Thursday, May 16, 2002
Richard Eldridge moving from Friends on 15th to Locust Valley
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
XWhen Richard Eldridge replaced the dynamic and ebullient Joyce McCray as the Principal of Friends Seminary on East 16th Street in 1989, we the PTA go-getters were struck by his modest and low-key approach to the New York school scene, with its demanding and vocal parents and kids. Little did we know that under that modest exterior we had a Clark Kent, capable of some pretty miraculous transformations. He is an activist and problem-solver, as I know from years of good and pleasant personal experiences.
Rich claims that he has essentially continued with the reforms that Joyce initiated 25 years ago, when she took on a placid school with diminishing enrollments and permissive attitudes, turned it around and imbued it with new vitality. If so, he really took it to a new level. Consider the growth of enrollments, to 640, with the average classroom size of 16 (and a great staff ratio, of 7 to 1). There has been growth in programs and curriculum, with the academic quality upgrades due to improvement of quality and stability in both students and faculty.
Friends has established a relationship with NYU, whereby students take advanced and reverse AP courses (college work for high school credit) in math, psychology, science, Italian and other languages and subjects. The computer network and computer study program is a model for the private school environment. The Friends’ Study Abroad year takes high school students to Italy (St. Stephen’s School in Rome ), France and some more exotic countries -Spain, Mexico and China come to mind - at affordable rates. Ties with other Quaker schools have been built. The Friends After Three program and the Summer Friends program have grown and the latter has become available also for neighborhood kids. A dimension of Quaker spirit and Quaker life has been added to the school.
This is particularly true in the are a of diversity. Friends has a diversity ratio that has grown from 17 percent in the days when we were parents to 25 and will be 27 percent next year. The increased emphasis on both ethnic and economic diversity is handled by active staff and parent committees, and a full time Director of Multicultural Affairs. This has been Richard Eldridge’s area of fiercest commitment, and he cast a broad net to expand it, still not quite to the satisfaction of this practicing Quaker.
Richard Leete Eldridge was born in New Haven, CT. His father was a high school English teacher who advanced to the presidency of Bennett College, a junior college near Poughkeepsie, no longer in operation. After public and private schooling in Maine Rich attended Oberlin College (B.A. in English) and Cornell University (M. Ed. in English), culminating with a Ph.D. in American Literature from University of Maryland in 1977. Before the doctorate he taught English and literature in Lexington, MA, and Tokyo and Seisen, Japan. Subsequently he became Assistant Dean at the Community College of Baltimore, then Principal of Buckingham Friends School in Lahaska, PA for eight years, before coming to New York.. Rich feels that 13 years, equivalent to a child’s education cycle, is enough for a career in one school, and is ready for new challenges. He will be the interim Head at Friends Academy in Locust Valley, N. Y., 40 minutes driving distance away, while continuing to reside with his wife Rosaria Golden and two step-children in Stuyvesant Town. A curious item for the Guinness Book of Records: his son David is about to be appointed the interim Principal of another Friends school (Rich is the parent of a son and daughter and the grandfather of three)..
Dr. Eldridge’s community involvements go way back and include memberships in the Maryland State Humanities Council (vice-chair), Bucks Alliance for Nuclear Disarmament, Bucks County Arts Council, trusteeships and directorships in Youth Services Opportunities Council (vice-chair), the Black Rock Forest Consortium, Friends Journal, and offices in Friends Meetings, currently in the Doylestown organization. He has been involved in Stuyvesant Park activities, with Dr. Thomas Pike, occasionally sharing his space at St. George’s Church. Rich’s professional affiliations have included, at various times, Friends Council on Education, Friends Academy, Country Day Headmasters Association and Early Steps.
Rich is the recipient of the Klingenstein Fellowship Columbia University Teachers College, 1997, and has articles and poems are published in both small and large journals. He wrote the libretto for "Sweet River," an opera presented in Baltimore in `1976, and seven original musicals performed during his seven years at Buckingham Friends, with two of them repeated at Friends Seminary. Rich wrote a study of one of the Harlem Renaissance’s major figures: "Jean Toomer’s Cane: The Search For American Roots," as his 1977 dissertation. Subsequently he developed a friendship with the widow of the Quaker poet-philosopher (1894-1967), while Toomer’s daughter attended school at Buckingham. He co authored another biography: "The Lives of Jean Toomer" published in 1987, and also one of the widow, Marjorie Content, an important avant-garde woman photographer, for a book of her works edited by Jill Quasha (1994).
Rich’s successor at Friends Seminary is Robert "Bo" Lauder, until now the principal of Upper School of Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C., where a certain President’s daughter attended classes. We wish him luck and less exciting days in NYC, and the best to our veteran, Dr. Eldridge (in this Friends’ first-name environment one should remember and acknowledge a person’s academic accomplishments once in a while) in his new endeavor. Come back to Stuyvesant Park, sometimes, we will stack the books for the May Friends Fair, as we have done together for the past 13 years.
The Friends Seminary Community will bid farewell to Richard Eldridge on May 31 at 6 PM in the Meetinghouse, with a program celebrating his 13 years of service. You can give a gift to the Lifetime Learners Fund established in his name by sending a check to Friends Seminary 222 East 16th Street, NY 10003.
Wally Dobelis thanks co-conspirators Vicki Ingrassia, Director of External Affairs, and Harriet Burnett, Director of Admissions
XWhen Richard Eldridge replaced the dynamic and ebullient Joyce McCray as the Principal of Friends Seminary on East 16th Street in 1989, we the PTA go-getters were struck by his modest and low-key approach to the New York school scene, with its demanding and vocal parents and kids. Little did we know that under that modest exterior we had a Clark Kent, capable of some pretty miraculous transformations. He is an activist and problem-solver, as I know from years of good and pleasant personal experiences.
Rich claims that he has essentially continued with the reforms that Joyce initiated 25 years ago, when she took on a placid school with diminishing enrollments and permissive attitudes, turned it around and imbued it with new vitality. If so, he really took it to a new level. Consider the growth of enrollments, to 640, with the average classroom size of 16 (and a great staff ratio, of 7 to 1). There has been growth in programs and curriculum, with the academic quality upgrades due to improvement of quality and stability in both students and faculty.
Friends has established a relationship with NYU, whereby students take advanced and reverse AP courses (college work for high school credit) in math, psychology, science, Italian and other languages and subjects. The computer network and computer study program is a model for the private school environment. The Friends’ Study Abroad year takes high school students to Italy (St. Stephen’s School in Rome ), France and some more exotic countries -Spain, Mexico and China come to mind - at affordable rates. Ties with other Quaker schools have been built. The Friends After Three program and the Summer Friends program have grown and the latter has become available also for neighborhood kids. A dimension of Quaker spirit and Quaker life has been added to the school.
This is particularly true in the are a of diversity. Friends has a diversity ratio that has grown from 17 percent in the days when we were parents to 25 and will be 27 percent next year. The increased emphasis on both ethnic and economic diversity is handled by active staff and parent committees, and a full time Director of Multicultural Affairs. This has been Richard Eldridge’s area of fiercest commitment, and he cast a broad net to expand it, still not quite to the satisfaction of this practicing Quaker.
Richard Leete Eldridge was born in New Haven, CT. His father was a high school English teacher who advanced to the presidency of Bennett College, a junior college near Poughkeepsie, no longer in operation. After public and private schooling in Maine Rich attended Oberlin College (B.A. in English) and Cornell University (M. Ed. in English), culminating with a Ph.D. in American Literature from University of Maryland in 1977. Before the doctorate he taught English and literature in Lexington, MA, and Tokyo and Seisen, Japan. Subsequently he became Assistant Dean at the Community College of Baltimore, then Principal of Buckingham Friends School in Lahaska, PA for eight years, before coming to New York.. Rich feels that 13 years, equivalent to a child’s education cycle, is enough for a career in one school, and is ready for new challenges. He will be the interim Head at Friends Academy in Locust Valley, N. Y., 40 minutes driving distance away, while continuing to reside with his wife Rosaria Golden and two step-children in Stuyvesant Town. A curious item for the Guinness Book of Records: his son David is about to be appointed the interim Principal of another Friends school (Rich is the parent of a son and daughter and the grandfather of three)..
Dr. Eldridge’s community involvements go way back and include memberships in the Maryland State Humanities Council (vice-chair), Bucks Alliance for Nuclear Disarmament, Bucks County Arts Council, trusteeships and directorships in Youth Services Opportunities Council (vice-chair), the Black Rock Forest Consortium, Friends Journal, and offices in Friends Meetings, currently in the Doylestown organization. He has been involved in Stuyvesant Park activities, with Dr. Thomas Pike, occasionally sharing his space at St. George’s Church. Rich’s professional affiliations have included, at various times, Friends Council on Education, Friends Academy, Country Day Headmasters Association and Early Steps.
Rich is the recipient of the Klingenstein Fellowship Columbia University Teachers College, 1997, and has articles and poems are published in both small and large journals. He wrote the libretto for "Sweet River," an opera presented in Baltimore in `1976, and seven original musicals performed during his seven years at Buckingham Friends, with two of them repeated at Friends Seminary. Rich wrote a study of one of the Harlem Renaissance’s major figures: "Jean Toomer’s Cane: The Search For American Roots," as his 1977 dissertation. Subsequently he developed a friendship with the widow of the Quaker poet-philosopher (1894-1967), while Toomer’s daughter attended school at Buckingham. He co authored another biography: "The Lives of Jean Toomer" published in 1987, and also one of the widow, Marjorie Content, an important avant-garde woman photographer, for a book of her works edited by Jill Quasha (1994).
Rich’s successor at Friends Seminary is Robert "Bo" Lauder, until now the principal of Upper School of Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C., where a certain President’s daughter attended classes. We wish him luck and less exciting days in NYC, and the best to our veteran, Dr. Eldridge (in this Friends’ first-name environment one should remember and acknowledge a person’s academic accomplishments once in a while) in his new endeavor. Come back to Stuyvesant Park, sometimes, we will stack the books for the May Friends Fair, as we have done together for the past 13 years.
The Friends Seminary Community will bid farewell to Richard Eldridge on May 31 at 6 PM in the Meetinghouse, with a program celebrating his 13 years of service. You can give a gift to the Lifetime Learners Fund established in his name by sending a check to Friends Seminary 222 East 16th Street, NY 10003.
Wally Dobelis thanks co-conspirators Vicki Ingrassia, Director of External Affairs, and Harriet Burnett, Director of Admissions
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 2:37 PM 
