February 25, 2003 GROUP DISCUSSION, Jessie-Lea Abbott, Moderator, "Making Transitions"

MS. ABBOTT: I'm going to share something that often embarrasses me that will probably embarrass others too. But when we do our admissions at Burke, we have decided, for reasons that I can't bear to go into, that it's important for the director of admissions to introduce me when I'm speaking to the applying families. Now, you will probably do that in your schools, but I am basically a shy person, and I don't like to be introduced. So she does this, and her final comment is to tell the parents that in addition to what I do professionally, I have raised four children and da, da, da, da, da, and she ends with that I was once a nationally ranked marathon runner, which is true. But it's very funny, because every time I hear her say that, I think I should come running into the room. And just now I was thinking I should have danced. We'll see how this session goes.

No. I'm not going to dance. I'm going to remind you first that on the table way to our right are the handouts that Joan and Bodie and everyone were talking about yesterday. Do take a look at them. They are good resources.

So what we're going to do today at this moment is modeled on what we began yesterday at 11:00, with a slightly different topic. As I have wandered around and talked with all of you, I have heard a very clear theme which has to do with how we work the transitions in our careers, how we build our careers from the beginning, bringing young people into this field, through the stages of headship, which is particularly interesting, I think, for people who have been at their schools for longer than five years, through knowing when and how to make plans for transitioning to other pastures, whether it's a different career or to retirement. Is that a real word? We've got one right there.

Now, coupled with that have been some comments about, again, the wealth of information that we have here among us in all of those areas, and so here's what I propose that we do for this morning. We begin by going back into small groups, with your job being to come up with at least three salient questions, either that you would ask of yourself or you would ask of another, that has to do with this business of transitions.

For example, this is my question: How soon am I going to begin planning what I will do after I decide I don't want to be a head of school anymore? It would be very interesting to me to hear from some of you who have been there how it worked for you. Other people have asked questions about how do they stay fresh?

Again, I'll use myself. I'm in my eighth year. The requirements of me at Burke are very, very different today than they were when I arrived eight years ago, and so how do I deal with that? I had to change all sorts of things. Am I interested, not interested? How do you keep yourself fresh?

So are you getting the message? I'm seeing it as a whole continuum, and what I want you to do is not answer the questions. We will answer them all together, so we will have a chance to hear the wealth of information that's in this room. But think what are the questions, what are the things that would serve us well to be asking ourselves or others? Okay? I have my watch. Put yourselves in groups of no fewer than four and no more than six, and we'll spend about five minutes or a little bit more generating the questions.

(A recess was taken.)

MS. ABBOTT: Now I really am going to stop you, but you will still be able to generate questions as you participate in the group discussion. I would love those of you who went to the far corners of the room to come closer, if you can bear it. And thank you.

You see Carol standing with the mike in her hand. Thank you, everyone. I'm so tempted to offer anyone who's not yet figured out that we're doing the discussion a chance to come up and dance. It's not too late.

What I didn't tell you is that I don't intend to be formal about sharing these questions. What I'm hoping is that you will raise hands, take the mike. Mary is going to have a big job to do getting all of our words transcribed, so be sure you speak to a mike. I invite any of you from any of your groups to get us started by telling us one of the questions that you came up with, and we'll see who wants to answer it.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: I think the only question we came up with actually was, When is next? When is next? And how do you sense that?

MS. ABBOTT: Great question. So who has an answer? When is next? I'm looking at Joan. Any observations? When is next?

MS. BARLOW: I think it's very difficult in some ways because "when" has to be a year and a half before you really are going to get out of there. So there's a difficulty there.

But the other thing is, I think you feel it. You certainly feel, "I have had it," and that by the year and a half following it, you know that that's what you have got. You know what I mean? Something goes on inside. I can see those of you looking at me who haven't had that feeling. You'll get it.

MS. ABBOTT: Or you know the feeling is sneaking up. Just out of curiosity, would you all raise your hands if you have had that feeling and have made the transition out of the headship? Raise your hands. Or are going to.

And then among you, I would be curious to know if any of you set a date in any, I'm going to say, mechanical way. You just decided that by such-and-such an age you were not going to be doing this job. Did any one of you do that? A good number of you.

I think that's interesting, that there's probably again that whole spectrum between just saying intellectually, "I just turned 60, I'm going to do this X more years," and reaching in your soul and knowing that you're done. You have done what you had to contribute. Reveta. Sorry.

MS. BOWERS: If you see a group sitting around you, it will not surprise any of you that there were lots of thoughts on this topic. But there were interesting observations in response to that question, which I think is the pivotal one, when is next. And people talked about the generativity, reaching out and down to help others along, and that so much of that is part of the headship, and so much of that is part of what we do all the time and throughout our careers that sometimes, when we reach that point when we're ready to leave, it's easier, because we have had that opportunity to nurture and we're not feeling as empty, as school heads. That there were stages and ages of readiness.

How do you know when it's too long? And there was a wonderful quote. When getting up and going to the fifth grade play just doesn't seem like it's going to be fun anymore.

There was a wonderful book that was recommended to all of us which I have also read, which is called Adaptation to Life by George Vaillant, which is a wonderful book about preparing oneself for stages and that sort of thing. And that we need to find ways to educate boards about the need for balance in our lives; that not necessarily do we always need retirement, but that sometimes we need refreshment.

MS. ABBOTT: Interesting point. Very interesting point.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: One question that we had was: How long should your last contract be? And should it be known to the community?

MS. ABBOTT: Any responses to that? Actually, Blair, you might have a response to that as well as your own.

MS. STAMBAUGH: This is not a public announcement, but I am going to retire when I'm 65, which is three years from now. And I chose it not because I have had it, but because I have other things that I want to do and I want to be in good health to do them. You know, they're everything from putting pictures in albums to just enjoying my grandchild or grandchildren who will be there then. Well, I have one on the way, so I can sort of speak that way.

And for me it's not that the fifth grade isn't more fun, but how many junior and senior proms do you want to go to? I'm the only 62-year-old who is still going to a junior-senior prom that I know of.

The other thing I think I would say is that I think it's important to go out strong, and I think you really want to go out not when you're feeling tired and limp, but when you really feel good and you're leaving your school in good shape.

So I do think you have to plan ahead, and 65 seems terribly traditional, but on the other hand, I think it's young enough to really feel like there's a lot of time ahead, that you can do some interesting travel and other things.

MS. LEE: Julia had a good question in connection with this to ask, and that is: What kind of a retirement do you want? Do you want one that is recreational? Do you want one that is really a new career? Do you want one where you become involved in community work? And then you ask that question along with the others that have been suggested.

MS. ABBOTT: As you're thinking about responding to that, would you also add the component of panic? What experience have you all had with dealing with that -- I will call it panic -- of thinking I have done this for so long, you know, can you imagine yourself asking those other questions?

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: I think our question was, how is TIAA-CREF doing? I always wanted to leave feeling sad rather than glad to go, and I think that's a good measuring stick. Not feeling frayed and still having some patience rather than feeling, gee, I can't wait to get out of here. I think is a good measuring stick of when to go.

I think it's nice in planning if you work out with your board to have a sabbatical after you go. That's a nice way to ease into the next chapter of your life.

Blair's comment about going to dances reminds me of a dance I went to recently. The kids are very good about asking me to dance. You go out and you look like a bird doing all this. But I was going out on the dance floor and the music changed to clutch music, and my adolescence came back to me, my sweaty palms came back to me, and everything, and the girl looked at me, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, "Why don't you sit this one out."

Time for me to go.

MS. ABBOTT: That's such a funny generational thing.

MR. GALBRAITH: I echo something Blair said, too. My wife and I made a plan to retire at age 62, and that was my 40th year, but we had it all worked out with the board and our endowment and a continuing agreement I have with the school to help us into this period of our lives before it was announced. So the announcement was after the fact that it was all set up and planned. And we tried to keep that quiet on the front end of it, because it takes some time.

And the other thing is luck about rhythm, because I happened to do it before TIAA-CREF became a huge issue, and I don't know that I could have had the kind of arrangement I got from the school later on.

Our question was something like the one Reveta had, and it said: How can we do more to make boards aware? So I guess we didn't phrase the question to them, except that we see a need to make people at the school aware that there are different support needs necessary for a female than a male.

And perhaps as an association -- I don't know -- we haven't been a bully pulpit, but clearly there are, and the huge impact it makes on a woman to know that you are modeling some kind of lifestyle to do it all or "I walk away from here, and I take care of family needs," and it's a different deal for women than it is for men. Because typically in the stereotypical thing, I don't have to do that. And I should do that, and what do I model, and what does a woman model? How can we make more people aware of those differences to make -- because that's an enabling thing for a woman to be head of school, if you can solve that.

MS. ABBOTT: I love that for obvious reasons, but also because it ties into a curiosity that I have about organizations like this and meetings like this, which is that we come together once a year and begin to think about whatever we're thinking about, and then we disappear. And I long sometimes to be able to come up with some sort of an action plan or some way that we can band together to work together outside the context of this meeting. And this is interesting. I love responses, "Is it different for men and women and how can we make boards more aware?"

MS. MASON: Priscilla's point of having to let your school know a year and a half in advance. Part of that is that I think one has to be willing to take the risk to do that without something else in hand. Somebody mentioned panic, and I think partly the panic of not working, not being useful, and as one person said, you really kind of have to be willing to divest yourself of your identity.

In Albany I am the Head of school, and the minute I'm not, I know there will be many, many doors closed. About some of them I'll be glad, all those rubber-chicken dinners. But it is one's identity, I guess -- for me, anyway -- for women it is so tied up with your title and all that that portends, and without that suddenly you're looking at the netherworld of yourself, as I read the other day in the New York Times, and that's kind of scary.

MS. ABBOTT: Any of you who made that transition -- could you speak to that?

MS. HALPERT: The transition I made, but I found that the aura, for better or for worse, followed after, and that wherever I went in the very small town where I happen to live which is called New York City, the Manhattan part of it, I couldn't go down the street without having people recognize me, rush over and do all that.

So I don't think you have to worry. Once you run a school that's meant a lot to a lot of people, you will be recognized and followed.

I would like to say one other thing. Having been retired now, thanks to Priscilla Winn Barlow -- eternal thanks -- for six years, almost six years, one of the things that those of you who are in schools and are not retiring should bear in mind is that you have a tremendous resource on which you can draw for trustees on your boards in the people who have run schools, retired from it, but know the whole story.

And my other thanks go to Bill Polk for putting me on the Groton board just the year before I was going to retire from Brearley. It's been the most satisfying thing, because it is power without responsibility to be a trustee of a school rather than having to run it.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: I think there's some connection. I think there's some connectiveness here. Our group has what I think is an interesting question, and I suppose you segue into what you want to do later on. And that is: What have been the most fulfilling and the least fulfilling aspects of this job that you have had with its multitasking and its multiple constituencies?

MR. ESTY: I think my statement is in response more to Caroline's statement just then. I had two headships that were each seven years. After one in New York, Brooklyn, I was then enticed to go to University High School, no break in between, and it was my last -- a year and a half ahead of time I did say to the board, "I'm going to do one more year."

I was 58, and I was very eager to do something else. I had decided I wanted to not be a school head for the rest of my life and I wanted to do something else. And in fact, I did get a position as head of a nonprofit out there, and this is my little tale to tell, but it is sometimes worth listening to. In four months I knew that I missed schools tremendously, everything about them. And we talked in this circle about my sense of usefulness. I had 14 people working for me and they were all silent in little offices, and I missed everything about schools.

And actually, it was at an NAIS conference where I had been asked to speak about transferring, what next after being a school head, and what are a transferrable skills, and I spoke to a fairly large group and somebody said, "Would you ever be a head again?" And I paused a little bit and I said, "Yes, very eager," and then the calls started coming in, and I ended up going to Dalton for a year as interim.

But anyway, that was age 58. It's my little story. But now I'm about to be 66, and I have to say that I do believe there's a difference in that time. One is, I recommitted to schools. But two is, I guess I'm feeling more tired and really ready to do more than I was in my late 50s.

Was that answering anything you asked, Caroline? Part of the reason I miss schools was that sense of importance. I mentioned it here. There's a male ego thing, that you want to be useful, you want to be fawned over, or whatever. Well, it's true. It's true. We're very important in this tiny world, and then suddenly, Albany or not -- maybe Manhattan is different -- we aren't in that world anymore.

MS. BOWERS: I want to get back to something that Bruce touched on because I think it's a critical juncture. And that is the advocacy role that I think we can play in organizations like this. I mean, I think we all need this break. We all need to get out of wherever we were and come here for fellowship and communion, so to speak, and to replenish our bodies and our spirits and our intellects.

But I think we have an obligation, you know, and I think unless we begin to think about making generationally the headship better for the people that we want to take on the work after we finish, we will make our institutions ready, but we will not have made the institution of headship and leadership ready for the next generation.

I think we have an obligation to talk to the people who are out there training our boards. I mean, I'm going back to face another contract. I'm in my 32nd year in my school. And you can call me charming or stupid, but I have never negotiated a contract. They have always come and said, "This is what we'd like to do," and they have always been very generous and very kind and very respectful and taken care of what I thought were my needs.

And now I'm at the point of thinking about retirement, and I realize that I'm sitting in a room full of very wonderful 35-, 38-, 42-year-olds, and I'm getting ready to go home and cook for 150 people at a faculty party and these men, many of whom are on my board, are married to women who have never cooked for five, and they have no clue about what might make my life easier going home to cook for 150 people and I realize, I don't want to tell them. That's not the education I want to take on on behalf of myself.

And I think organizations like this could help prepare, could help talk to NAIS and Leadership through Partnership. They should not just be parading this parade of very high-priced consultants in front of our faces, but that some white paper is coming out -- excuse the pun -- or some opinions coming out, organizations in meetings like this, about advocacy positions, about next steps, about clear messages about what heads need in order to gracefully and with dignity leave schools a better place than they found them when they came. It could be a wonderful additional mission for all of us to undertake.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: You do it.

MS. BOWERS: Oh, sure.

MS. ABBOTT: If anyone is interested in working with Reveta -- and I would work with this -- just to think it through to another level.

You said something that I think is magic, which is -- you didn't say this, but I'm going to say it -- identifying the existing organizations that are doing some of this that could do better. The NAIS Leadership through Partnership is a great program, and it would be a wonderful avenue for getting some of this stuff in. So anyone who's interested, come up here at the end of this.

MR. GALBRAITH: Because we will do it in black-and-white.

MS. BOWERS: Thank you.

MR. GALBRAITH: I'd like to introduce Brad Lyman. Brad just whispered something in my ear. Brad is Head-elect of Kentucky Country Day.

MR. LYMAN: This is a bit frightening. We are talking about transitions, and I'm transitioning into the job. I was a little taken aback by the number of people who are really thinking consciously about getting out. I have got transition issues of my own, and they don't revolve around retirement, but I do have a question for you. People ask me all the time, "How are you handling the transition? How are your children handling it?" And the real question ought to be -- and I can say this because she's not here -- how is my wife handling this, a 20-year teacher who suddenly now is not going to teach. So she's setting aside part of her identity, part of her life, for the greater good.

What message does that send to my three daughters about the role of the wife as it changed? In this day and age is it possible for her to have her own identity, whether it be at my school or elsewhere? Because I'm more worried about her than the three kids.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: Why can't she teach?

MR. LYMAN: She could teach. And that's just it. She could. But she's also very worried. She's torn, herself, between her strong maternal instincts to make sure our children have a smooth transition and her own needs. And so I'm at a loss as to exactly what to tell her, except to give a hug and say, "We're going to get through this."

MRS. ESTY: I just want to tell you, as a spouse and having gone through a lot of what your wife is going through, that when Peter went to head his first school in Brooklyn, New York, first of all, I had not worked for 12 years, starting with the birth of the first child, but had gone back to work prior to this move to New York.

But I took a year, the first year that he was the head. I wanted to figure out what my obligations were, starting from the fact that there was a moment during the search process when I was interviewed and I asked the question, "What are your expectations of me?" And I was told right off the bat that there were none, which is a myth, but I thought I would still take a year and figure out what to do.

And the transition of our children. One of the three children had come down and was entering Peter's school. So after that year, or in the middle of the year, it became very necessary for a lot of reasons, including trying to help earn some college tuitions, that I would go back to work, and I did. I ended up doing admissions and college counseling in another school in Manhattan, and then upward and onward to other things from there.

So it's a good thing, I think, for your wife to take a little time and see what the situation is, get to know the school, and then hopefully find whatever is going to be wonderful and challenging and interesting to her that could fit into the rest of your life.

MR. LYMAN: Part of it is selfish because Bruce has done a wonderful job of mentoring, and I know how lonely the job can be, and I need someone there for me, but what about her?

MS. ABBOTT: I'd like to tag that on to what Reveta was saying. Clearly I'm speaking from a personal point of view, but I married a man who was innocent enough to marry a sitting head of school three years ago. You notice he's not here. He's not here because he has his own job. But I'm listening to that with a gender thing ringing in my head, too, because it would not have occurred to my school that he would quit his job. It actually occurred to a lot of people that once I got married, I might quit my job, which I frankly found very dismaying.

But I think it fits into what we need to do to help educate our boards and our communities about, what does this really mean, and I think that the paradigm is changing. I have noticed in my own interviewing that -- well, actually when I was interviewing for Burke, I was divorced at the time, but even before that, my husband was not interviewed when I was interviewed for the job that I had had at St. Luke's before I went out to California.

So anyway, briefly, I think the paradigm is changing, and I think it's up to us to be much more vocal and clear and assertive about helping our boards and our communities change.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: When I first came to a NAPSG meeting about 25 years ago -- I am a spouse, I should say, and I do work as an administrator in my husband's school. But when I first came to one of these meetings, I went to a spouse meeting and discovered that several of the magnificent women there considered it rather unkind to one's school to actually charge for the cookies that you were providing to all the receptions that you were giving.

But things have changed a lot since then and I found within ten years things have turned around completely. I totally agree it's a myth that there is no job for the spouse. And the spouse should be reimbursed for whatever she or indeed he is doing as a spouse for the school. And that's something that you should negotiate with the board, and you should certainly establish that she does have a role, whether she likes it or not, and that she should be reimbursed for it.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: I'd like to follow up on what Liz said. I think this is another reason to always have an educator on the board and someone who takes the pastoral concerns for the head and the head's family into account and talk trustee to trustee. But I think you should talk to the board about it.

My wife has always gotten benefits and a salary from the school with no job description, and she's always had a professional life outside the school. They recognize that just living in the house we do, there are certain responsibilities. And I think if you have another educator on the board or someone who takes the pastoral concerns, they can go trustee to trustee and say, "Here's an issue we as a school have to deal with. It's consistent with our mission, and if we don't do it for this family and our faculty, then we can't be the kind of school we want to be."

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: I have a small suggestion, and it might not be relevant to you and your family, but one thing I can imagine telling your children is that over the course of a relationship and a marriage, partners can take turns following each other and letting the other person take the lead.

MS. ABBOTT: I like that.

MS. SANDS: I actually have a different story. I remarried when I was, I guess, just 40, and I inherited two stepchildren and my husband inherited my three children. We moved into his house, which had belonged to his grandmother. He had purchased it from her years ago. He had a small company and I was working as an assistant head.

When I applied for the Springside job and was offered the job as head, we sold his family's home to move to Chestnut Hill to be near my school. Parenthetically, I kept my former husband's name because it was the name of my children, and so he not only moved, but was called Mr. Watson at Springside, and in fact, loved the life so much and was so supportive that he sold his company and went to work first at a very small school and then a larger Catholic school, and now he works for Blair Stambaugh as her director of finance.

I then went back to my maiden name, Sands, and he's now call Mr. Sands. So I am the primary breadwinner, and he is the person who comes to all of my school events in support of the girls, and will sometimes cook the senior dinner, or do whatever is needed. He now feels as though working in a girls' school and then being married to me, he is inundated and feels very avant garde and up on all the conversation.

But we have had to really redefine our roles and, in fact, our lives, and it's been very successful.

MR. GALBRAITH: Evy, I was really interested in what you said about staying in New York. Do you remember counseling parents who have had a child transferred to your school wondering if the new environment will totally change the way that child is? Remember the lady saying, "She's really shy and how will this new school change her?"

I'd like to suggest that this is so very individual for each person here, you're going to do it differently. Whatever fits you well will be the right way to go.

Karen and I have moved to a place where nobody knows who we are and everybody is new and about our age, and nobody cares how important you were somewhere else. We are starting an entirely new life and we like that. That for us is just great. But that might be awful for somebody else. You have to do that yourself and decide what you want to be when you grow up.

MS. ABBOTT: You just reminded me of a story that I love. We have very good friends in California. The wife of this couple retired first, and then the husband decided that he was going to retire. He was a vice chancellor in the state university system and had held positions with a lot of responsibility for many years. None of us could figure out what he was going to do when he didn't have a job.

Well, what he has done is completely take over the kitchen. He runs the kitchen and the cooking and all the food concerns the way he used to run his schools, and she loves it. She doesn't have to lift a finger. They eat like kings and queens and he's got this wonderful manageable territory in which he can be completely dominant.

MR. GALBRAITH: I just met somebody who just made his wife really angry because he alphabetized her kitchen. He put all the asparagus and the aspic in under A. So she's banned him from the kitchen. All depends on who it is.

MS. ABBOTT: You don't have a very forgiving spouse, if you're going to fall apart when you're going to do that.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: To just comment on what you were saying, Jessie-Lea and Reveta, in terms of whether there is something that can be done to help this process along, when I first went on the board of NAIS in 1968, we were talking about the same kinds of issues, and in those days it was primarily how are you going to get more women to be heads of schools. That was where it was starting.

But I'm on several boards now, and so the shoe is on the other foot, but I go to board meetings, and I listen to people on boards, not of schools, but of nonprofit organizations and foundations, and they don't have a clue. We've just hired an executive director, for example, for the Women's Fund. Some of the people on there didn't have a clue in terms of what should we really be considering as we're trying to attract somebody to this job.

I think that all of us have been heads of schools, and I have been the head of three. It all goes back to boards and how you educate them on whatever the issue is. And I think if you have an issue here in terms of how they treat a head who is approaching a desirable retirement, that's one thing.

I have also been in a situation where you didn't have a choice; you were gone. But I think that in the long run, it still goes back to boards of trustees. And I think Bill is so lucky to have somebody like Evy on his board. And I was, too, in a number of instances where I had educators on my board. But somehow they have got to know that they need to not just be thinking about the day-to-day operation of the school and whether this organization can do something similar to what you have done for the leadership for young women.

MS. ABBOTT: Just out of curiosity, how many of you are now consulting doing head searches, specifically head searches? Not many here. But it occurred to me that's an avenue that boards are probably very open to listening during a head search in a way that they're not with a sitting head.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: Could I say something about this? I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I always felt that I was paying a lot more to NAIS than I was ever getting back as a school. I think all of you ought to ask NAIS to work on this whole issue of how boards are trained.

One of the things I have seen, in wandering around from one school to another, is what a difference it makes in a school that has a good board, and the peace of mind of the head of the school in the way the faculty is recognized and taken care of by people who understand what their obligation as a trustee is, as opposed to the school where the trustees are in and out of every little darned thing that goes on in the school, giving everybody a headache, nothing is accomplished.

In this question of retirement issues, boards have a lot of know-how and can be extremely useful. If NAIS would try to put something together that can be distributed to people who were thinking about retirement -- Bill Polk said something about TIAA. I think one of the things that everybody ought to say to themselves is, "Have I prepared myself financially? Where am I going to live? Can I afford it?"

I mean, they sound like dumb questions, but they take a long time to sort out, and three years ahead is not too much time. We all need to be told that, or at least I needed to be told that. It's that kind of thing where I think a major national organization can provide information in a way that doesn't make any of you sound nervous or uncertain or insecure or anything else. It's just part of the information that floats around and that's a good place to have it come from.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: I'm very lucky. I have Joan on my board a little while longer. And it's been very important, as Bill said, and we have been talking about having a board that really understands the needs of the head.

But as Reveta was talking about going into the contract and not having needed to negotiate perhaps because the board is generous, I think that as a woman head, although I'm really the breadwinner -- because I have a husband and administrator that don't get paid -- but I was uncomfortable, very uncomfortable, thinking that I would negotiate a contract. And I never did it, you know. I was just always trying to serve.

So I'm thinking actually about, again, the need to push NAIS, to make that Leadership through Partnership not just a weekend thing. It takes so long to transition into this new place as a head, and I'm thinking of the women heads that we want to encourage.

I forget who mentioned yesterday having a coach and how important that was. I use Joan as a coach periodically, but I still have the expectation I'm supposed to more or less know what to do. And where my own needs are concerned, and where women have to indeed balance and model, as you were saying, Bruce, lives that are ethically responsible to their own families, instead of pretending to be superwomen.

You know, I wake up at four and I still do that, but I'm starting to feel I can't do that anymore -- forever and ever, anyway -- and why should I be doing that and be collapsing on the couch when I sit with my husband at 10:00 at night and just fall asleep, having given all of my emotional energy elsewhere?

So I think look at the longer-term coaching, whether it's from how you're handling these organizations that have strong traditions that you want to honor and how you come into this culture with your style of leadership. But also how do you truly look at the family structure and make sure that we're integrating the wife and taking care of the children?

That's something that I think would be very important for us to look at more in depth. I think we could push NAIS to do more, but I think there are some things that we might be able to develop, as heads, with some experience and support each other.

We were talking about the need for coaching and actually saying, "Oh, gosh, our boards would never agree to the Center for Creative Leadership, such an excruciatingly costly, expensive" -- and we talked about, how do we afford that. So the ideas we have for writing grants, making sure that that coaching happens on a broader, more systematic level.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: Last year was my 13th year at my other school, and I had done the process of stating that I was going to be leaving a year ahead, and so forth. And so I left the school at the age of 62, not thinking nor stating that I was retiring, because I didn't think I was, though it was interesting that the whole community thought I was and treated me as such.

What I wanted to do was go into a job outside of education and I found that almost impossible because people were looking for up-and-coming rather than down-and-going.

So I continued in education quite willingly and happily as an interim head, applied for the job, didn't get it, and again am looking for a job. And I still don't think I am retired. And I think that perhaps important for us to hear how we've used the word "retire" and even from people who continued in education after their last job as head. It's really not a retiring mode, but the difficulty is that people around us think that it is a retiring mode, and it's just extremely difficult to keep moving in a trajectory that hasn't reached its apex and is starting to move down and to have that level of reality that one starts to look at in terms of consulting work that allows us to have a level of power, respect, dignity, and worth that may work for us. But it's hard to adjust to those around us.

People assume that Mark Twain was a humorist, and he had a hard time getting out of that mode. It's the same kind of situation, to have one pegged as an educator and to have one pegged as an old educator. So it's not being retiring. It's just plain being tiring.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: I think we run the risk here of treating the transition to the next life as a ghoulish topic, and I don't want to extend that. But I'm curious. As an ancillary technical question, what's your collective wisdom, assuming energy and vitality and all, on how late we can remain viable candidates for a so-called permanent headship? If I did the arithmetic, Peter, you entered your sixth decade when you last started a headship.

MR. ESTY: But I told them three to five years would be it, and it's five.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: But they like you. Is that time lengthening or is it just us?

MS. ABBOTT: I think that's a fascinating question, because it not only has to do with us in our career plans, but also schools' expectations for long-term headship. You know, if you're talking to a school who expects heads to stay for 12, 15 years and you're 60, probably you're in a very different situation. Any responses from all of your experiences?

MS. LANE: Maybe I can speak to my former life of 13 years as a head search consultant. I have had the expectation that the head's tenure at time of appointment was really very much tied to the school, and sometimes if a school had had a very long-term head, there was the expectation that the next head would also be very long-term.

But it can work the other way, that if there was a very long-term head, well, thank you, very much, but now we're looking for someone for, you know, a three-to-five-year term, almost a long-term interim head.

So I think schools' expectations are different but very much reflective of the tenure of the head who is leaving.

MS. ABBOTT: One more comment. Two more.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: It just occurs to me that in learning about all the new heads of school coming on board, I'm certainly seeing a pattern of very young people coming into the profession in their 30s. In fact, some of the youngest heads of school that I remember being named to positions in my 13 years. And I think this very much weaves into the topic of how critically important it is that we find ways to coach, mentor, either individually, as in my case, a retiring head, or as an organization like NAPSG, mentor those younger heads coming into the position whose boards most likely, Carol, do have an expectation of a long tenure. And if they're going to have, they're going to be the next generation that they'll coach, they're going to need thoughtful boards like Bill's, composed of Evy Halpert, who will think of not just the transition into the job and where those heads are in their lives, relationships, and so on, at that point in time, but help them structure in their own thought a kind of trajectory of professional development that will serve that individual and serve the school well for the long-term.

I think there is a lot of work to be done with boards who now seem to be selecting for youth and energy and long-term expectation and long-term headship, but I doubt very much are necessarily thinking about all the components it will take to make that work.

I want to thank you, as an editorial comment. Sort of threefold. When we have talked about how to make a career seminar for women more effective, one of the things we have mentioned from time to time is the advisability of having the mentoring pairs continue formally over a longer period of time. And the interesting thing to me about that is that the participants in the career seminar get to choose their mentor because we don't begin to do it for X number of days.

And I'm wondering, Carol, this would be a question for you or Bodie to remember, whether this organization could think about offering mentors to first or new heads who are also members of this organization, and set it up later on in the program so that they would have had a chance to get to know a few people. I think the choice is important.

MS. LANE: If they're willing to be mentors.

MS. ABBOTT: We can find out who's willing and find out if there's any interest. The Bay Area Teachers' Collaborative that Bodie spoke about yesterday actually put in a fellowship program, which was one of our major thrusts at making it different from what NAIS and all the other organizations offer. And it has been very powerful. It's not mentoring, but it's the option for teachers who do the summer work to then be in study groups that continue the conversations through the year. I think that thread is something we need to be paying more attention to in all of our work.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: I'm not much older than I look. I'm not transitioning out of my job quite yet. But I have an observation, and I don't know of what value it will be.

I have been a head for five years. In fact, when I talked to the search consultant who was leading the search at the school I'm at, we had a nice talk and then I said, "Well, you know, I need to tell you, I'm pretty young for this kind of a job."

And he said, "Well, how old are you?"

And I was 34 at the time, and I told him, and he said, "Well, I think they're looking for somebody about twice your age."

But they got me. I had the good fortune to grow up as the son of a headmaster. And I watched my parents lead a school for 20-some years, two different schools, and I watched their roles relative to each other and relative to the school change rather dramatically.

It started out with my mom preparing all of the food for the many functions that were at our house, and then it ended up with my mom preparing none of the food for the many functions that were held at our house. And that was all because I listened while my mom chewed out my dad for 25 years about what she should be allowed to do and what she shouldn't.

And it occurs to me -- and I'm quite confident, although Dad never told me -- that he lobbied heavily with the board for some change. It occurs to me here we are talking about transitions and the things that we would like our board to know. There are many transitions that happen within the headship. It's not simply a transition out of it.

And an observation just actually comes from watching my parents and from being married. We would all love our spouse or our partner to know what it is we need before we tell them, and oftentimes we don't want to tell them, and we expect them to figure it out, and we will behave in a manner that might contribute to their figuring it out.

I tend to be fairly practical. I would just as soon my wife tell me what it is that's bothering her and what I can do, and she will always say, "Well, I'm not sure and I don't know."

But I think with a board, we have all the opportunity and the responsibility to let them know our needs through our transitions. And being a head of a boarding school, I have got to say -- no disrespect to NAIS -- NAIS gives us very little that is of value other than being in the association. So I'm not sure that any program at NAIS is going to change what it's like for me at my school and the way I interact with my board, but I can certainly contribute to that.

And I do have educators on my board, and my board has always been receptive if I say, "Look, this is what I need now."

And so while I think it's important and I think that our governing body should address the issue, I think we also have to recognize that we're running our own little fiefdoms and the only way for our boards to understand completely what the head needs is for us to tell them.

MS. ABBOTT: Thank you. I'm going to ask one question out of curiosity for all of you. Do any of your states have annual head and trustee conferences? In California the state organization does that. If your states don't, I would say, go back and talk to them about that. The California annual conference is sometimes wonderful and sometimes pretty much of a waste of time, but the fact that it is every single year allows trustees to revisit the terrain, and I find that it's very helpful for me as a head, it's a very helpful board training mechanism, because I'm not the one that's doing it.

Thank you all very much. You are a loyal group. And this is wonderful.