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Peter Briggs was interviewed for this oral history in 2021; he passed away in 2022.

I had gotten out of the service in the Korean War, worked in undergraduate admissions at Harvard for 10 years, and then went to lead Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio. Seven Hills needed a head, so I came down and talked with people. The single person who influenced me the most was Charlie Meacham; he was a guy who could make anything work. I was impressed with the people I met — Helen Chatfield Black, Rosamond Wulsin, Lee Brewster.

In those days, there had been privileged families whose kids had gone away to boarding schools and that was starting to change. More of them decided to stay here in town. When a family like the Heads sent a child to Seven Hills, that made a statement.

My favorite thing about being headmaster was working with and being around the kids. Most of what I’d learn happened by walking around campus and stopping and saying, “What’s new?” to people. Sports were always very important to me. As a small school, I thought by not having football we could concentrate on other sports.

Twenty years is a long time to be the head of a school. I don’t remember everything, but we had strong students and teachers and alums. Assistant Head of School Susan Marrs was a giant. Former Head of Doherty Patti Guethlein was a star. Betty Goldsmith was a tower of strength and a driving force behind the creation of Books for Lunch and the Titcomb grants for faculty members to do things during the summer they’d always dreamed about.

When veteran independent school heads get together to swap stories, we talk about how dramatically the job changed over the length of our tenure. One of the happiest changes, I believe, was the integration of creative community service programs into the heart of our curriculum. I’m proud that our school felt compelled to teach students that meaningful contributions of their time, talent, and treasure to the common good is expected from these children and young adults to whom so much has been given.

I like to think the school grew in its reputation and popularity and diversity during my years there, and it means a great deal to know that I was appreciated.

LOUISE HEAD ON PETER BRIGGS
Peter Briggs was the best, and he arrived at a time when the school really needed him. If you had a complaint, he would spend so much time on it — he might check in and call you about it at least four or five times. So, you’d realize pretty soon, if you didn’t need Peter to call you four or five times, you would not complain!

SUSAN MARRS ON PETER BRIGGS
Peter loved connections and especially enjoyed keeping up with news of our graduates, so when he, former Upper School Dean of Students Jack White, and I were in Boston one year for the NAIS conference, he decided we’d drop in on one of our alums who was at Harvard, just to say hello.

He wrangled our way into Jason Cohen’s dorm by accosting a student coming out a side door in his characteristically uber-confident way, thrusting out his right hand to introduce himself with, “I’m Peter Briggs, and we’re looking for Jason Cohen. He lives here, right?” “Yes,” said the kid, a little bewildered. “Great! We’ll just go in here and find him.” And the kid opened the door to admit three strangers because no one ever said no to Peter on a mission.

With him in the lead, we began to climb the stairs only to encounter an incredulous Jason on the first landing. “Mr. Briggs!” he said, wide-eyed, before looking behind Peter to see “Mr. White!!” and “Mrs. Marrs!!!” He was stunned, of course. Who expects to see your high school teachers and Head of School marching up your dorm steps on a random Saturday morning? Peter then declared that we’d like to see Jason’s room and meet his suitemates. “OK,” murmured Jason, clearly wondering if this was really happening.

Once inside, Peter quizzed the other boys on where each one had gone to school, recalling a connection with headmasters at each one. And then came the most amazing moment: when he heard one boy’s name, looked at him carefully and heard his Boston accent, he said, “Is your father (naming the kid’s father), and did your grandfather have a bar in (naming the part of town)?” “Yes,” was the almost-whispered answer. Whereupon Peter, who’d worked in the Harvard Admissions Office after he’d graduated, barked, “I accepted your dad to Harvard!”

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I was a 5-year-old who had severe motor difficulties, and my mother made a calculated decision that Seven Hills would provide a better opportunity for me with small class sizes so that I would get the attention I needed. I started at Lotspeich in kindergarten.

I remember former Lotspeich teacher Margaret Vitz teaching me to read. I remember going to Camp Kern in the fourth grade and the trust exercises that we did there. The fact that as young people we had an opportunity to explore the emotional side of learning in preparation for school — in retrospect, that’s mind-blowing to me now. Who gets to do that? I remember playing soccer, and some of my best friends and teammates were Daam Barker, Doonam Kim, and Robert Gilson, whose families had roots around the world. It was as if I was reared in a mini-United Nations.

By Upper School, my main sport was basketball, and as a freshman starting on the varsity team, Former Athletic Director Duke Synder was my coach all four years. My stepfather was a janitor at Children’s Hospital for 38 years and he raised me to have a relentless determination, but Duke truly was also a father figure to me. We spent an innumerable amount of hours in the gym together, working on moves and talking about life. We’d be there together before anybody else came and still be there after everybody else left. The fact that Duke was there so consistently for me taught me — and still reminds me — how important it is to show up for people.

When I was inducted into the Seven Hills Athletic Hall of Fame, that’s what I was thinking about — all those times at the gym when it was just Duke and me. At the same ceremony, Shaun Whitehead was inducted, and he talked about his mother driving him back and forth and how important Seven Hills was in providing for him. I just lost it; I cried uncontrollably. It had me thinking about Seven Hills as this incredible vehicle of social mobility that a lot of people never get.

Duke was one of the giants for me, but there were so many others. I actually came very close to leaving sports because I was so infatuated with Patty Flannigan and inspired by her candor and her authenticity. After my junior year, I studied “Othello” as a summer project, and Patty helped me get inside Othello’s head, as much as I could as a 17-year-old. I just recently took my wife to see “Macbeth,” and here we are more than 30 years later, and I was thinking about Patty while I was watching the play.

Patty’s thing was being fully present to who you are. It was a joy to be around someone who would celebrate your idiosyncrasies and who lived with such passion. She would also have deep conversations with me about race at a time when that wasn’t really happening in the school. Barbara Beaver was another one. Barbara was the faculty advisor to the Upper School Minority Awareness Club when I was the club’s president, and she’s never gotten enough credit for how she heard and supported students of color throughout her tenure at Seven Hills.

But overall, there was a sense at the time that there was supposed to be color blindness. Even as we’d read Toni Morrison or Ralph Ellison in school, there was still that color blindness. The school didn’t really want to grapple with issues of race, but it still hung in the air.

My last two years at Seven Hills, I was thinking a lot more about what it means to be a Black man in America and what is my responsibility and commitment to persons of color around the world. My junior and senior year, my best friends at the school were Harold and James and all the other janitors. I’d see them between classes and talk to them constantly throughout the day. Knowing Harold was there was a constant reinforcement that someone was watching out for me. Years later, it was Harold who was waiting for me outside of the auditorium when I received my alumni award, just as he’d be outside the gym after a Friday night basketball game when I was a student. I offered that alumni award to him, but he wouldn’t take it. Just like Duke, Harold reminded me of the power of showing up.

Before our graduation ceremony senior year, I huddled with the janitors in a private space where we all prayed together. After the ceremony, James reached into his pocket and pulled out $50 to give me. His hands had cuts and calluses upon calluses on them. He said to me, “I never want your hands to look like mine.” I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “I promise.” I have never forgotten him, that promise, or that day.

All of these relationships are still feeding me. It wasn’t until I hit my 40s that I think I fully appreciated how profoundly Seven Hills has shaped my life. I had started getting letters from college basketball programs starting in ninth grade. At the same time, I was almost failing out of Seven Hills and needed to go on academic probation. So, I’m failing out, but I was so arrogant that I’m still focusing on these basketball letters. I knock on Susan Marrs’ door, and she started helping me see things more clearly, to see college as a place with sports but also to see college as a place to learn. She asked me about my interests and talked to me about what opportunities there could be after college.

We started meeting twice a month and did that for the next four years. What’s the cost per hour for someone like Susan Marrs to be invested in my life twice a month for four years? Without her, there is no way that I would have heard of Denison University, where I attended college. I would have ended up at some junior college. The college preparedness at Seven Hills alone takes the cake and provided me with a social and emotional skillset that to this day — along with the assistance of another Seven Hills parent, my psychologist, Dr. Carl Crew, Jr. — allows me to participate in my own healing.

I had some issues with being Black at Seven Hills and not immediately reconciling where I was with where I came from.
And yet, my social worker mother and my janitor stepdaddy, alongside this remarkable school, worked patiently with me to put the pieces of my life together and let me experience the world. I’ve now been on the phone with Susan Marrs in four different continents! I always refer to her as my white mother, and it all started because I was this self-absorbed ninth grader who she helped put on the right track. Jack White took me aside when I graduated, and thinking about all my detentions freshman year, he told me it was the biggest turnaround of anyone he remembered. I often tell people that I peaked in high school, but it was those moments alongside those people that have made this magical descent one hell of a ride.

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I only knew one family in Cincinnati when a friend called me in the summer of 1994 and said, “There’s an opening at Seven Hills, and if you’re interested, I’m going to recommend you.” At the time, I was the head of the Middle School division at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles. I said, “Yes.” 

Later, the search consultant running the process called me and said, “Somebody’s recommended you, but I don’t think you have much of a chance.” What did I know, I’d never applied for another head of school position. I came to campus, met the search committee, and liked all the people I met — Karen Horrell, John Brooks Sr., Susan Marrs, Tory Parlin, and Tom Hayes, who was board president at the time. My sister came to town, too, and Jack Horrell gave us a tour of campus. It was beautiful weather, and I remember him saying to me, who was coming from California, “Oh, yeah, this is how it is all the time here — gorgeous, sunny, beautiful days.”

Something that distinguished Seven Hills from the beginning was that the interview dinners with the trustees were in people’s homes, and they cooked the meals. A lot of schools — especially in New York or Los Angeles — they take you out to some fancy restaurant. To me, it said everything about the kind of community Cincinnati is, and it gave a sense of the school’s values. One of the two finalist dinners was at Tory Parlin’s house, and her husband John was so concerned that I hadn’t eaten anything because people were peppering me with questions that he gave me a little bag of Tory’s cookies to take back to my hotel. It all showed me that people cared about the person who was applying to lead the school, not just the resume of the person. If you were just looking at resumes, the search consultant was correct, nobody would have hired me.

As part of the interview process, I met with the whole Upper School at morning assembly, and the kids were allowed to ask me questions. One of the students asked me to talk about something that I wouldn’t miss, and I said, “If I become Head of School, I’m never going on an outdoor school camping trip again!” The kids laughed, and I laughed. It was a moment where I knew I could be at this school. You can’t lead a school unless you feel connected to the faculty and the kids — and I did.

The following summer, when I flew into town to start the job, several parents and a teacher came to meet me at the airport. They said, “We don’t think anyone should arrive and not have someone there to say hello to them.” Shannon Carter dropped off a box of Procter & Gamble cleaning products that I would need at my new house. Jimmy Marrs left me a list of doctors that I might want to contact. It was like being a part of the community immediately.

A lot charged during my seven years at the school. When I arrived, there wasn’t a computer on the head of school’s desk. We helped get the school online with a fully functioning computer network and an enterprise-wide database, which took a lot of time from a lot of people. It was also immediately clear to me that the Upper School building needed attention. David Abineri — one of the great teachers of all-time — had some students bring me to his classroom, where there was ice on the inside window. I don’t even remember how cold it was in his classroom. The temperature in the Upper School hallway was below 60 degrees. Kids would sit in those classrooms wearing coats and mittens.

I remember being in the little office that I had at Doherty with Steve Black, who’d become board chair, and Lee Carter. I had a rough estimate of what it would cost to fix up the Upper School and add on to it. Lee said, “What do you think it would cost to do a whole new building?” He said, “Why would we throw money into this building, when we could have something that would serve us better and probably be less expensive?” We took it to the board of course, but the decision to build a whole new Upper School was really born right there.

I’ve had the honor being an administrator at three of the country’s top schools, and through other accreditation observation processes, gotten to know many other top schools. I can say that the best elementary education of any place I’ve ever been was at Lotspeich and Doherty. I loved the open-air facility in Lotspeich, with doors that opened to the outside in every classroom, and everybody along those two central coordinators with the library in the middle. At Doherty, I loved the cross-grade homerooms, with the ability to mix kids, so depending on their needs, they could be in a first grade reading group and a second grade math group.

The faculty members at Seven Hills were just incredible. Their pedagogy and knowledge base were excellent, they were always learning and growing, they liked kids, and they were kind colleagues. To have a Turansky — oh my gosh, what a gift that man was to kids. Wynne Curry! As a language department chair and as a college counselor, she was the one who said, you know, we really need to think more about students’ learning differences. Sandy Smythe! Is there a better English teacher on this planet?  Dianne Kruer! Is there a better art teacher on this planet? 

The faculty in the Upper School used to gather for lunch in what was the smallest faculty room known to humankind. I remember there was a “Question of the Day” that David Abineri used to bring forward. In faculty rooms at some schools, they’d be grumbling about something. At Seven Hills, they were talking about an issue, a topic, solving a problem. It set the tone, especially for the young faculty. And they were all so committed to the school. David Abineri could have gotten a job somewhere else where he wasn’t freezing in his classroom. Instead — I’ll never forget it — every single year, when we were determining the school calendar, I got a letter from David Abineri asking for more school days. He wrote this letter every year, and it was all about the need to educate kids and having more time with them in the classroom.

I also saw how you never lead a great institution like Seven Hills by yourself. Was I going to tell Patti Guethlein how to run her division? I’m not that crazy! Was I going to tell Susan Marrs how to run college counseling? No! I quickly depended on everyone because everyone was so good. I fully immersed myself in the life of the school, and the school let me. That sense of connection, that’s what kept so many faculty there for years and years. You felt like you were part of a village.

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My first introduction to Seven Hills was through my mother, who had attended Hillsdale in the 1930s and had a wonderful experience. She grew up in Middletown, Ohio, and came to the school as a boarder. Her father and an uncle and several other families raised the money to build Hill Manor, where my mother and her older sister lived with about 12 other girls. She loved the freedom of Hillsdale, the intellectual challenge, and the chance to make new friends.

One of her stories that is most memorable concerns Mademoiselle Mauduit, the French teacher. She was a very tall and imposing French woman, who always seemed to be skeptical about how hard the students were working. My mother didn’t do very well with French. When Mademoiselle was particularly annoyed with my mother’s homework, she sometimes tossed the copy book at her. On one of those occasions, mother ducked, and it went out the window.

I arrived at Hillsdale from Dayton, Ohio in the ninth grade and stayed through the 10th grade. What I remember most is the teachers, most of whom were bright and often a bit eccentric. Much to my surprise, Mademoiselle Mauduit was still teaching French. Although she was very intimidating, she was a great teacher, and once I got over being terrified that I might be called on, she taught me the subjunctive, which no one had ever been able to do. Although I had a good experience at Hillsdale, I left after 10th grade to attend boarding school. When I left Hillsdale, I thought, Well, I’ll never be going back there again.

Thirteen years later, in 1974, when our son Andrew was four and we were looking for a preschool program, I toured Lotspeich. I distinctly remember Lilamae Mueller and the other preschool teachers, who couldn’t have been nicer or more welcoming. They were supportive and helpful and, without my noticing, through thoughtful and quiet conversations, taught me a lot about parenting.

I joined the Seven Hills Board in 1994, after our children had graduated. As a Board member, my perspective on the school changed. As a parent, my view of the school had been heavily influenced by our children’s daily experiences. The opportunity to be involved in the school and contribute to its success without that emotional overlay was very interesting and satisfying.

Debbie Reed’s tenure was a transformational period for Seven Hills. She appreciated the strengths of the school and had the vision and energy to try to address those things that needed improving. One challenge was the need for a new Upper School. The initial project for a new Upper School turned into a building program that included reworking both campuses and building a new early childhood center on the Doherty Campus. As chair of the building program, I had the fun of working closely with Debbie and the school administration to bring the plans to completion. In particular, I remember that tearing down the old Upper School building took just one bulldozer about 30 minutes, so I thought, Well, I guess we made the right decision!

In the spring of Debbie Reed’s seventh year, she broke the news to me as Board chair that an opportunity for the position of Head of School had opened up at a school in Southern California, where she had previously lived, and she intended to apply. I said, “I wish you wouldn’t.” She replied, “It’s an opportunity for me to return to my home in California. Seven Hills will need an interim head, and I think it should be you.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t do that. And what would the school say to that idea?” I had no teaching or administrative experience. She took the proposal to the board, and they agreed that I would serve as interim Head of School for a year while the board searched for a new head. I was flattered, excited, and terrified and had a wonderful year, which both the school and I survived.

Seven Hills has an incredibly strong culture that has endured throughout lots of changes in leadership — both principals and heads of school. Not everybody has been the perfect person at the perfect time, but the culture and the sense of trust and caring that pervades the school has been quite remarkable. What better example than the fact that the school community did not go running and screaming from the room when the Board said that I, as someone who had no classroom experience and no experience leading a school, was going to be the head for a year. I don’t think culture is self-perpetuating — you can lose it very easily. You have to first appreciate what the culture is and then you have to do your part to sustain it.

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When I was coming to interview at Seven Hills for the first time, Debbie Reed said, “What time do you land at CVG?” I said, “I land at two o’clock.” She said, “Well, one of the people who really knows the school well, a recent former Board chair, wants to meet you. He’s going to be at the airport leaving later in the day, and he wanted to know if you would mind if he meets you as you get off the plane to be the first person to welcome you.” I said, “Sure.” And Debbie said, “The name of the person is Paul Sittenfeld.” So, I get off the plane and Paul is sitting there, and he said “Let’s have lunch,” and I said, “Absolutely.” He filled me in on the history of Seven Hills, what the school meant to him, what it meant to the community, and I got a real sense of what I was walking into before I had even left the airport and stepped on campus.

They offered me the job, and 25 years went by very quickly. My initial reaction was that the school’s infrastructure was a lot of older buildings. The school had real charm, but it was not a modern complex that was going to meet its future needs. When I started, I remember there was a gravel parking lot. Teachers were constantly telling me, “When are you going to get rid of this gravel parking lot?” The wonderful former Lotspeich teacher Bonnie Binkley said, “Robert, this is unacceptable, I’m ruining my heels!” Jack White used to work at his desk with gloves on his hands with the fingertips cut off because it was so cold in the old school. Mrs. Lotspeich would have approved, but Jack White and other teachers did not, so they would bring in individual heaters. The program of the school was world-class, the reputation was world-class, but the infrastructure needed to be upgraded. Debbie Reed and I, along with a lot of other people, said we really need a plan to start modernizing the facilities, to bring them into their next iteration.

One of the good things we did was to have an immense amount of conversations with the people who would be in the buildings. It wasn’t my expertise driving it; it wasn’t the architects’ expertise — we really involved an entire community of people in building these buildings.

When we built the new Upper School, Bob Turansky was — how shall I say this — a very vociferous teacher. I think it was Susan Marrs who came to me and said, “When Bob’s teaching, we can’t turn down the volume he teaches at.” So, we needed to have a room that would be a Bob Turansky room — as soundproof as possible. We identified a room that we could tuck away a little bit. We double insulated the walls, double drywalled the walls, put sound abatement in the walls and in the ceiling so that if he was going off, the teacher next to him or even down the hall wasn’t going to be bothered. The architects and engineers said, “What are you doing here? You’re going to build this particular room for this one guy, and you’re going to spend extra money just so this one guy can teach the way he wants to teach?” and we said, “Absolutely!” And they said, “As opposed to telling him to pipe down?” and I said, “I’m not telling Bob Turansky to pipe down!”

We made specific accommodations for Patty Flannigan and Dixie Knabe and in so many different parts of the school so that teachers could teach the way they wanted to. It says that we don’t just value teaching, we also value teachers. When Bob and Patty and Dixie and many others saw that we would do this for them, they felt valued.

For met, the most interesting project and the one that was the most complicated was The Schiff Center. That building is an engineering marvel. If you were to fill that building with water and close all the doors, it would retain all the water. When we built it, we didn’t want to hear the highway next door, so it’s soundproof. You had to build it almost like a ship, and make it watertight, but even more so that noise can’t filter through.

A personal favorite of mine to work on was the Donovan Arts Center. It was my first new building at Seven Hills, and I knew the Donovans. When Nancy and I got started on this, I put my heart and soul into every rivet, every bolt, everything about that building, to make it the most perfect building that I could for the Donovans and the school. We spent a lot of time so that when people walked in the front door, they had this panoramic view, seeing the lower fields and the highway and beyond. The blackbox theater, which doesn’t have any light, dominates the building, so having this view and openness and airiness right next to the functionality of this dark theater was a great, stark contrast.

The spot on campus that I love most is the area in front of the Leyman Science Center with the big silver maple tree. That tree is a special tree — a grandfather of a tree. We spent a lot of years feeding it and caring for it. When kids would be playing under it, shaded from the hot sun in the green grass next to it, and a science class was being taught behind it, and you’d hear music coming out of the fine arts classroom right there beside it, that was always a nice spot for me to sit down for a minute, where it captured what a school really is all about.

On the Doherty Campus, we had to change Faran Hall in a million different ways over time, to meet fire codes and to think creatively about how a science class or an art class could take place in that building. It’s not what anyone would build today, but when you walk into it, and you hear the kids playing, and the building creaks and groans, and you see its odd shapes and designs, it’s just got an older soul to it. You feel that the building has been used creatively and well and that the building itself went along with it. The building accepted that role, being converted from a household to a school, as though the building said, “I need to change to help these kids get educated.”

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Uniforms; saddle shoes; field hockey; the Green and the Gold teams for athletics; book bags, not backpacks. There’s so much I remember about being a student at Hillsdale! I arrived there in 1965 for seventh grade. The uniforms especially were a big deal. They had to reach down to the middle of our knees. We would have to kneel down and the hem of our uniforms had to touch the ground. If it didn’t, a note was sent home and parents had to lower those hems.

Harvest Fair happened every fall in the old gym. There’d be little booths where we could buy all these different handmade things, like potholders. It was run by the students’ mothers, who wore gingham aprons.

During gym class once a year, when we were in the seventh and eighth grade, we had posture pictures where we would all have to line up and, one by one, come in front of a screen. There was a bright light, and we’d stand on the other side of the screen so the bright light could project our silhouette. Our gym teachers would sketch our outline and talk to us about our posture. I know it all sounds weird now.

By the time we were freshmen, we were also observing and participating in the huge societal changes and upheavals that were happening during the 60s and early 70s. Most of all, I felt like I graduated from Hillsdale with classmates and friends who remain some of my closest friends to this day.

In January of 1986, right after my daughter Lisa was born, I came to interview for a college counseling position. I said, “I’m happy to do part-time college counseling, but can you please, please, please give me one French class? After all, that’s the discipline that inspired me to become a teacher.” The school was able to make that happen. When I started in August that year, I was returning to such a different place than the all-girls school where I had been a student. And yet, there was an ethos that was still there. A collegiality and a trust — a trust between students and teachers and between teachers and the administration.

I remember being surprised how financially challenged the school was. We were practically counting paper clips. We had to be careful about using the Xerox machine. But there was this whole esprit de corps among the faculty, and I thought, By god, this school will get there. Peter Briggs had successfully marshaled the school through those challenging years following the merger. Then when Peter retired, and Debbie Reed came on board, it was as though we were catapulted into the 21st century. More technology. Digital instruction. New buildings. By the early 2000s, we called the campus “Versailles on Red Bank.”

Every seven years, we are evaluated by ISACS. I remember a few evaluation cycles ago, at the end of the process, the evaluators met with the faculty from all four divisions and dismissed the administrators. They said, “OK, now is your time to tell us things off-the-record that need to be addressed.” We’d all had opportunities to share things on-the-record that we thought could be improved, but this was supposed to be where any malcontents would be really free to pipe up. The evaluators said, “Please tell us anything we need to address with the top brass; it will be completely confidential.” I remember people kind of looking around at each other, like Nope, I don’t have anything to add that I wouldn’t have already said on-the-record. It was this golden moment, like wow, this really is an incredible school.

I’m proud of how my colleagues and I were able to help strengthen the world languages department. By the time I left, we offered French, Latin, Spanish, and Chinese, which is a very robust world languages program, especially for a school our size. We saved a struggling Latin program; we introduced two Spanish courses designed for language-challenged students, rather than offer them exemptions from world languages altogether. The school also started doing more international exchange programs. That’s important because it’s largely through speaking another language that you come to know a culture. If you visit another country, you can see all of the sites, but if you cannot speak to the people who live there, who can tell you in their language what’s what, then you’re still on the outside.

With my students, I loved seeing them slowly gain confidence and start to speak in French. There were some students who would simply drop all their inhibitions and just start to babble. Some of what they were saying might have come out hard to understand, but by God, a French speaker could understand what they were saying. They would let it flow, and I loved that.

As both a teacher and a college counselor, I’ve always felt that students need other adults in their lives, other than their parents. An adult who would not be judgmental or reactive, and would say, “Talk to me about your life. Tell me what you think I need to know to know you better. Tell me what’s important to you.” I learned so much from their stories. In the role of confidant, I let students know my door was always open, and I’d mostly listen. We needed to be patient with them, and you could try to give them a few strategies for whatever they were dealing with, but I think the best thing you could do was to be that supportive, empathic ear.

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JIM: As young parents, we didn’t have an established connection to any Cincinnati school, so we attended open houses, and it quickly became apparent that Seven Hills was the place that felt familiar and felt like home.

BETH: When our sons started at Doherty, Patti Guethlein was the principal and an amazing leader. There was also a very strong group of knowledgeable and seasoned teachers. Together, they created a cohesive environment that was warm, nurturing, and supportive, yet also academic and challenging. During all those years when my kids were there, I thought, How lucky are they to attend this school!

One of my favorite Doherty memories is when Hayden, our middle son, was in second or third grade. He had Sarah Roberts, this fabulous teacher, and she called on the morning of Halloween. We were scurrying around, trying to get our kids into their costumes and get to school on time. Hayden and his group of friends were obsessed with these stuffed animals called Ugly Dolls, which looked like little monsters. For Halloween that year, a group of the teachers decided to dress up like the Ugly Doll characters, but Sarah said they were worried their costumes weren’t quite good enough. Hayden had this collection of 10 different Ugly Doll stuffed animals. Sarah asked, “Do you mind if Hayden brings those in, and we’ll each carry the one that we are dressed up as.” I’m not kidding you, this was the most exciting moment in Hayden Schiff’s young life, seeing these teachers all dressed up like his beloved Ugly Dolls.

The fact that the teachers were paying attention and were so excited about what the kids were excited about — that’s what stands out. This is what was so important and impressive to us about Seven Hills, that the teachers got to know your child so well — as well as you knew them. This sounds corny, but the teachers and staff at Seven Hills helped us become better parents. Dealing with three rambunctious boys was not always easy, but the teachers were so reassuring and helpful.

JIM: As your kids get into Middle School, reality sets in, and you realize that perhaps things aren’t going quite as well in their lives as they were a few years before. Becoming an adolescent is tough. That’s when I thought Seven Hills was particularly good and supportive. The school is so adept at handling the challenges that adolescents face. They really let kids be themselves. There was less pressure to fit into some kind of preconceived mold. The kids at Seven Hills were better kids than my friends and I were in junior high and high school. And that’s largely due to the faculty, and the atmosphere they’ve created, along with the school’s values.

The most important thing in our lives at that time was our kids, so the school they attended became the most important institution to our family. This created a real desire to want to support the school and to give back whatever we could. The school was not only good for our kids, but also for us. If you were coaching a team or sitting on a committee, you wanted to be a good coach or a good committee member. The school was, to some strange degree, making us into better people. Everybody connected with the school was so good at doing their job that the more time you spent around them, the more you hoped it might rub off.

Beth: Being Board chair, you learn — even more so than you thought — how absolutely dedicated the faculty and administration are to the mission of the school. Jim’s a teacher, but I always worked in the business and legal community. Being around people who are involved in education, to me, they’re the best kind of people. They’re curious and fun, they enjoy life, and they’re so dedicated to something that’s important to us personally and also to the greater good of society.

JIM: At a time when we question how well schools work, and you see all the problems with primary and secondary education in this country, Seven Hills is the beacon on the hill. I feel more confident about what education can do because I’ve seen firsthand one of the best possible models. It’s not an easy model to replicate, but spending time at Seven Hills gives you hope.

BETH: I was Board chair when The Schiff Center was being planned, and then the execution happened after I stepped down. It turned out so much better than any of us could have ever expected. The first year after Ben, our youngest, graduated from Upper School, I’d be in my car doing something in the neighborhood and think, I’m just going to swing by Seven Hills and see how the building is going. I’d sneak by and peek around. It was a thrill to see it go up.

JIM: I was reluctant initially to see our family name on a building, but to have a center that works so well and that hosts kids performing on stage — it’s a great delight and honor.

But when I think of being at Seven Hills all those years, there are so many other things that I’m even more proud of. I remember being on the Board when the school was less diverse. We had 14% students of color, and we wanted to change that, but weren’t always sure of what steps to take. Now we have about 38% students of color. That’s a significant difference that occurred because of the efforts of so many. There was also the issue of faculty salaries. Not too long ago, our faculty were being compensated at about 70% of the ISACS benchmark. This was wrong, and we wanted to change it. That said, it would require millions of dollars to do so. A campaign was launched, and it succeeded. Now our faculty salaries are around 99% of the ISACS benchmark. Being part of a Board that raised money not just for bricks and mortar but also for our two most important constituencies — the students and the faculty — those mean the most to me in terms of how the school has progressed as an institution.

While our sons were at Seven Hills, we lived on two different streets and in neither case were we within a mile of the school. But our neighborhood was the school, it wasn’t the street that we lived on. When we were on campus, it felt like home. You’d want to wander around and see people. Some days, after drop-off at Doherty, you’d stay an extra 20 minutes talking to other parents, who became good friends. It was almost like being in a small town where you know everybody. It became the place we wanted to be.

BETH: Now that our kids have all graduated, I miss that day-to-day involvement and the rhythm of the school and seeing all the families who you went there with. You miss the people.

JIM: There are these wonderful, nostalgic moments, and we feel so lucky to have had them. You can’t go back and do it again, but you’re grateful for what transpired. And you have the sense that maybe those years were, in many respects, a peak experience of community in your life.

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Our older son, Alex, didn’t start at Seven Hills. It was clear to the teachers that he was pretty bright, but we also had him assessed and he presented with ADHD. That sent us on a journey for what would be the right sort of school for him. In fairness to my wife Sue, she did 95% of the legwork and research. Seven Hills was pretty clearly at the top of our list in terms of a place that we felt could give him — and also our younger son, Chris — the sort of individualized attention that we were looking for. Sue visited both campuses and left her time at Doherty with the feeling that it was this sort of warm embrace. Alex started at Doherty in kindergarten and Chris in preschool.

I would typically do drop-off in the morning, swinging through Doherty while driving from Blue Ash downtown to P&G. Alex had Priscilla Dunn for his kindergarten teacher. She was an imposing figure. As a parent, I’d be in parent-teacher conferences with her, sitting in those little chairs, and I would want to sit up straight because it was Mrs. Dunn! I remember her talking about the objectives for kindergarten, and, of course, there’s the academics, but she said, “What we really hope to do is by the time they move from kindergarten to first grade they can form a line, and they can button their coats.” She was talking about life skills, about being present to learn. All the academic stuff was important, but she took it as her charge to make sure the kids were prepared when they went on to greater academic pursuits that they knew how to behave and were good citizens.

I’ll always remember former Doherty librarian Linda Wolfe, one of those iconic Doherty fixtures, instilling in the kids a love of reading, and matching each kid with the perfect book. Or former Doherty teacher Sarah Roberts, who would do a cartwheel in her classroom if the kids did something extraordinary. Cartwheels weren’t daily, but they also weren’t rare. It was just the most incredible thing to see a teacher literally throw herself into her teaching.

I was sort of intimidated by former Doherty teacher Regina Daily. She had this tough persona, even though I think she’s really a softie inside. In Unit III, Chris was struggling with math. She unlocked whatever the blockages were that he was having, spent time with him outside of class, and it was truly transformative in the space of months. Chris went on to become a biomedical engineer in college, and you have to have some pretty good math skills for that. I was so appreciative for the time that Regina Daily spent and the way she connected with Chris and the way she got him over the hump. It was — and is — a profound sense of gratitude.

In Upper School, both my kids, rather nerdish, were in the Latin Club, and they would compete in these tournaments called Certamen, on Saturday mornings. Their teacher, Brian Sebastian — “See-Bass” they called him — was so nerdy that he went around the end of nerdiness until it became cool again. He had a great love for Latin and was able to draw kids into Latin beyond just the requirement that they had to spend a semester learning it. He made it fun. He made it cool to be smart. He was a real role model for who Alex later became as a teacher himself, which is a little quirky, a little nerdy — able to relate to kids who are really smart and make them feel comfortable in their own skin.

We’ve had this iconic old guard of teachers at Seven Hills, but then you also have the newer teachers — Tricia Hoar in English, Brian Wabler in history, and many others — who, over the last decade and a half, even though they’re still mid-career, have carved for themselves a place in the pantheon of Seven Hills faculty. As Board members, we always worried, “Oh gosh, are we going to be able to replace a Bob Turansky?” The school has done a terrific job of bringing in people who have that same degree of passion, but they’re bringing their own selves to the classroom in ways that are different and unique but no less iconic for the students.

I tell parents who have young kids that the value of Seven Hills actually becomes so much clearer in the rear-view mirror. Our kids were so eminently prepared — academically in particular but also socially — for the transition from senior in Upper School to freshman in college. There’s an emotional and also a financial cost to arriving at college and not being prepared. The value proposition of Seven Hills just kept growing for our kids, even after they had graduated. As a result of that, Sue and I still feel incredibly connected to the school.

As I think about where I can invest my discretionary time, I want to help the institution go from strength to strength. As Head of Middle School Bill Waskowitz says, you don’t have to be sick to get better. And I think the school does continue to get better. One example is how the Middle School has really become one of the school’s crown jewels. Bill and his team have turned it into a truly signature program. He and his teachers have a lot of passion for this age group; they can deal with the challenges of a seventh grader without missing a beat. The Middle School has combined a robust curricular program with an overlay of social and emotional learning, which I think really sets the kids up well for the move to Upper School.

One of the things I’m personally most proud of is helping Head of School Chris Garten and Beth Schiff with the revamp of the early childhood facility at Lotspeich. I’m a numbers guy — I actually like doing spreadsheets and modeling — so I would sit with a lot of input from Director of Enrollment Management Janet Hill and model what needs to be true for the school to be vibrant long-term from an enrollment standpoint. The value proposition can be tougher in those younger years. It’s easier when you’re talking about a high school junior who’s getting ready to apply to college than for a 4-year-old. The approach with the early childhood center truly was, If we build it they will come — and they have come. We did that intervention, it worked, and bringing that magnificent facility and that program on board has been a real enabler for the enrollment vibrancy of the school, which if you don’t have that, you’ve got a boatload of problems.

I have a picture of 20 pairs of shoes sitting in the entryway of our house from when the kids in the theater group would come over for pizza after practice or after one of the plays. They would all take their shoes off, so when the kids were little, the shoes were little, and when they were in Middle and Upper School, the shoes were bigger and you had the girls with big boots and all that. The kids would be downstairs, and this was before they were driving, so the parents would drop them off, and we’d offer wine and cheese and have the parents sitting around our kitchen. It was touching because these kids were creating what are lifelong friendships, and we were becoming dear friends with the parents, and it wouldn’t have happened were it not for Seven Hills. When you strip it right down, like many things in life, it’s about relationships. We would all go through stuff, and the camaraderie, the supportive ecosystem of the school was this incredible side benefit to what goes on in the classroom.

What I treasure now is if I’m back on campus and I bump into a teacher who I may not have seen for two years, they see me, give me a hug, and they say, “How are Alex and Chris doing?” Our kids are but two of the hundreds, if not thousands, of students they have worked with over the years. The fact that they remember and care that deeply about all the kids, I treasure that.

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Before our three sons T.J., Jared, and Joshua had come along, my niece, Brittany Nelson-Turner, attended Seven Hills. My sister was a single mom, and she would sometimes ask me to drop Brittany off or pick her up or participate in school events, so I was on campus before our boys ever attended the school. Seeing Brittany evolve into this incredibly smart young lady, I’d always go back to my wife Doris and say, “Hey, this seems like a really awesome place.” If it weren’t for Brittany, Seven Hills wouldn’t have been on our radar. That exposure was key.

Our oldest, T.J., started in first grade at Doherty in 2000. Doherty teacher Regina Daily was one of the only African American teachers there, and she really helped us make the final decision. She was transparent, and said, “Listen, they’re small classes, and he may be the only African American student in the class. Be prepared for that.” What she was really saying was that she’d look out for him. She reassured us that he wouldn’t be treated differently. We were impressed that she went beyond what was expected of a faculty member to share that with us.

All three of our boys had been exposed to an early childhood reading program. When they were 4- or 5-years-old, they were already reading first and second grade books. So, coming to Seven Hills, they were equipped and ready. Doris and I remember Doherty librarian Mrs. Wolfe creating an advanced reading group that they were part of. The teachers were empowered to do things like that. We thought, This is the reason we’re here. The teachers see; they care.

I wanted to make sure I was involved, so I did a lot of coaching during the ages when the school still let the parents coach. I loved the events and occasions where the other parents and I could wear our Seven Hills apparel — a hat or a T-shirt or a sweatshirt. We weren’t doing it to boast or brag or be prideful, it was just a unity thing. I remember attending an event at the school, and Middle School Alethic Director Roger Schnirring saw me in some piece of gear and was like, “You still have that?” I’ve got some throwbacks, man. Not long ago, I was in my closet saying, I really need to move on and put this stuff in boxes. Those times coaching and bonding with other parents were good days.

I loved that it wasn’t just the parents you’d form relationships with, it was also the teachers. Even though my boys have all graduated, I will still get a text from Nick Francis saying, “Happy Father’s Day.” Nick was Joshua’s soccer coach for three years. He instilled in him the attitude of never giving up and being willing to try different things. Joshua had played forward and been offensive-minded for his entire soccer career, but Nick asked him to play defense. Joshua didn’t want to do it, but Nick saw something in him that I didn’t see and no one else saw. Joshua ended up being defensive first team all-conference, all-city, all-state, and all-region. Nick even drove an hour and a half up to Columbus for the all-state awards banquet. That says a lot.

We were always upfront and transparent with our boys about what it cost to go to Seven Hills. We would sit down with them and show them the numbers, even at an early age, so that they would appreciate and value the education.

In December of 2001, I was selected to shoot a shot from halfcourt during halftime at the Crosstown Shootout between UC and Xavier. The prize, if I made it, was a million dollars. The ball left my hands and God did the rest. Miraculously, it went in. That couldn’t have come at a better time. Our youngest had just been born three months earlier, and Doris and I had been thinking, can we really afford to send two kids to Seven Hills, let alone three? We wanted Joshua to follow in his brothers’ footsteps, but it didn’t look good. We later told our boys, the money from making that shot is being applied towards this tuition bill.

 

After the shot, there were different media interviews and former Athletic Director Brian Phelps let me do one in the Seven Hills gym. The TV reporter asked, “What are you doing with the money?” I said, “You’re looking at it. This is where we’ve put the investment — and it’s paying off.” Ultimately, all three of our boys went through Seven Hills and received college scholarships. That is return on investment.

Our boys received a lot of spiritual enrichment at home and outside the school, but they also liked that because Seven Hills wasn’t a religious school. They had relationships with Muslim families and Hindu families and could learn firsthand that this is what your faith and culture are all about.

Each year we were at the school, I also felt like there was an increase in families of color. I’m encouraged by that. It’s so important to have that representation — from a student standpoint, from a faculty standpoint, from a Board standpoint. It says to other schools and to the city, we’re doing it, we’re not just talking. With everything going on in the country, it’s important that Seven Hills isn’t hiding or shying away from issues of race and diversity.

In 2020 and 2021, I was involved with the Upper School English department as they worked through a reading guide called “Courageous Conversations About Race.” Nate Gleiner always made his classroom available. A few other parents of color and I would meet with faculty members throughout the year. We’d take turns moderating and doing these exercises, and the focus was on embracing the discomfort that comes from honestly talking about the injustices that pervade our society. For all of us who attended, including Chris Garten, it allowed us to look in the mirror.

I think the willingness to have those hard conversations is part of what separates Seven Hills from other schools. If you have a diversity statement, you need to have something to show for it — not just have it on the website. If people visit our school, they can see it’s really taking place. We’re committed to our diversity statement, we’ve hired a diversity coordinator, we’ve become a much more diverse student body, and we’re creating a safe, supportive culture for all our students.

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