FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: BRANDON WILSON

Brandon Wilson Trinity-Pawling Faculty

“Moving Trinity-Pawling to a new academic schedule was a big job,” begins Brandon Wilson. Over the course of the 2017-2018 School year, a dedicated committee of faculty and staff, appointed by Bill Taylor, worked to strike a balance between tradition and innovation, aiming to create a new academic schedule that would reduce student stress and create time for co-curricular initiatives without taking time away from class meetings, athletic pursuits, or student organizations. “Rather than starting from a blank slate, it was important for us to craft something that alumni would recognize as a logical progression of the schedule they remembered, meeting the needs of the present while keeping traditions of the School alive,” says Wilson.

To that end, each standard day incorporates a morning Chapel service or all-school meeting, as well as a family-style lunch for the whole community. “The flexibility that this creates during evening cafeteria-style meals, which can be taken any time from 5:00-7:00 PM, has befitted both faculty and students. Students now experience a larger unscheduled block of time from the end of their athletic practices until 7:50 PM,” explains Wilson.

Moving Saturday morning classes into the Monday-through-Friday schedule creates more time to pursue new and existing initiatives on Saturday mornings alongside the traditional curriculum. Wilson embraced the opportunity to take the lead in developing a day of learning like no other. “Each Saturday in the fall brought something new—a renewed focus on study-skills for underclassmen, the Senior Independent Projects for the 12th grade, and health and wellness for all students, among other activities,” says Wilson. “This term, most Saturdays will be devoted to Winter Projects and Global Collaborative Challenge efforts as we find time to incorporate these initiatives more closely with the students’ core academic commitments,” he continues.

The Scheduling Committee that brought about these changes included members from each academic department, athletics, admissions, and the administration. Wilson served as the “implementor” of this group, taking ideas and suggestions from everyone and arranging draft schedules showing possible arrangements and meeting times for each element of the Trinity-Pawling week. “Last winter we implemented a trial version of this schedule in order to solicit feedback from the students and faculty. Constructive comments from this week-long test proved invaluable in crafting the final schedule for this year,” he says.

While the major schedule changes are now in place, the committee still exists in a supervisory role, suggesting tweaks and adjustments that can fine-tune the new schedule for the benefit of the boys.

“A significant aspect of the vision of advancing Trinity-Pawling is to create opportunities for innovation that are grounded in the secure footings of tradition. I commend the scheduling committee for creating a structure that honors tradition while also creating more time for creativity,” adds Bill Taylor.