Head of School

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Dr. Jennifer Zaccara

Head of School

(802) 869-6221

Trinity College - BA and MA
University of Connecticut - PhD

jzaccara@vermontacademy.org
Bio
Dr. Jennifer L. Zaccara is Vermont Academy’s eighteenth Head of School joining us from The Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City where she served as Associate Head of School since 2013. Prior to that, she was Associate Dean of Faculty at The Taft School in Watertown, CT where she spent twelve years.

During her tenure at Nightingale—an all-girls K-12 day school with 592 students—Jennifer has made many notable contributions, leading new initiatives with vision, innovation, and results, including the development of the Nightingale Summer Academy opening this summer; ongoing work on an eight-day rotational schedule; strategically utilizing new spaces to meld programming with design; and a campaign for global education. To drive innovation throughout the school, she created cohorts focused on technology, faculty workload and experience, and diversity, culture, and inclusivity. Jennifer oversees the new faculty immersion program, which focuses on pedagogical techniques, growth mindsets, collaboration, interdisciplinary work, and using NYC as a classroom. She manages strategic internal change, including STEM/STEAM curriculum, design thinking and coding initiatives, and innovative uses of spaces.

While at Taft—a coed boarding and day school with 594 students in Watertown, CT—Jennifer taught English for many years, winning several teaching honors, as well as advising and coaching. Expanding her career, she was appointed Mid Class Dean, leading 65-75 students each year, followed by being named English Department Head and then Associate Dean of Faculty.

A native of Connecticut, Jennifer graduated from Trinity College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a Master of Arts degree in English with distinction. She received her doctorate in English from the University of Connecticut, where she graduated with honors.

Jennifer is looking forward to welcoming students, faculty, and local residents to her new home in the heart of campus, along with her dogs, Copperfield and Brontë. Her two sons, Bryce and Keefe Rafferty, live in Denver, CO and San Diego, CA respectively. Bryce graduated from Colorado College and is applying to law school, while Keefe graduated from the Naval Academy and is a Lieutenant Junior Grade on the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier.

Parent Letters from the Head of School

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Technology in the classroom
10/12/2017

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About

Head's Welcome

Welcome to Vermont Academy!

It is my honor to welcome you to a very special place in a gorgeous corner of New England. Vermont Academy is nestled on four hundred and fifty acres at the foothills of the Green Mountains in Saxtons River, VT, just a half hour north of Brattleboro and only an hour and a half from Hartford’s Bradley International Airport. We are strategically connected to a gorgeous natural space and yet fully accessible for domestic and international travel to campus.

As you might imagine, Vermont Academy has a long history of experiential learning and outdoor experiences, including hiking, skiing, and camping! As a nod to our history, we have a thirty-foot ski jump that is an iconic centerpiece to our campus adjacent to our ski hill where many students enjoy a Sunday afternoon during the winter months. In the arts, we are also very much a Vermont school with our state hosting numerous writers’ retreats and home to authors and poets. One of the strengths of Vermont Academy is that its students embrace both the arts and athletics. We have many students who are, for example, playing D1 basketball after successful seasons at Vermont Academy and who were recognized as writers and artists having earned accolades at the regional and state levels. Where else can you find extraordinary scholar-athletes who compete at such high levels and across disciplines?

I am particularly excited to begin my work at Vermont Academy at a decisive moment and as the first woman to lead the school in its one hundred and forty-one year history. Our school is strategically positioned to be a Vermont school with a long reach. We have three study abroad experiences in China, Chile, and Spain, with perhaps the most involved connection being in northern Spain and Madrid. What makes Vermont Academy’s global programs so unique is that students have both their Vermont Academy teachers on site when they are abroad in addition to teachers who are from their host countries.

Vermont Academy's integrated approach to math, science and engineering enables students to continue to be the entrepreneurs and tinkerers who have long populated the campus. Wherever you look at Vermont Academy, students are taking what they learn into applied contexts. One of the trademarks of Vermont Academy students is that they are fearless and tenacious as they practice what they learn. Step on the basketball court or ice at 6:00 a.m. and again after school, and you will see athletes relentlessly determined in their pursuit of what Malcolm Gladwell called "deliberate practice." Those same athletes are also award winning artists at Vermont Academy and in state competitions.

Students thrive in opportunities that enable them to express the complexity and sophistication of their inner selves and inner life. Our students understand what it means to go beyond Gladwell's theory because practice skills must be accompanied by cultivated flexibility and scrappy problem solving in the moment. Vermont Academy is a community of scholars and athletes, scientists and writers, artists and engineers who show us every day that managing and cultivating passions and interests is just as important as self-awareness about how we learn and work.

Dr. Jennifer L. Zaccara
Head of School

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Vermont Academy Convocation Address 2017
9/19/2017
Dr. Jennifer L. Zaccara

Good evening. Here we are at last. This is our school, our students, faculty, administrators, staff. This room is not that old, but it will have a rich history over time.
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