a wing of Furey Hall, the central classroom building on the school’s 27-acre campus, into what Head of School Paul Lindenmaier describes as the state-of-the-art Kevin Hirt Library and Learning Commons and the Kim and James Taylor Music & Performance Room. The top floor of Furey Hall already hosts extensive and well-equipped visual arts classrooms that include a ceramics studio.
At the same time, a substantial portion of the $3 million “Fulfilling the Promise” campaign will also go towards an endowment fund for faculty salaries and professional development. This is BCD’s first formal capital campaign in almost two decades.
During a celebration last month to officially launch the “Fulfilling the Promise” campaign, Lindenmaier told a standing-room-only crowd in Fitzpatrick Hall that the school had already raised $2.8 million – or 95 percent — of the $3 million goal, and that groundbreaking on the library, learning commons and music and performance spaces would take place this coming June, with completion expected in the spring of 2017. Allegrone Construction of Pittsfield won the competitive bidding for the project.
What this means, Lindenmaier added, is that once the goals of the capital campaign are met, the school will be able to realize a significant modernization of its facilities and also secure an endowment for faculty salaries all without going into debt, a remarkable achievement.
“The new performance spaces are going to support our way of connecting to the broader Berkshires community,” Lindenmaier explained, in an interview after the campaign announcement, pointing out that they will be able to accommodate audiences of up to 100 people. “This will be our partnership with the community, and will become a signature facility of our campus.”
The state-of-the-art music instructional classroom and performance space is named for honorary co-chairs of the capital campaign and longtime BCD parents, Kim and James Taylor. During the campaign announcement, James Taylor noted that “finding BCD was the single most important thing that allowed us to move to the Berkshires and to raise our family here.”
The Kevin Hirt Learning Commons and Kevin Hirt Library is named after a BCD fifth grader who suffered from neuroblastoma, an aggressive pediatric cancer. While he was at BCD, his favorite class was library, and when he realized that he would not survive, he asked his parents, Paul Hirt and Lynn Campana, to donate his college fund to BCD for the expansion of the library. The school, Lindenmaier noted, is now “fulfilling that promise.”
Designed by Flansburgh Architects of Boston, the Learning Commons, with its open space design and equipped with the latest technology for linking the campus to the wider world, will “jump start a new way of thinking about teaching and learning,” Lindenmaier said.
“The Learning Commons is going to be a hub,” he explained. “This is not going to be a quiet library. It’s going to be a hub. It will focus student learning on collaboration, in which students learn from each other. And with distance learning, students can take advantage of classes from around the world. Technology, arts, and humanities – plus connection with arts organizations – at the center of our campus will provide a renaissance for our teachers. This will spark a different kind of education, and become perhaps a model for other institutions. And what an opportunity for teachers to envision a new kind of teaching and learning.”
“The Learning Commons,” he continued, “encourages us to leap forward, to remain vibrant and influential, as a model for what an educational institution can be in a community.”
Lindenmaier added that the process to craft the components of the capital campaign objectives involved all the constituencies of the school – parents, administrators and teachers.
“It was a really powerful collaboration,” he said. “I love being a part of this community where children are attending an institution that is forward thinking, and that can imagine a future that’s different – and can do so intentionally and without incurring debt. And how affirming for the faculty that an endowment for teacher salaries is a key part of the campaign.”
Lindenmaier noted that the upgrade to the Learning Commons, library and music classrooms is budgeted at $1.5 million.
“Currently,” he said, “we have a $1.5 million endowment. We’ve had seven years of balanced budgets, and our goal is to have a $7 million endowment – that’s based on industry standards for a school with 150 students. But of course the important thing is these projects can happen without debt. We are committed to living within our means – a very New England approach.”
Paige Orloff, chair of the Board of Trustees and the mother of two BCD students, observed that while the library is important, it is the faculty endowment that distinguishes this campaign.
“Most schools are not able to invest in themselves, with support for faculty salaries,” she said. “This is a promise to our faculty, too, who bear the burden of educating our children. We have an incredible faculty, and we need to treat them fairly and bring in the same caliber of faculty in the future. It’s a core issue. It’s critical over the long run. The endowment will also keep tuition down.”
BCD, she said, is “a critical institution in this community. It offers an education that is both challenging and supportive, that isn’t driven by dogma. The Learning Commons will engage kids in technology – appropriately – as we explore how to incorporate technology into education. At the same time, at BCD the arts really matter – the integration of arts and humanities is at the core of what we do. We don’t teach to tests. Instead, we try to infuse students with a spirit of inquiry and creativity, so that they can become thoughtful analysts of the world around us.
“And at the same time, our teachers have the freedom to develop a curriculum that engages them and their students. BCD has a reputation of being elitist, but that impression is not representative of the current diverse student body. Many students are on financial aid, and BCD serves a much broader sector of the community. BCD helps students become the best version of themselves. It’s a miracle.”
