February 6, 2012
Diana Nichols: New Chairman of Board
Diana Nichols, Lifetime Trustee to the school and former Assistant Head of School, was elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees earlier this year.
There is a regular process for appointing: a nominating committee suggests names of people, and the vote then goes to the full board. Nichols was elected unanimously.
Nichols looks forward to “being able to work with the school to fulfill its mission statement,” she said, as well as “be[ing] able to work with all the board members on providing for the future of the school.”
Over this past summer, Nichols and the Board worked in conjunction with the school’s attorney, Tamara Watts, to update the written foundations of the school. They modernized the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws as well as the Board’s Conflict of Interest Policy, updating each with the current legal situation in mind.
One main obstacle that Nichols expects to face as Chairman of the Board is problem of not owning the Blackford campus. “Finding a solution to that situation is going to be very important for the school moving forward,” Nichols said. She has tried very hard to buy the campus for the school but does not think that the district will give in and sell it.
Aside from these challenges, Nichols feels that it is “very important to maintain the family atmosphere of the school,” she said. “You want to keep your teachers as happy as you can possible make them. The attitude of the teachers is very important in the day to day experiences of the students,” she explained, “[because] if the teachers love the school and love the students, [then] the students are going to love the school.”
Along with keeping up the high standards of the school, Nichols feels that “if we’re doing our job right, the students should be able to find their niche – something that they love and want to develop. That’s really finding yourself – and we have an obligation to help [students] do that,” she said.
Nichols feels that her husband, Eternal Trustee Howard Nichols (1940-2008), would agree. “When it came to the vision for the school, we had very similar views,” she said. A large part of this vision was the family environment as well as the various enriching activities that supplement the academic curriculum of the school.
“I just love Harker, I really do,” Nichols said. “I guess a lot of that is that I spent a good part of my life trying to build the school” from its small, 300-student population years ago. “Over the years, I’ve come to love the people, the staff, the faculty, and the students. I want to see that continue and get better in all different ways.”
