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February 3, 2023

Head of School’s Notebook: What is History?

February 1st marks the beginning of Black History month, the origins of which date back to 1915 and historian Carter Woodson. It was a week at first – so designated by Woodson’s Association for the Study of Negro Life and History – and scheduled in mid-February to coincide with the birthdates of Frederick Douglass and …


February 3, 2023

This Week in Athletics

With the exception of our playoff-bound teams, the winter season has come to an end. The weather has finally turned for the better here on the Mesa just in time for spring sports. But before we begin those sports next week, we want to talk a moment to recognize our winter teams.  The girls water …


January 20, 2023

Head of School’s Notebook: Circles

On an old Harry Chapin album I used to own – don’t we all wish we hadn’t gotten rid of all our vinyl – there’s a song with the lyric: All my life’s a circle Sunrise and sundown The moon rose through the night time Till the daybreak comes around All my life’s a circle …


January 20, 2023

This Week in Athletics

It has been a unique winter for athletics with all the rain. Flooded fields have led to postponements and in some cases, playing home games at neutral sites. Through all this adversity, our student-athletes have performed admirably giving their best at all times.  The boys soccer team is one of those groups impacted by all …


December 9, 2022

This Week in Athletics

It has been a lightning fast two weeks since returning from Fall Break, and for our winter teams, a week off immediately after starting practices two weeks prior is never ideal. However, that has not stopped anyone from hitting their stride during this three-week stretch. The boys basketball team competes in the annual Nordhoff Tournament, …


December 7, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: Free Days

I have worked at three different schools in my lifetime and attended three others from elementary school through high school. Each one had its own unique character, but all had a single similar tradition: free days. They weren’t called the same things in each place. At St. John’s in Houston, Texas, where I worked prior …


November 17, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: Enough

A friend of mine sent me a poem recently by Naomi Shihab Nye called “So Much Happiness.” It begins: It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness. With sadness there is something to rub against, a wound to tend with lotion and cloth. When the world falls in around you, you …


November 2, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: Fortunate Moments

We all tend to accumulate a lot of stuff over the course of our lives, far more than we need. Maybe that is why there is such a proliferation of storage facilities around the country. We need more space for the things that we can’t use or don’t really need. A friend of mine in …


October 14, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: What is Cate?

I’ve spent the last week re-connecting with Cate alumni in various spots around the country. It has been several years since we have done such things, and it was wonderful to see so many thriving young people. They all had questions: What’s happening on the Mesa right now? How’s the volleyball team? Did we beat …


September 30, 2022

This Week in Athletics

What a great start to the year it has been in athletics. Since Outings Week concluded, it has been nothing but competition here on the Mesa. The excitement from wins and disappointment from tough losses are both present, and we are so grateful to feel all of it. Girls volleyball has had a successful season …


September 30, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: Reading on the Road

I flew to the East Coast last week. When I was a boy, airplane travel was a relatively infrequent occurrence. My family took the train or drove most places. My grandparents lived in South Carolina, so at least once a year we would drive from our home in Massachusetts to my cousins’ home in Washington …


September 16, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: Outings

Many years ago,  I read a piece at our Sunset Ceremony that I had prepared about Outings Week. “Almost before we go to School on the Mesa, we go into the woods,” I said. “Not so that we might escape the work ahead, but so that we might prepare for it, understand its relevance, remember …


July 21, 2022

Alumni Dispatch: Jessica Liou ’16

Fate – and a Cate experience – led Jessica Liou to launch MathXplorers, her passion project aimed to bring out the joy in learning math while addressing low levels of math proficiency for students in Guatemala. Jessica took a gap year after Cate in order to earn some money and then returned to Guatemala, the …


June 19, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: Juneteenth

Dear Friends, The sounds of the Mesa are a bit different as I write today. The cacophony of machinery and hammering associated with the renovation of Raymond Commons – which will ultimately be our Inquiry Center – is most conspicuous. Preparations for the Cate Summer Institutes are also underway, as we anticipate the arrival of …


June 17, 2022

Reunion Weekend 2022

By Carson Williams ’19 Shared experiences bring us all together. Global pandemics and strict quarantines are just a few we have all experienced over the past two and a half years now. Perhaps more formatively, sharing a classroom, a dorm, and a school are what continue to bring us together. For the first time in …


June 17, 2022

Servons at Sea

By Richard MacDonald (McGrath) ’82 It’s a tranquil Saturday morning and I get dressed slowly, open the curtains and gaze out across the wide sea estuary. It’s not a lazy gaze – those days are gone. I look for whitecaps indicating an offshore wind across the surface. Seaweed-strewn rocky outcrops jutting out like craggy fingers …


June 3, 2022

Retiring Faculty Citations

Patricia Collins Just a look at her home and the exquisite plantings that surround it reveals the fundamental truth about Patricia Collins. She makes things grow, nurtures them, protects them, and under her care everything flourishes. The community of people on the Mesa are no different, for we too have been cared for by Patricia. …


May 20, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: The Human Sea

Many years ago, I wrote in this Notebook about a school shooting that didn’t make the front page of the newspaper. I couldn’t understand at the time why such a tragedy could be upstaged by anything else. Maybe the publishers, I mused, or their readers, were no longer shocked by such violence. Or not shocked …


April 29, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: Marking Time

It is that time of the year. Spring Family Weekend has passed and the dulcet tones of the musical, Mamma Mia, are a lingering memory. Seniors are counting the days to commencement. Underclassmen are imagining the summer that lies just over a month – and an exam period – away. And faculty are trying to …


April 14, 2022

Head of School’s Notebook: Gratitude

When Tyler ’22 and Talia Tom ’23 stepped to the microphone last week as co-masters of ceremony for the International Convocation, there was a buzz of energy and anticipation among the audience. Our students have a great many distinctive and inspiring attributes, among which is a profound and enthusiastic appreciation for the countries, communities, and …