Ava Hendrickson ‘22
Ashley Kennedy ‘22
Every aspect of the Episcopal experience is shaped by the layout of the school itself; the campus, from the buildings to the parking lots, makes it possible for EA to function the way that it does. To maintain this, elements of the campus are periodically reevaluated in order to create long term plans and ideas for renovations, a process called master planning. T.J. Locke, the Greville Haslam Head of School, describes the process as, “long term planning, for the facilities, and for the campus.” He explains that it helps to keep our school’s campus updated and have a clear direction for its future: “You can’t just build something and not think about how it affects the rest of the campus. We just built this beautiful campus twelve years ago. We’re not looking for any major changes, but what we want to do is have a good roadmap for the next 20 years.”
Mark Notaro, Director of Operations, explains that to aid in the architectural aspect of the process, “the school brings in outside professionals who are typically architects, potentially some engineers, and we look at… need-based things that we want to accomplish, or bigger, loftier aspirations the school may have for the future.” Episcopal uses a company called SLAM Collaborative and they have already begun the process by interviewing different departments to get a sense of the goals EA has for the future. Notaro says, “It’s going to be an almost monthly recurring set of meetings for them to update their information… then they will continue that process until they have a rough plan.” Episcopal plans to continue working with SLAM Collaborative on this rough plan until there is a clear vision of what “the school would look like going forward,” Notaro says.
This the past summer, Episcopal enacted one of its master planning ideas from years past: renovations to the dining hall. This addition to the dining hall was proposed to address specific problems, similar to the goals for any future projects EA takes on through master planning. In the next few years, some key areas that master planning may focus on are parking and traffic on campus, lounge areas, and the athletic center. Notaro says, “For the athletic center, many students like to gather there, especially in the winter, and so we might discuss ways to look at that space and reconfigure it.” In addition, possible changes to the theater have been discussed due to its size, since currently lower, middle, and upper school students cannot all fit into the theater at the same time. Notaro explains, “The theater is a beautiful space. It functions really well, but we can never have all three units together for a speaker or for a play.”
The departments also shared their input on their recommendations for future changes to EA. Grace Limaye, Head of the science department, says, “At this point, we could not definitively say exactly what we need moving forward for science, but that we might want to reconfigure the science labs and the way that middle school is on the first floor and upper school is designated to the top two floors.” In terms of concrete additions to the EA campus, Limaye adds, “To the extent that we’re going to build out environmental science more… do we want to provide a really effective greenhouse? If so, we could potentially take this space over here, this nook and patio, make that an actual building and then put a greenhouse on the roof where you’re getting direct sunlight and have a working agricultural lab up there for environmental science and biology.”
While master planning does begin at the higher administration levels, part of the process is to have discussions with everyone from students, parents, and teachers in order to get their input on community improvements as well. Notaro says he will definitely have a student group interviewed next month and states, “I think what the master planning process does is it really gives every department on campus a voice… and brings other ideas to the surface just because of open dialogue.”