Welcoming Camille Harrison

Dear Gordon Community,

I am delighted to announce that Camille Harrison will be coming to Gordon next year to serve as the next Director of the Joukowsky Family Library. Camille is a passionate educator who has a clear understanding of how a community can be strengthened and inspired by a well-tended library.

The position of library director is a crucial one at Gordon. The Joukowsky Family Library is often referred to as the heart of the school, not only for its central location in the building but also for its decades-long commitment to instilling a love of reading in students and nurturing their curiosity about the world. Just as importantly, the library offers stories that provide students with mirrors with which to see themselves and windows they can use to view the lives of others.

This hire is the result of a highly competitive process that began in the early fall with a national search and concluded earlier this month with visits from four finalists, all of whom met with students, faculty and staff, academic leadership, library volunteers, and members of the Board’s Education Committee. In these conversations, Camille stood out as a curious, thoughtful practitioner who had a clear vision for how a library can help drive the growth and evolution of a twenty-first century multicultural curriculum.

Camille comes to Gordon from Dedham Country Day School, a pre-kindergarten to eighth grade school where she has served as Director of Library and Academic Technology and Research for the past six years. There, she was a member of the senior leadership team and taught a scope and sequence of library and STEAM classes, but she would tell you that the heart of her job has been cultivating partnerships, collaborating with faculty and staff on ways to integrate library resources into the curriculum and working with families to create programming that helped draw them into the library.

Before her time at Dedham Country Day, Camille worked on the library and technology teams at the Berkeley Carroll School and the Churchill School and Center, and she served at a series of nonprofits that served young people. She holds a BA in Graphic Arts and Sociology from Syracuse University and a Masters of Science, Library and Information Science with Library Media Specialist Certification from Pratt Institute.

After meeting Camille, current library director Frances Martindale called her “a librarian’s librarian, the best credentialed librarian to have walked through the Joukowsky Family Library door.” Hearing that Camille had been hired, Frances said, “partnered with our own super librarian Sandy Horton, Camille will bring the Joukowsky Family Library into the next chapter of its stellar history.”

Upon the news of her hire, Camille shared, “I am beyond excited to join the Gordon community. Gordon is a school that has been on my radar since I started teaching in Brooklyn. Gordon has a reputation for its commitment to children and creating a progressive and responsive curriculum with children at the heart of everything they do. This is exactly what I experienced throughout the interview process. The rumors were true in the best possible way.” 

“Frances is a librarian I have admired from afar,” she added. “She is leaving big shoes to fill, but ones that have been so carefully crafted. I welcome the chance to work alongside Sandy and the team of volunteers to build on the strong foundation she has built in the Joukowsky Family Library. Gordon’s library is a librarian's dream.”

Before she arrives in the fall, we look forward to welcoming Camille back to our campus over the next few months, as she and her family prepare to join the Gordon family. This process begins today, February 20th, as her spouse Brian and her daughter Eliot visit Gordon in action for the first time.

I am grateful for the participation and engagement of our faculty, staff, students, parents, and trustees whose feedback and input was invaluable throughout this process. I especially want to thank my fellow members of the search committee:

• Alethea Dunham-Carson, Assistant Head of School for Teaching and Learning
• Rebecca Garfield, fifth and sixth grade teacher
• Alexandra O'Connor, Philanthropic Engagement Director
• Tamar Paull, seventh grade teacher
• Afiya Samuel, Fifth and Sixth Grade Dean
• Santana Sluss, Kindergarten teacher
• Nick Terry, Early Childhood and Lower School science
• Rebecca Zakin, Dean of Lower School and Faculty and Staff Development

I know that the thought of replacing Frances Martindale is one that many people in the community have anticipated with sadness, with curiosity, and even with concern. I am delighted to report that we were able to imbue this process with thoughtfulness, compassion, generosity, creativity, and good humor, and we've been rewarded with an outcome that fulfills all of our hopes. I am grateful to the committee, and to this entire community, for completing this process in joyful service to Gordon School.

With excitement for the journey ahead,