April 30, 2015
As with all other aspects of MPA, the Board’s work wraps up in a flurry each spring! We’d like to share a few updates with you.
New MPA Strategic Plan. We are excited that by the end of the school year Dr. Hudson will be communicating to you in greater detail the school’s new Strategic Plan that was passed by the Board this year. Please take time to consider the three overarching priorities:
- Empower Students To Live, Learn and Thrive in the Globalized 21st Century
- Inspire and Affirm Our Exceptional Faculty and Staff
- Enhance Institutional Capacity to Ensure MPA’s Future
as well as the very thoughtful, and supporting prongs and implementation plans that reflect your input: from goals about exploring innovative ways to teach and learn in the 21st century, to enhanced diversity and students services, to those on enriching staff/faculty teaching and their total compensation/HR resources.
We hope you have felt heard. Thank you for the meaningful contributions to the focus groups so many of you made.
Enterprise Risk Management. This year the board created a new “Enterprise Risk Management” Committee whose charge is to systematically identify with the Head of School those potential, significant risks to the school’s mission, reputation and/or existence, and to consider their relative likelihood of occurrence and potential impact.
The ERM Committee then works with the Head of School to communicate the Board’s sense of acceptable risk and works to secure any needed resources for the school. Categories of enterprise risks for any independent school include:
- operational
- financial
- strategic
- reputational
- involve health and safety
Specific risks might be fire, an intruder, a public health epidemic, the sudden loss of a Head of School, inadequate endowment funding to support a school’s mission, or an accident on a school trip.
The ERM Committee is completing its prioritization and selection of the top 4-5 areas of review, and Dr. Hudson and his Admin team will assess these and report regularly to the Committee on the strategic approaches to manage such risks.
Departing Trustees. Spring is also when we say goodbye to our valued trustees who are rotating off the Board. As you see them, please take time to thank Jenean Cordon, Dana Boyle, Courtenay Brown, Bill Seymour and Natalie Waters Seum for their incredible service. We are also equally thankful for the long contributions made by trustees Lynn Berning and Michael Miller who departed the Board earlier this board year. All these trustees volunteer their time and strengths to making our school thrive for our children and we are so grateful for their contributions and dedication! New trustees and the Chair-Elect will be announced in our next Board Corner in late May.
Nan Etzwiler and Tamra Anderson
MPA Board of Trustees Co-Chairs
