Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to insightful questions. The podcast is all about getting out Eastside preps new head of school, Sam Uswak. We're diving into his vision and bringing together courses from all around eps and engaging monthly chats.
Get ready to dig deep into what leadership really mean.
We tuned into insightful questions.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Hi, Terry.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Terry McAliso. I'm the founding head of school for Eastside Prep, having just retired about twelve months ago.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: All right, so let's dive into that topic of leadership. You know, for some of the folks listening, Terry there, they know about your career, you know, they know about your legacy in terms of starting a place as innovative and forward looking as eps. But I'd love for you to go a little bit deeper than that and a little bit more into the past. So if you don't mind, would you mind sort of, you know, taking us through your trajectory of leadership in schools? And was there a moment in which you realize that, you know, being ahead of school was the thing for you?
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting question and I'll try to keep it brief because it's been a long history.
It's definitely not linear. It was never my indicate my intent to become a school head. I was finishing a PhD in philosophy and was planning to teach at college level and I started there. That's what I was doing.
And I was kind of disappointed in what that experience entailed because there was no real connection to students. It wasn't a conversation. So I decided to try secondary school. I answered an ad at the University of Colorado graduate student lounge to teach at this place called Colorado Academy.
And so I had my first experience with teaching seniors. I liked it. It was fun. They were bright kids, they were interested, they were eager. And so I did that for a couple of years and then I became the head of the upper school, which was a complete surprise to me. I actually had no interest in that. I was still trying to teach philosophy, but I was graduate school and I was poor, so they were planning to pay me for that job and I thought that would be a nice change. So I took that job and did that. I was that school for ten years and then became a head of school at St. Mary's Academy and did that for six or seven years. And then I went to Lakeside and was there for a while. Seven years, I think that's right. At the turn of the century, I decided to withdraw from school heading because it was becoming much less interesting for me than teaching philosophy was. So I deliberately decided not to accept another headship and put together a consulting firm that I, in some ways, still have. I spent the last 2025 years consulting with nonprofits, mostly with schools and boards of trustees. And it's been interesting just to use my experience and knowledge base to share with people who are trying to figure out how independent schools work. And that really is the reason that I fell into the opportunity at Eastside Prep. I should just say briefly that I tried my darndest to get the founders not to do this. And even then, when I was starting with them, I was not planning to be the head of school. I had this title called the executive head of school was met. I didn't have to be there all day. I could go on do my social work, and I would sort of pop in when needed. And I was a sort of consultant on hand. I did that for a little while. So it took me about two or three, five years before I started to think that I really might want to be the head of the school, because all the work had been so different. Starting a school is so different from going into an existing culture and picking up somebody else's school, essentially, is what you're doing right now. But you've had the advantage of being in that school from the very ground zero. So you have a huge advantage in that regard. But it was about year five or six that I thought, you know, this could be a good thing to do. So I got serious about it and started hiring people, and here we are.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Well, I remember when I joined, you mentioned, you know, I'm only. I don't know how long I'm going to be here. I didn't want to be ahead of school again, but this is just too much fun.
What prompted the jump from upper school head to head?
[00:04:32] Speaker A: I spent my whole life protesting against the jobs that I had, but then I was really loving them. I mean, I love being a head school at Eastside Prep. I didn't love it anyplace else, but I did love it at Eastside Prep.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: So on that note, why go from being an upper school head to head of school back in Colorado? Why the shift?
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Well, candidly, it's too limiting. It was, for me, too limiting a role. It didn't give me the scope of authority that I.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: So you also touched on the fact that there's a big difference between starting a school and arriving at a school. And that's something I'm experiencing right now, you know, following in your footsteps and trying to carry that legacy forward, but also, you know, not, and having been there for quite a bit of the build, but not all of the build.
So going back to when, so you've tried to talk the founders out of doing this, and they're like, no, we're doing this. So there's no there. There's a total clean slate. What opportunities did that give you as a leader? And then what made being a leader in that time really difficult?
[00:05:45] Speaker A: There's nothing like the opportunity to create something out of nothing. And I've never had that opportunity before, and I loved it. It was very entrepreneurial. If I weren't old, I'd probably start another one, but I'm old and I'm not going to. So the challenge is ultimately just gaining credibility, trying to do two things. Trying to be an innovative startup, doing something new in education, and trying to generate enough confidence to create a program that people could recognize and feel as though they were doing a good thing by placing their children. And you, I mean, you've been here. What is this, your 15th or 16th year?
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah, 1515.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So what's your biggest takeaway? I mean, you've been, you've been a leader in the school since you arrived, but not at this level. What, what have you learned in the last year about, about yourself and about the school?
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Oh, so much, you know, specifically about the school. You know, there wasn't really a program side of the house that I hadn't been involved with in my time in one way or another. You know, so when we think about teaching, coaching, a little bit of college counseling, working with learning support, you know, experiential ed, outdoor trips, taking kids to the woods, I've done a lot of the program pieces.
And then as the years went on, got a little bit more involved in the larger vision of the school, working with the board a little bit, but not directly.
The first thing that was a real big surprise is not the right word. But it was, you know, put it this way. When I used to go to a board meeting, I showed up and the thing was arranged. Someone had done a lot of legwork already to prepare agenda, to get the topics going, to set it up, and I just showed up. And so actually, the first time I was working on the full board agenda with the board president, Mehran Moqtad.
We got to the end of the meeting, and I said, okay, so who writes the agenda now? And she goes, you.
So I was like, oops. So I did some quick typing, but just, you know, the kind of, like, the background work of keeping the school moving forward, the background work of supporting the board who has that big vision and keeping them engaged, that has been such an exciting part of this. And then, because my experience wasn't as much on the staff side of the house, learning about the work it takes and the coordination it takes to set the table for all the incredible experiences going on at our school, you know, and if those two groups need each other, and something I talk about frequently are these sort of natural fault lines that are in schools.
You know, you can have all these natural divides that don't need to be divides if you don't treat them like that. But if you don't give it attention, you get that build up of pressure. We don't need any of that if we're giving those relationships attention. So suffice to say, I've learned a lot, and it's been incredibly humbling on one side, but incredibly invigorating on the other. So there you go.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: You mentioned the trustees, and I have to say, one of the things I most enjoyed in every school I had was working with the board. That's a dimension of experience that you don't get unless you're the head of school, and it's a very rich experience indeed. So, Sam, in this year, you're coming to the end of your first year, and you're, as you said, working in cahoots, as it were, with the board, on a strategic agenda. What do you see as the school's most immediate challenge, or maybe even the most interesting next challenges, and share your thoughts on how you think about leaving this school through whatever those challenges might be.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Well, I think there's a really real risk that we get complacent and we sit back due to our success. I mean, you have established a school that is 21 years old in years, that's two plus decades. But it's far more mature in terms of its financial stability, the sophistication of the program, and so many other facets. And I think it'd be really easy for the person following the mythological founder to just ride. I could ride that energy.
In some ways, it might be easier, but, boy, it would be. Talk about doing such a disservice to you in the place to take that tact. So I want to keep us hungry. I want to keep us pushing. You know, the reason why we get so many applications is because of the things we did to get so many applications. And so you don't stop doing that.
You keep doing that. So we gotta be on point, we gotta be coordinated. You know, we gotta write some stuff down and maybe follow it every once in a while, but at the same time, I think you do that. So you carve out the space that allows to push the envelope, push the edge, and get creative and be able to have creative conversations. So let's not worry about the schedule. The schedule is the schedule. Let's not give mind time to that.
Let's give mind time to thinking about how can we do school differently?
How can we give kids new experiences that they otherwise wouldn't have.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. You're raising an interesting point. We mean, in all of the headships that I've ever had, one of the major issues that I've confronted, and I'm sure you do as well, is faculty feeling overwhelmed, like there's just too much to do. There's not time enough in the day to have a life and to teach in a school. And part of the reason for that is that as a creative organization, the school has more ideas than it knows what to do with. What we hire for. Right. We hire for solid academic background and great creative energy. And what that is a recipe for is exhaustion. So one of the roles that you have to play in holding the place together is keeping enough creative energy flowing that people want to be part of it, but keeping the tempo paced at a level at which people can survive it. How do you do that?
[00:12:16] Speaker B: That's the key. And it's imperfect, but there are more ideas per day here than we could execute in a year. I mean, this is an idea factory. And actually, I noticed this as middle school head, and I notice it even more now. I didn't realize how much I would have to say no in these jobs as opposed to saying yes, let's go. I have to be real careful about how much stuff I'm serving up that then I'm creating work for other people. And I kind of ran into this in the fall, where suddenly I felt like we have about five or six really complicated conversations going on about how to evolve program or solve problems. And meanwhile, we also have to deliver an incredible program now here today.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: I used to think about that, you know, when we were trying to create curriculum. We were making a curriculum a year before we were about to have that grade level to teach it to. And the image that I always had in my mind was sort of like trying to dance on the deck of the Titanic while it's going down. And you have to deal with both those things. You got to keep it afloat and let the dance continue. But it definitely requires some depth management.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Well, and I'm noticing it very strongly right now, because here we are, it's may, which means we're just about seeing the finish line of the academic year. And there's a number of things we need to do to create a satisfying, successful, positive, energetic end to school year 23 24, while at the same time preparing and sort of carrying forward the progress we've made on larger pieces as a group for next year. And not letting one get in the way of the other and not ignoring one at the expense of the other. That's what's been on my mind really, almost every day as we went into and came out of EBC is how do you hold those two things in tension? Focus on the now while still able to prep for what's to come, and.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Picking your way through what is always too many great ideas. Parents often have really fabulous ideas and they bring them to us and we can't implement them. We don't have the staff. I mean, it would take. We'd have to double our staff if we wanted to do everything people recommended for us. And I was still bad about that because it's not that I don't appreciate those suggestions and those ideas. I love it that families feel encouraged to be that creative with us, but it's not possible to keep all of that going. You just can't do it. So, Sam, you inherited a school of a mission statement that has eight words in it. How's that working for you?
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Well, considering that at my previous independent school, the mission was three paragraphs long of about seven to eight sentences each, I actually was on a committee to retool it a few years in and that it was about, as. It was about the least alive thing in that school.
I'm thrilled with an eight word mission statement, but I have a question for you on that. Because of its brevity, it's very alive. And actually we're doing some thinking about how we can actually center the mission points on our annual themes a little more deliberately in terms of a rotation. There's a difference between thinking and thinking critically, and there's a big difference between leading and leading compassionately. So what was the motivation?
I mean, there's the act, but then there's the kind of quality of the act, it seems built into our mission. Can you speak to why that was important to you?
[00:16:01] Speaker A: I think the key in the mission statement is the two things, thinking and leading. That critical thinking is very much at the center of what we do. This is an academic institution, and thinking critically is an indication of exactly how academic and how serious a place is we are not just teaching kids to remember things and to know them and to parrot them back. We're teaching kids to use their capacity to put ideas together and to think critically. That's a challenge, and that is a real challenge to be able to help students do. The leadership component, having to do with compassion is related to the notion that it's possible to have a really serious, academically rigorous institution and have a culture in which people enjoy one another's company, in which it's okay to laugh. That is what makes the whole experience enjoyable. I think that's what attracts and holds our teachers. I know. It's part of what made me want to stay in school because it was a place that I could have a good time and get serious about information, knowledge, theories, philosophy, you name it.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Well, so what's life like post Eps, Terry? How you keep them busy?
[00:17:15] Speaker A: You know, I have. I have managed to keep myself as ridiculously busy as I have ever been. I don't know. I really thought I was going to be able to kick back and relax, and I haven't done that yet.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: That's. That's shocking to hear, Bob.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. I know. Nobody expected this from me. I understand.
No, I have embarked upon a massive project in my home which I'm about to come to the end of in the next few days. And I can't believe how excited I am about that. But I'm also doing some writing and a ton of reading and thinking and kind of getting back to my favorite days of my entire life were being a graduate student working on a PhD in philosophy. And so I've started doing that again. I'm just being my own teacher and doing the. I give lectures to myself now, doing the reading and the research and looking at some contemporary stuff to sort of stay current with where it's all going. So I'm enjoying that, and it absolutely absorbs a huge amount of time. I have not been bored at all yet.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Well, if you're looking for something to do, maybe you can help us out with some seminars next year.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Oh, maybe that could be a possibility. Yeah. Keep doing the good job that you're doing. You're getting rave reviews. People are loving the way you're doing your work. I mean, you know how free I am with praise.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: I am indeed. Yes, yes, yes.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: This is serious. I mean, if I'm saying a nice thing, it must be true. It is.
You know what, Sam? I think even after a year of school heading, you may still have some friends that I think is the greatest compliment.
Stay at it.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: Thanks, Terry. I appreciate it.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: All right, to gain more insights, check out the EPS weekly news each Friday.
