CEO Notebook |
The financial lens of independent school leaders is about to get a
lot sharper. As you begin 2016 at your school, I'm very pleased to share
that NBOA is also beginning an exciting new endeavor—one that promises
to help elevate the importance of independent school financial
management and the role of business officers. For the first time ever,
current NBOA staff and a working business officer will serve as faculty
at the renowned Klingenstein Center, Teachers College of Columbia
University. We will teach aspiring heads of school enrolled in the
full-year independent school leadership master's degree program about
the increasingly complex realities of school finances.
For more than 35 years, the Klingenstein Center has been the premier
university-based program for graduate studies in independent school
leadership. The school finance course, which founding NBOA Executive
Director Sarah Daignault taught after leaving NBOA, will get an update
from two NBOA staff members—myself and Genevieve Madigan, vice
president, professional development and research, along with NBOA's
great colleague Palmer Ball, business manager at Spartanburg Day School
and recipient of the 2015 NBOA Ken White Distinguished Business Officer Award.
What will NBOA bring to this course? I'm particularly excited to be
teaching alongside Palmer, a business officer with more than two decades
of hands-on experience and one of the most highly regarded business
officers in the country. As representatives of NBOA, Genevieve and I
will leverage the association's deep reservoir of knowledge culled from
more than 1,200 independent schools nationwide and around the world.
Combined, our practical experience and understanding of independent
schools' business and operational needs will provide a compelling
foundation that informs and shapes the financial lens of our community's
future leaders. The course also provides an excellent opportunity to
showcase NBOA's national thought leadership, original research, and
myriad tools and resources.
The opportunity to work with the Klingenstein Center was a natural
fit with NBOA's national role as the go-to resource for independent
school business and finance issues. I will keep you updated as we travel
to New York City each Thursday from January through May.
As your holiday break ends and classes resume, take comfort in the
fact that you're not the only ones going back to school. Have a very
happy and prosperous 2016!
From Bottomline, January 5, 2016.