Transcript: Stephen Murray on Knowing Every Boy, Being There, and a Life in Leadership

Good morning, and welcome back to the show. We are here with the seventh headmaster of university school, namesake of the Murray House, and the current head of school of the Lawrenceville School, Mr. Stephen Murray. How are you, Mr.

Murray? Doing great, Jack. Doing great, Charlie. Happy to be here.

Yeah, thanks for doing this. Before we get into the long story of how you ended up at U.S. and then to Lawrenceville, we like to always start at the very beginning. So can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up, kind of what your household was like and where you came from? Sure.

So I grew up in northern New Jersey. I was the fourth of six kids. And yeah, I went to public school for my kind of younger years. And I ended up going off to Exeter for my junior and senior year.

I was at Morristown Public High School kind of for 19th and 10th grade, which I loved, and I wasn't looking to go away. But I went to the summer school after my ninth grade year, and I applied just because I was there. And anyway, I had a chance to go away for two years. But I really went into teaching and kind of that career path because of my public school teachers.

So that really shaped me tremendously. I also loved growing up in a household with lots of brothers and sisters because, you know, I think it helped create a sense of not being entitled. You had to share. You had to kind of not always get seconds at a meal or something.

You had to take care of your little brother and sister. So that was, I think, also part of what shaped me growing up. My dad and my mom in many ways were huge role models. My mom was tough in a really good way, but a huge advocate for us as kids. and I have a bit of her in me.

My father was one of the kindest, gentlest, most honest people I've ever encountered. And so I think somewhere about the offer, or at least I aspire to be as much like him as I can in my own kind of demeanor and sort of leadership. So my parents were very important to me in terms of shaping me for sure. Did you get the awesome mustache from your father as well?

You know, he didn't have a mustache. I grew it when I was living in France at age 20. I've been wanting to grow a mustache and had a few unsuccessful attempts earlier in college. And finally, when I was living in France, it just suddenly came in.

And a little while after, and it looked pretty much like this, and a little while after I grew it, a couple of years later, I was at my grandparents' house for, it may have been Thanksgiving, and my siblings and I were up in their attic doing something, going through some old belongings. And there on the wall was someone, an ancestor from like the, I think from the 19th century, who looked a lot like me, but had the exact same mustache. And I think one of my sisters said, Hey, Steve, there's your mustache. It runs in the family.

So it seems to have maybe skipped a couple of generations, but it seems that it's kind of a family trade, I guess. Now, were you the kid who always loved school just from day one, or were you more of a kid who kind of found his footing once a specific teacher or subject really took a hold of you? Was there a teacher subject that you can remember just being so influential to you oh yeah oh for sure um i i think i did like school on balance and i you know was a pretty dutiful worker but it was definitely the teachers who made a difference a number of teachers made a difference in my life and um really made me want to go into teaching um i just wrote about one my sixth grade teacher who passed away, but just recently passed away, and I made some remarks at her service. She had a huge influence on me.

And actually, we stayed in touch over the years. And when I moved back to New Jersey after leaving the U.S., when I came to Lawrenceville, she was still in northern New Jersey. And I used to go up and have dinner with her kind of once a year and just letting her know what a pivotal role she had played. And at her service, I told this story.

I want to talk about, you know, great teaching and how teachers really connect to their learners in such important ways. There's a New York Times column years ago that a guy had written about going back to his hometown where he had grown up. He was a writer. He had become a writer and a journalist.

And he had traveled back to his hometown for some reason. and he was in a used bookstore and he found a picture from like a from a book of photographs um from an earlier time in the town's history and he saw this like a picture of a kindergarten class and there's something about this little girl in the front row and he looked at the caption the names and he realized it was his first grade teacher as a little girl in kindergarten and he he just got so intrigued because um he so he looks up her name in information her number from information calls her up and she answers and she's like in her late 80s and he says you know i just saw your picture and he explained the whole thing and he said i just wanted to call you up and thank you because you taught me to read you taught me to love language i got my start in your classroom i've become a journalist and a writer and i just want to thank you and um uh you know but you must get this all the time. And she there's silence on the phone. And she says, No, you're the first. And his comment at the end of it was, you know, thank a teacher.

And so I sometimes tell that story, but I told that story at her service, because one of the things I felt so fortunate about was I was able to let her know how much I appreciate, I was able to thank her before she passed. She was tremendously important. My ninth and 10th grade French teacher at Morristown Public High School was also a huge influence on me. I think I was madly in love with her.

I think probably is fair to say she was in her 60s and drove a Camaro and was just a really classy person and a lot of fun to learn French from and just a hoot. I mean, just full of, you know, vivacious. And I went into, I majored in French in college in part because of her. Yeah, there have been a lot teachers who have just made a big difference you know i sometimes say when i talk about teaching whether it's at us or whether it was at um at lawrenceville when i talk to prospective parents and i can say more about this if you want but i i often say teaching is about love and trust like you know great teachers you know invest in their students and care deeply about their students And if you, you know, you can push a kid when you really know them and they trust you.

If you push them before they're ready or not knowing them very well, you teach them their limits. If you know them and they really trust you and you know exactly when to push them, you know, there are no limits. Like they learn that they can do things they had no idea they could do. And when I hire teachers, I've always felt this way. it's kind of given that if you're in an interview for your job at university school, or if you're in an interview for a job at the Lawrenceville School, you've got pretty good biology background, or your credentials in teaching Shakespeare are strong.

We can kind of figure that out pretty quickly. What I try to size up is, are you the kind of person that can walk into a classroom? Because kids will pick up on this in about 30 seconds. Can you walk into a classroom, and are the kids going to figure out pretty quickly that this person actually wants to be here, wants to get to know us as learners and wants to invest in us.

Or either kind of teacher walks in the room and sort of says, I'm going to show you how little you know about this subject and how much I know. Like, if that's the kind of, like, you lost me at hello, if that's the kind of teacher, I might learn a little bit of chemistry from you, but I'm never going to, you know, it's the teacher who knows that I'll walk in. And instinctively, the kid's like, oh, yeah, this person wants to be here and spend time with us and is going to invest in us. And that's, to me, a great teaching is about, and I was fortunate enough to have a number of teachers in my time as a kid who were that way.

Yeah, that's amazing. So when it came time to pick a college, you ended up at Williams. You mentioned you did a double major in French and then political science. Then you went from Williams to the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

What was the moment where you really decided, even a small moment, and you said to yourself, I think I might want to teach. So it was actually during my time at Williams. I was pretty sure I wanted to do that. And they had kind of a J term, a January term.

They called it winter study, where you would finish your first semester. They had kind of month of January before second semester started. And you take one course, like one intensive immersive course. It was a great time of the year.

You actually had time in your hands to really invest yourself. And I did a number of things over the time, my time there. But my senior year, I did a teaching internship at the local, I think it was Mount Greylock Public High School in Williamstown. And I got to work with this English teacher.

And I just love teaching. I just got a kind of a glimpse of it and thought this is what I want to do. So after Williams, I got a fellowship to go teach in a public school in France for a year, teaching in a public middle school, kind of part-time, but it ended up taking up most of my time. and that like by day two when i get the very it's very under-resourced school in a very poor suburb of paris mostly north african and west african kids were kind of immigrants uh children of immigrants and um by about the second or third day they said you know we're kind of understaffed you seem like you know what you're doing we're going to give you your own classes i was supposed to be a teaching assistant is what it was like an english you know native speaker for and they said we're just going to give you and i was like all right like cool so i got to teach They were amazing kids from tough backgrounds. It's interesting, culturally, so it's middle school, like some of the girls, they were French citizens who spoke native French because they had been born in France.

Their parents had come over, many of them to be factory workers in some of the car factories, menial jobs of one sort or another. And then the economy declined in the 70s and early 80s. A lot of them were out of work. So it was pretty tenuous for these families.

But the kids were, had been born in France and were citizens. But the French themselves just called them immigrants. I know you guys are immigrants. You're not, like they treated them very differently.

And there's a lot of ill will. So the kids didn't feel like they belonged. They were kind of between two worlds. Because like the girls would say to me, If I act too French and if I look like I'm too assimilated, my dad's gonna send me back to Algeria, let's just say, in that case and put me in an arranged marriage And I don want that But if I don act French enough the traditional French whatever would look at me and say oh, you're just an immigrant, what are you doing here?

And so they kind of, it was, they're kind of a twixt in between. And they really opened up to me and we would have these amazing conversations about the challenges they faced. But I loved that year. And so I knew I wanted to come back and teach.

So I did the degree at Harvard, which is interesting. And I taught for a couple of years. And then I actually went back to Harvard to get a master's degree. I was teaching in a middle school, and I wanted to teach high school.

So I thought, I probably should get a master's in French. I want to teach French. So I was in a doctoral program, to be clear, actually. And I guess I wasn't sure what I was going to actually do with it. thinking i might want to go back to teach high school but um i was in a doctor but i was having i was loving the the degree i was loving the literature i was loving the study but i was feeling kind of blue and i couldn't really figure out what it was and part week through the year i was probably through my master's getting ready to kind of get into my the doctoral studies and i realized i missed teaching and so i went to my advisor and i said said, you know, I think I'm going to leave the pro I'll finish my master's, but have it be a terminal master's and I think I'm going to leave the doctor program and go look for a job.

And she's like, that's crazy. Like, why would you do that? And I just, I said, Yeah, I missed I missed teaching. And the other thing that kind of haunted me a little bit was in those days.

If you were in a doctor program, they called you that you were labeled by the year you were in. So I was g one by graduate year one. You know, if you're G7, it means you're in your seventh year of the program. And there were so many graduate students hanging around the department, smoking French cigarettes in like G7, G8, G9, just like being a teaching assistant, not having finished their dissertation, just kind of spinning their wheels.

And I thought, oh my God, like my worst nightmare. Don't ever let me end up like that. I want to go back to what I love. I want to go back to teaching.

So I left the program, finished my master's in French. and got a job at Deerfield. And like two weeks in, I never looked back. Like, I became an apartment. I was recently married.

We had a new baby. Our first child had been born. I had an apartment and dorm. I taught four sections of French.

And I was a swim coach and a water polo coach. And I'm like, did I win the lottery? Like, this is awesome. Like, I felt energized.

I never look back. It's been a great run. In 1990, when you did join Deerfield Academy as a teacher, as a French teacher and a coach, what was it like stepping into Deerfield as a brand new teacher? And every teacher has a story that we've interviewed about maybe some first year incident that they still went to a little about.

So what's something that you think about in those early teaching days that makes you laugh or shake your head looking back on it? So, let me think about that. I'll tell you, well, I'll tell you one story that actually, it's a little bit of a different, but it had a huge impact on me that first year. And actually kind of shaped, I didn't really know it at the time, but it ended up shaping some of my trajectory going forward because in a really good way.

But when I went off to Exeter in 1979, that was a complicated time for boarding schools. I think kind of the 60s and 70s were just catching up to boarding schools. And I think the faculty were still adjusting to, you know, kind of changing society. And to be honest, things like drug use.

And I think my parents thought they were sending me off to private school where it would be a much safer environment than my public school, meaning like with various influences and things. It was a different. In the late 70s, early 80s, like any boarding school, had its own problems. And one of the differences was there were a lot of kids with a lot of money and access to things that weren't as good for them. and I saw a lot of stuff that kind of, you know, surprised me.

And there was not a lot of, at the time, not a lot of adult supervision or involvement, you know, in kids' lives. Faculty would kind of close their doors in the evening and go to, you know, whatever, go do their homework and go do their preparation for teaching and go to bed. And we were left in the dorm sometimes on our own for better or for worse. So that actually had made a big impression on me.

So when I got to Deerfield, I was 26 or 27, and they said, okay, you're in charge of the senior hallway of kids. And there wasn't a lot of training for me. It was like, well, see, in June, that's kind of how it was. Like, at the time, there wasn't a lot of, like, new faculty orientation, things like that.

So I was like, all right. And I thought to myself, okay, what did I see as a kid at Exeter that worried me? And I'm like, yeah, I saw a lot of stuff. So I ended up kind of keeping my door open at night, like till late.

Like I'd be up late. I was preparing. I had three preparations, I think. I think I had four preparations.

I had four different classes to prep. And I was new to teaching French at the high school level, and I was – so I had a lot of work to do. and I'd be up till like 11 30 12 at night to keep my door open because I just thought well I'm not their parents I'm not their counselor I'm not their but there needs to be an adult around because that's what was missing when I was in high school and I would go check with every kid every night I you know check them in obviously and things like that but I would um you know pause and have a conversation and how you doing how was your day and just engage with them and just be you know be an adult presence. And this one kid, he was a hockey player, a stud lacrosse player. I'm good, Mr.

Roddick. He never really wanted to engage a whole lot. And I was like, okay. But I went every night to check.

And all of a sudden, one night, like at 1130 at night, it was in late February, right before spring break, he showed up at my door and kind of collapsed on the couch in my study and just like broke down like very emotionally and he said look I'm in trouble I'm doing drugs I'm drinking too much like I'm kind of out of control I need help and we had we had a system in place so that if you asked for help it didn't have to be disciplinary they called it sanctuary and so it would be a health health center issue. And so I got him the health center. And he actually he went home for spring break, he was in a like a 28 day treatment program, and came back a little bit late for spring break, but primarily for the spring trimester, came back and was able to graduate and And, you know, I spent a lot of time with him that spring. I would drive him to AA meetings and things.

And, you know, we actually developed quite a relationship. And at one point I was driving him to a meeting, I think, and I would go to the meetings with him just because I felt like he needed the support. And I said to him, I said, hey, Paul, you know, you've been at Deerfield for four years. you've had coaches you were close to, you had teachers who knew you well. I was pretty new, like, why'd you show up at my door?

Like, why'd you turn to me? And he said, because I knew you'd be there. And I tell that story sometimes to young faculty coming to a place like Lawrenceville, who are going into the dorms to be, I said, you know, you're not their priest, you're not their counselor, you're not their parents, but don't underestimate how much you're doing for them just by being a reliable steady presence who's willing to listen you can make a big difference and so for me like that really made a big impression on me i'm still in touch with that kid he came i just saw him a couple months ago and had a cup of coffee with him He came by campus at Lawrenceville and just wanted to check in. And we talked a lot about that moment.

And I think it's, you know, a year or two after that, I think there was an opening in the Dean of Students office. I went to Deerfield thinking I'm going to be a teacher and a coach and live in a dorm. I'm just going to do the whole, they're called triple threat, you know, teacher, coach and dorm faculty. And I was loving it.

I had no plan to go into administration or be ahead of school or anything. And the dean of students came to me after a couple of years and said, hey, there's an assistant dean position in the dean's office. I know you're pretty good. I like the way you've been running your dorm.

Do you want to apply for the position? I'm like, oh, maybe. Yeah, I guess I will. I hadn't thought about it.

So I did. And I became the assistant associate dean of students. And I became the dean of students. and I it's not an easy job because you're you know you're not always the student's best friend you're kind of a sometimes it feels like you're the sheriff in town but I felt like it was important work and I felt like I was fair and you know you learn a lot about a kid when they're hitting a challenge or you know having a difficult moment and you know it's a balance of firm, being firm and holding kids accountable, but also having, you know, some compassion and understanding when they were going through a rough patch. So I felt I brought both to the table, but that's what started me at administration.

I can talk more about what led me to be ahead of school, but that's kind of, that was the start of, yeah, after that, I became the dean of academics at Deerfield, which is a different kind of challenge, but also something I love doing. And yeah, so that kind of headed me down the road of administration. Yeah, well, let's keep going down that route and talk about your move to U.S. When did that opportunity arise for you?

And he came in as the seventh headmaster of U.S. after following up Mr. Hawley, who led the school for almost two decades. So what were kind of your first impressions? How did that opportunity arise?

What was it like following up him, someone who'd been there for so long? So, during my years at Deerfield, I guess I just got kind of getting into administration. I did that for 12 years, both between being Dean of Students and then being Dean of Academics. At the very end, I became Assistant Head, but that was sort of before I was, like, a year before I left.

But I felt like I was a really good Lieutenant, or at least I took pride in being a good Lieutenant. Meaning if you serving the head of school as in a whether it as a dean I always felt like you know it my job to jump in front of an issue so it didn land on the desk of the head of school And, you know, sometimes you take one for the team. Sometimes you – and I felt that was useful. Like, you know, like when you plan a team and you take one for the team. like it felt when I sometimes I get you know I got a little tired of picking the buckshot out of my backside when you when you take one for the team but um but someone's got to do it and I and at some point I think I was part of a search committee um and there was a consultant who came in they're doing a head search at a local school and I for some reason I was I was involved in a conversation and he looks at me and he goes how long have you been doing the dean thing at Deerfield and I described a little bit of what I've been doing and he said all right well when gonna be looking for a headship but i said no that's not really my radar screen i'm not really and he said well it should be and i thought oh like should it like so they got me thinking you know and and again after 12 years of 10 12 years of doing that kind of leadership work i thought well maybe maybe maybe i should so i got into a couple of search years i didn't get the job um but i learned a lot and sort of how to you know talk about my leadership and and it got me thinking about what it would take to be ahead of school and then this consultant called me up who i had had a couple of um i think we had done a few um searches together and he said hey there's a job there's a school in cleveland you ought to go look at it's a boy school kid at 12. um it's great school and i said yeah well it sounds good but i didn't go to a boy school and i didn't i'm not from the midwest i'm really a boarding school guy they're not gonna they're not They're not going to want me.

I'm not going to really fit or check the boxes. And he said, well, I don't know if they're going to want you, but go check out the school. You're going to want the school. And I'm like, all right.

And I knew this guy. I trusted him. I was like, all right. And my wife said, well, I don't want to leave Deerfield.

I don't want to go to Cleveland. And I said, I know. I get it. I'm just going to go have a look.

I remember walking into the upper school and seeing Monkey Island and just kind of the whole vibe of the place. and then walking through the Shaker campus and meeting some of the teachers. And I thought, oh, like, this is pretty cool. Like, I do want this job. And I came home, and I think I said to somebody to my wife, like, well, the good news is it's on the water.

The bad news is it's Lake Erie. But I think it's still going to be, which is not fair, because I know they've cleaned up the lake a whole lot, and it's a fabulous area. but I did kind of in earnest really, you know, apply for the job. And I think I was a little bit of a dark horse. I mean, I think I was not necessarily the favorite candidate, but I guess they saw something in me and took a chance on someone who had never been ahead of school.

And I love my 10 years. I love getting involved. I can say more about getting involved in Cleveland, But I almost as much as my role at the school, I loved being a part of Cleveland and getting involved with some of the projects there. And I can tell you more about that.

But I just. Wow. Yeah. Great 10 years.

Really great 10 years. What were your first impression of U.S. sports specifically? And for people who don't know, U.S. is a two campus school, as you were talking about earlier, comes with a different set of challenge running K through 12. at that point, K-12, across two campuses. So how did you kind of handle running both campuses, and what were some of your first impressions of U.S. boys?

So, you know, I remember, like I mentioned, Monquilla, and I remember walking in and just seeing 9th grade boys being 9th grade boys and, like, climbing all over each other and kind of roughhousing and kind of hanging out and just being close. I thought, like, there was a, in a really healthy, positive way, there was just a closeness and a close-knit quality to the friendships and the way kids treated each other. I thought, oh, there's something to this place. And I remember a number of years later, in a way a student kind of framed it in a way that really brought it home to me.

We used to do these things at the upper school. I don't know if you still do them, but they call them town hall meetings and they would pick a topic and we have an assembly like in the afternoon after classes and all 400 boys go into the auditorium and they close the doors and one time we talked about kind of how kids pursue a spiritual life and you know follow kind of kind of religious pathways and different ways of thinking about that but one One time we did definitions of masculinity, and they teed it up with a really interesting video about different ways of what it means to be a young man. And sometimes that might be as straight, sometimes it might be gay, sometimes they're different, you know, pretty broad definition of what it means to be male. And then we would just open up to kind of comments and questions.

And it was, kids would speak out, it was a really interesting dynamic. kids and at one point the lacrosse captain stood up when you think about stereotypical like bro culture and lacrosse and you know it was this was so not like the vibe in us and this captain the team said one of the things i love about being in a boys school is the closeness of my friendships and literally sometimes being able to like touch my buddy he meant it like you know just to put my hand on his shoulder because i care a lot about him and i uh and everyone knew what he meant like it was it was sort of a certain kind of code environments like whoa dude you're close together or like you know like whoa but there's something about the friendships that just allow for a kind of closeness that you don't always get out in the in the in the wider world and it's it put into words what i was noticing when i looked at the kids on monkey island and how close they were and and how they're interacting and just being together. So that was a really interesting, you know, people sometimes look at like fraternities and kind of toxic masculinity as like the negative side of boys or male culture. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that does exist in certain contexts, but not at a place like US.

And I've seen, you know, when you're purposeful about it, how healthy and positive it can be. um and in terms of managing two campuses i kept an office on both campuses and i learned to the art of being seen and i would go back and forth all the time like you know sometimes it would just be like for my main office was at the upper school and i spent a lot of time up there but a lot of meetings at the shaker campus and i would always make a point of going there and you know not most people come to me but if i went i would kind of come and go through the dining hall. So like it was mealtime. I'd walk into the, and I would have one of the assistants down at the sacred campus open up my office and turn my light on every morning. So my office door was open with the light on.

So people didn't know if I was on campus or not. If I was coming to the, to a meeting, I would walk to the dining hall. So all the faculty and all the kids would see like Mr. Murray arriving and they wouldn't always see me leave, but they'd see office on or office, you know, door open, lights on.

Yeah, I think I saw him earlier today. He walked, yeah, he was here. So it gave the impression that I was there a whole lot more than I actually was. So it's kind of the art of maintaining an important presence on both campuses.

So, you know, I tried to be there on both campuses for meaningful amounts of time, but sometimes, you know, there's a way to kind of amplify that a little bit, which I, you know, had to work out. Well, Mr. Murray, one of the things that is really meaningful to us is that there's a house at US that's named after you in the Murray House. What was your first, you know, thoughts when you heard that there was going to be a house named after you?

And when you think about the boys that will be in the Murray House and have that name on their chest who might never meet you, but what do you want them to know about the person whose name that they're wearing? Oh, I appreciate the question. I, um, it made me very emotional. Like, you know, my throat kind of tightened up.

One, I heard that they were going to do that because I always, I think the house structure, the house system at U.S. is a really important part of your sense of belonging and it kind of breaks the school down into smaller cohorts and it also creates, you know, connections between kindergartners and first graders and seniors, you know, that kind of a sense of the younger kids look up the older kids and there's just something so uniting about houses. And I also remember thinking about the namesakes of the houses when I first got there and we're kind of legends. You know, McKinley and Hawley and just really important people in the history of the school. And so to be leaving and have my name be added to that you know, that kind of pantheon of names.

I thought, wow, I hope I'm worthy. It's interesting. Someone asked me a similar question at Lawrenceville recently, meaning when I first got to Lawrenceville, on the 13th head of school at Lawrenceville, my 12 predecessors' portraits were all up on the walls in this kind of large study at one end of my house. And when I first got there, I thought, wow, like they're kind of watching me, like their eyes would follow me when I'd walk around the room.

And I would hope that I was worthy of being in their company and being their successor. And I felt this very much the same way when I was at U.S. and having been through 10 very meaningful years at U.S. and with the help of all set of people, we were able to accomplish a number of important things. Similarly, at Lawrenceville, having led the school through COVID and a lot of, you know, really tough challenges, where I had to kind of earn my stripes. And I remembered both cases, you know, whether it's my name, Murray House at US, or looking up at the portraits of my predecessors at Lawrenceville, I feel like I've, you know, I'm at least I've at least proven myself somewhat worthy to be in their company and not just be the new guy who has yet to prove himself.

So I feel better about. Anyway, it's a hugely meaningful thing to have my name on a house. And I hope the boys understand that for me the most important thing is for them to you know live up to the ideals of the school and their sense of integrity and that the best way to uphold Murray House is be good young men Well your last year at university school was ironically my kindergarten year and after 11 years at Lawrenceville School and your 35 years working in independent schools, you finally just announced that this will be your next year will be your last and final year at Lawrenceville. As you pass on to people at Lawrenceville and as you passed on here to people like Mr.

Gallagher, how does it feel to see colleagues from your time now leading the schools that you once loved? Yeah, I remember when Mr. Gallagher was a classroom teacher and he applied to be the dean of faculty. And there were a number of other people who were very good candidates, but he hadn't been a department chair.

But I remember thinking in him, there's something, there's a strength and integrity in this young man. He deserves a shot. And I felt really good about that decision. And I felt even better when he earned his way into being the next head of school at U.S.

So it feels great. It feels great to see young people step up and take over and lead and probably in many ways outdo me. I think Mr. Gallagher is doing a fabulous job.

But And I feel really good about having supported him along the way and having worked with him over a number of years in meaningful ways. And I'm not quite ready yet to retire. I've got one more year here at Lawrenceville, and I'm still looking for maybe one more adventure, one more chapter. but it feels very satisfying to be in my 21st year as a head of school and to have worked at two places I've really loved, really loved, and where I've learned a lot over the years, learned a ton, and feel really good about it. Well, when you imagine university school 25 years from now, let's say you're 2050, what do you hope is still recognizable about this place, and maybe what are some things that you hope would change with the time?

It's a great question. I've been thinking in some ways about that kind of a question. And I've been thinking about kind of trying to talk to the Lawrenceville board about taking a 30-year view of schools, you know, looking beyond like a single strategic plan or looking beyond the single tenure of a head of school. And it's kind of the question you're asking.

And the way I framed it for them was, you know, what are some of the things that we do as a school that we value deeply that are kind of part of the fabric of the place and how we deliver them shouldn't change, you know, and that we want to be there in 25 and 30 years. And the second part of that is what are some of the things that we value deeply about the school, but how we deliver it might change. And the third one is, what are some things that probably should change? And so for the first question, I would say, you know, the line from the mission, you know, where every boy is known and loved, I think is very powerful.

And so at U.S., and I would say the similar, similar to Lawrenceville, but at U.S., the notion that teaching is a fundamentally in-person relational enterprise, relational activity, that, you know, that it is kind of what I was saying earlier. It's the close, meaningful, caring relationships between teachers and students. There's a lot of changes in technology. We're doing a Zoom call here.

It's pretty amazing what you can do these days. but great teaching needs to be in person with a person who cares about you and that you trust. That shouldn't change. There are some things that probably will change. You know, the rigor of a U.S. education, the rigor of a Lawrenceville education itself shouldn't change, but how we deliver on rigor may change with AI and the way, you know, that just the landscape of new tools, some of which, you know, might not enhance learning and you want to kind of keep at bay.

But there are some really interesting things emerging that I think will enhance learning from, you know, from AI and that kind of a thing. And, you know, so what how we think about rigor, how we think about, you know, the graphing calculator changed how we teach math. It used to be they had to memorize formula and it was kind of a, it was part of rigor of teaching math. And then the graphing calculator came out and even math teachers said, you now have the formulas at your fingertips.

We can spend more time deriving and doing math. So I think there are things like that with AI that will change how we think about rigor, but rigor will always be something super important to US education. So that's Yeah, that's how I've been thinking about that kind of a question lately. Well, Mr.

Murray We always end on the same question you spent your entire adult life throughout schools from Exeter as a student to Deerfield to France and a decade two decades teaching Lawrenceville and leading Lawrenceville in a university school and Raise five children and build things that will outlast you and even us So when you strip away all the buildings the titles the campaigns and you wake up tomorrow morning and choose to do this work again and again, what is your why? I can answer that question so many different ways. I tell stories. I'll tell a story to answer your questions.

So years ago when I was teaching at Deerfield and I was a dean and was doing that kind of work, and I was coaching and I was very close to one of my students who was my water pole captain. And I think he was a proctor in my dorm. And I had just gotten to know him really well over, over my time. And my senior year, sorry, his senior year, his mother called me.

It was right before, it was during, it was the last day of exams right for Thanksgiving break. And I literally, I think I had a towel around my waist. I was shaving. I think I had a three-year-old or two-year-old kid clinging to my ankle.

And my wife hands me the phone. And it was like 10 or 8 in the morning. I was about to run out and go teach. And she said, she identified herself.

And she said, it's Nancy. And Drake's father just collapsed. And I don't think he's going to make it. And I said, what?

Did I hear you right? And she said, yeah. and he had younger this young man had younger brothers and sisters and she said i i can't get up there to pick him up i gotta go to the hospital i gotta take care of the kids and i said well don't worry they lived about an hour and a half away i said don't worry i'll drive him home um when he gets out of this exam so i went and found him in his dorm after his exam and i said hey drake um your mom can't make it up here to pick up i'm going to drive you home and he never asked me He always thought about that after. He never asked me why. He just said, okay.

Jumped in the car. I drove him home. And by the time I got him home, we walked into his kitchen together. And his mom gave him the news.

His father, in fact, had passed away. They couldn't revive him. He'd had a heart attack. And they couldn't revive him.

And he was gone. And I'll never forget that moment. And I spent a lot of time with him over the course of that winter and spring. and at the time at that time at Deerfield, there's a really important couple weeks before graduation. They had kind of a spring parents weekend and it was a time when all the senior parents would come back to campus and it was that day and I was really busy.

I had tons of appointments, you know, as a dean, I had, you know, parents going to me on campus and everybody, whatever, for different reasons, wanted to see me. So I was driving, I forget, I was driving across campus and I happened to see him by the side of the road that kind of cut through Deerfield and I paused and rolled my window down and I said, I said, hey, Drake, and he looked a little lost and a little bewildered and I said, hey, like, how you doing? You okay? He kind of said, yeah, I'm all right.

And I thought to myself, oh my God, parents weekend, like, and his father. And so I said, hey, is your mom coming today? And he said, no, she can't make it. She's got to be with my younger brothers and sisters.

I thought, oh my gosh, you know, all these kids' parents are going to be around and he's going to be on his own. And he was a fly fisherman. We always just talk about fishing. I love to fish.

And the Deerfield River is a great trout stream. And we used to always say, you know, before I graduate, I'm going to take you fishing down by the Deerfield River and we've got to do that someday. We used to always talk about it and we had never done it. And I'm looking at him, I get choked up and I tell the story.

And I said, do you want to go fishing? It was a class day. Kids were getting ready to run off to class, and it was a full-on academic day. I said, do you want to go fishing?

And he goes, now? I go, yeah, right now. And he said, yeah, I'd love that. So I called up my assistant, and I said, Peggy, cancel all my appointments today.

I'm not coming into the office. And I said, Drake, pick you up at your dorm in five minutes and go get your fishing stuff. And so I did. And we went down to the river and spent the day fishing just so you wouldn't be alone.

And we're still in touch. And, you know, it's stories like that. That's why you do it. It's the kind of meaningful relationships you have with young people.

And yeah, I mean, there are lots of other reasons. I could go on and on, but that's one of them. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning. That's why I think this is important work.

And, you know, my job has changed as a head of school. I don't have those as many of those moments, but I still have them occasionally. but, you know, supporting a great school like U.S. and supporting the faculty and helping them with the resources to do their jobs and the same at Lawrenceville so that they can, you know, have those relationships and have those moments with kids. Yeah, that's what I do. Well, Mr.

Murray, it has been amazing having you on this show. Thank you so much for taking the time to share stories and insights and experiences with us. And to our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. and we'll see you next year for another episode of Late Start Show. Thank you, Mr.

Murray. Jack and Charlie, it's a pleasure talking to you. And yeah, great to see you and good luck.