Milton Academy is pleased to announce that Alden Smith has been appointed director of the Mountain School Program of Milton Academy, in Vershire, Vermont. Alden Smith had been serving as interim director of the Mountain School since the resignation last June of prior director Anne Stephens.
The eight-member search committee, made-up of representatives from both the Milton Academy administration and faculty and the Mountain School faculty, unanimously and enthusiastically recommended Alden. His experience and personal qualities respond directly to the criteria the committee named in its search for the next director. Alden embodies the values of the Mountain School.
An inspiring teacher and skilled administrator, Alden has demonstrated his commitment to an educational environment in which learning is highly valued in the classroom, in a work program and in outdoor experiences. Alden understands with depth and clarity the distinctive features inherent in a small residential school with both an academic and environmental mission, located in rural Vermont. An experienced naturalist, Alden’s intellectual grounding comes in part from work with scholars like John Elder at the Middlebury College Bread Loaf graduate program; his practical grounding comes from extensive time in the Vershire woods by himself and with fellow trackers.
A 1994 graduate of Davidson College, Alden came to the Mountain School as the assistant director in the fall of 1999, following five successful years at Choate Rosemary Hall as member of the English department, coach and mentor. An able intellectual leader of the Mountain School faculty, he provided overall support for Anne Stephens’s leadership. As interim director this year, he has led the Mountain School with skill, overseeing the ambitious barn construction project, and facilitating the preliminary phases of strategic planning, as well as managing, with sensitivity and care, the day to day issues that arise in a residential program.
The search committee has done outstanding work and Milton Academy is grateful to Nancy Abernathey, Tom Hill, Kathy Hooke, Nat Keohane, Rachel Klein, Jack Kruse, Rachel Stettler, and committee chair, John Warren. Alden will build on the exemplary work of his predecessors, David Grant and Anne Stephens, in maintaining the Mountain School’s stature as the premier semester-long academic program in the United States while he also puts his own imprint upon the Mountain School in the coming years.
