Letter to Members of the Board

I'm a year 14 grad, who's been worried about the tumult our community has been experiencing during the last years. I wrote this letter to some members of the Board and passed it along to the agency that will search for the new Director.

I would only like to encourage you to do the same as I have and voice your suggestions. Maybe we can prevent a Walker repeat.

Thanks for your time,

Talí Cordero.
PC 87-89.

"Lima, 03rd October 2005.

Dear Sirs:

With some sense of relief I have heard of Stuart Walker’s resignation to the post of Director at Pearson College. While I do not intend to engage in character assassination, or - much less – intend to waste your valuable time with a summary of all the bad news and accusations that have been going around the PC graduate and UWC circles about our College and its former Director; I certainly believe it is high time for us to sit down and carefully go over the things that a new Director will need to have in order to prevent a repeat of the intolerable situation we have experienced in our community over the last years.

Personally, I think that any ill feelings among the Director, the faculty, the student body and the graduates that end up being discussed before Courts of Law or the press can only signify the greatest failure of our institution and the ideals through which we are supposed to live by. I simply cannot believe we are not sensible and caring enough to tackle whatever problem we might have among us and not be able to solve it in a way that reflects the best interests of all concerned: Certainly, that is not what I was taught while I was enrolled at Pearson College.

Thus, How do I feel a new Director should be in order to restore the prestige and goodwill we seem to have lost among ourselves (not to mention the damage to our reputation on third parties’ eyes)? I would like to share these few thoughts with you:

- From what I personally saw while as a Pearson student, and also during a brief visit there last year, I would think the new Director must be a graceful person. He/she might not be an Indian Yogi that glides over water, but surely must be able to flow through difficult situations without making matters worse through lack of self-restraint. If I were to choose one single thing that strikes me as fundamental is the need to have someone who can lead our community by inspiring confidence on the fairness of his/her judgment. I firmly believe that there cannot be anything worse than having a group of highly talented and sensitive young people who live in fear of what to expect due to a person who has little control over his/her own emotions;

- From the previous point, I think the new Director must be specifically tested for his or her responses to a range of high stress situations as well as common problems faced in PC life: From inadequate-budget cases and fund-raising, to handling personal student problems (involving anything from drug-use to pregnancy). I’m pretty sure that any headhunter must have specific tools (specifically, scenario simulations) to test for clear and desirable answers to these questions;

- The new Director must have a thorough background check – especially from his/her referees and for his/her academic credentials (research papers, academic stance in other institutions, and so on). Some times, reference letters are nice ways to hide a person’s flaws, so I would still try to directly find out what is behind a person’s C.V.;

- The new Director selection criteria should compare all the candidates and award extra points for better academic qualifications, as well as other issues such as previous UWC experience (especially as a former student);

- Those taking part in the process (as it seems has already been done), should at least have a prior knowledge of what other involved parties expect as a result from it. I firmly think that Years 1, 2 and 3 Graduates should be given a formal chance to express their views on what is required from the new Director before we begin looking for a person to fill the post. While I understand the rift between the Administration or even the Board of Directors with these Graduates must still be difficult to bridge, I would only urge you members of the Board to seize the chance now that we all have it;

- Finally, I would be grateful if we could all find out about the professional and humane profile that we all decide is best for a new Pearson College Director before he/she is chosen – to express any questions/suggestions we might have and to further refine the search. I think the Board is taking a great step towards openness with this process, I wish the promise has been fulfilled by the time it ends.

Regardless of whose “fault” it was for the complete breakdown of communications among some of our group of people, I would rue it if we were not to draw lessons from all that has happened over the last few years. Sadly, many valuable people have grown estranged from Pearson College and, while I regard institutions as living beings – with ups and downs – I consider that we must learn from the appalling recent past, where legal fees and bad press tainted what should continue to be a vibrant, hard-working and model community. If we don’t take the lessons seriously, we might not have a second chance.

Thank you for your time,

Talí Cordero.
Perú – PC Year 14.
talicordero@yahoo.com"