Gordon's newest leaders

Dear Gordon Community,

I am excited to announce the appointment of Cendhi Arias Henry as Gordon's new Early Childhood Director and Caroline Mullaney as the school's new Admissions Director.

These appointments are the result of highly competitive processes that began with national searches and concluded with a series of in-person conversations with students, faculty, staff, parents and trustees. In these conversations, both candidates were able to connect with, and respond to, each constituency’s vision for Gordon, and those who met these impressive women were left with a strong sense that they had encountered leaders who embodied Helen West Cooke's ideal of "the true spirit of joyous work.”

It’s especially rewarding to be able to see two of Gordon’s current team growing in their leadership and ready to serve our community in new and exciting ways.
    
 

Cendhi Arias Henry, Early Childhood Director 

Cendhi Arias Henry, our next Early Childhood Director, brings a deep and longstanding connection to the Gordon community, a passion for educating our youngest learners, and an expertise in creating equitable and inclusive learning environments for children and adults alike. 

In her fifteen years at Gordon, Cendhi has become known and respected as a master classroom teacher, a thoughtful partner to families, and a generous colleague and collaborator across all three divisions of the school. 

The re-establishment of the Early Childhood Director position is an important moment for Gordon. Most families begin here in the Early Childhood division, and their relationship with the director helps set the tone for much of their Gordon experience. The director must build and sustain a climate of trust, candor, belonging and joy, take pleasure in the dynamic ways in which this age group engages with school-based learning, and have deep respect for the diversity of personalities, identities, perspectives, and backgrounds that define Gordon’s Early Childhood community. 

During her campus visit, faculty, staff, parents and caregivers all noted Cendhi’s warmth and authenticity, her deep understanding of child-by-child education and its implementation, her decade-and-a-half experience as a master teacher, her systems thinking and organizational prowess, and her demonstrated commitment to working with the Early Childhood faculty to build a collaborative and compelling vision for the future of the division.

Cendhi traces the roots of her passion for education to her native Dominican Republic. While attending Universidad Acción Pro-Educación y Cultura in Santo Domingo, she worked as an English instructor to children and adults and fell in love with teaching. This experience led her to pursue a B.S. in Early Childhood Education and Human Development from the University of Rhode Island, where she interned at various early childhood development centers in the state, engaging with children as young as fourteen months to five-years-old. While working at Gordon (and in the height of the pandemic!), Cendhi earned a Master's degree in School Leadership from Providence College.

From her first day at Gordon in 2007 when she joined our professional community as a second-grade teacher, Cendhi has taken on multiple roles and leadership opportunities throughout the school. She served as a cooperating teacher in Gordon's Teacher Residency Program where she supported novice teachers develop their multicultural and anti-bias practice, and in 2018, she was elected by her colleagues to Gordon's Board as a faculty trustee, deepening her understanding of the knowledge and skills necessary to be a steward and guardian of Gordon’s mission and strategic vision. 

Currently, Cendhi is the Early Childhood and Lower School Curriculum Coordinator and the coordinator of the race-based affinity group Common Ground, where she has found joy in creating safe spaces where students can be their whole selves, exploring commonalities and differences through play and conversation. She has presented at dozens of local and national conferences and consulted at schools across the country on progressive pedagogy, anti-racist curriculum and instruction, and cultivating communities of belonging. 

Cendhi is also a parent to two Gordon students, Camila and Eliana, and her husband Marlon Henry is Gordon's Technology Director. About her appointment, Cendhi shared, “I feel honored to step into this role and to expand my impact at a school I deeply love and appreciate. I look forward to new partnerships and relationships with the Early Childhood division and stewarding our youngest learners as they begin their Gordon journey.”
    
 

Caroline Mullaney, Admissions Director

Caroline Mullaney will become Admissions Director after serving one year as Gordon's Associate Director of Admissions for Research, Marketing and Data Analysis.

In her short time at Gordon, Caroline has demonstrated a talent for not only attending thoughtfully to the business elements of admissions work, but the relational, human side as well. She approaches her work and the people with whom she works with a sense of genuine curiosity and care. Her ability to unlock stories through engagement, as well as through data analysis, has been an extraordinary asset to the Gordon community.

Housed in the Advancement Office, admissions at Gordon is a collaborative effort to recruit, enroll and retain mission-aligned families whose backgrounds, identities, and perspectives reflect the diversity that is essential to cultivating both academic excellence and an authentic place to belong. The Admissions Director must be an enthusiastic spokesperson for the school and is responsible for attracting and thoughtfully stewarding prospective families through a responsive and equitable admissions process. During the search process, Caroline demonstrated her ability to move seamlessly between big picture and tactical thinking and her commitment to focusing on what is core.

Caroline brings to the role extensive experience in school admissions and marketing; before coming to Gordon, she served as Lincoln School’s Associate Director of Admission, Strategic Communication and Engagement. She also held admission positions at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School in Washington, DC and at the University of Vermont.

Prior to her career in admissions, Caroline was a civil servant at the U.S. Department of State in the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. While at the Department of State, she administered the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, which involved coordinating with American embassies around the globe to preserve cultural heritage in developing countries. Caroline’s work focused primarily on post-conflict recovery following the Iraq War and Arab Spring.

Caroline holds a B.A. in Art History and Cultural Anthropology from Lafayette College where she was both an EXCEL and Rothkopf Scholar. In her spare time, Caroline enjoys exploring new environments—new countries, food, and cultures. She is also an avid photographer and gardener. She and her husband, Tim, are the proud parents of Luke, a current Gordon preschooler.

Upon learning of her appointment, Caroline shared, "Gordon has shown me that it is not just a school. It is a community that welcomes everyone, a community that allows every family member to be themselves, and a community that fosters the growth of the whole child. All of us benefit from Gordon. As a parent and as the incoming Admissions Director, I am honored to participate in the school's continuing growth, and I’m grateful to be able to share our collective story with the wider Providence community and beyond!”

Cendhi and Caroline represent two of the three new faces that will be on Gordon's Leadership Team in the fall. The third will be the new Lower School Director. The school has two finalists for that position, who will be on campus over the next two weeks. 

I have the honor of serving as Co-Chair for the Early Childhood Director and Lower School Director Search Committee. I want to thank the colleagues who served alongside me on that committee, and the team on the Admissions Director Search Committee as well. The work was challenging, and each committee member found multiple ways to help make it a thorough, joyful and transparent process. 

Early Childhood Director and Lower School Director Search Committee

• Aleida Benitez, Spanish faculty 
• Clare Blackmer, Assistant to the Head of School 
• Gabe Burnstein, Middle School Director, Gordon parent 
• Shanon Connor, Early Childhood Faculty, Gordon parent
• Alethea Dunham-Carson, Co-Chair of Search Committee, Assistant Head for Teaching and Learning 
• Cheryl Fanti, Early Childhood and Lower School Assistant, Database Manager
• Rebecca Garfield, Spanish faculty, Gordon parent 
• Amy Lupica, Lower School faculty 
• Frances Martindale, School Librarian
• Damon Ray, Athletic Director, Gordon parent
• Nick Terry, Science faculty

Admissions Director Search Committee

• Rebecca Boswell, Lower School faculty, Gordon parent
• Greg Carson, Middle School faculty, Fifth and Sixth Grade Dean, Gordon parent
• Tom Cicatiello, Co-Chair of Search Committee, CFO and Assistant Head for Campus Operations and Auxiliary Programs 
• Carmen Garcia, Controller
• Veronica Jutras, Co-Chair of Search Committee, Admissions Director and Assistant Head for Institutional Advancement and Community Engagement, Gordon parent
• Kim Mongeon, Middle School Assistant
• Hannah Rossheim, Physical Education faculty
• Afiya Samuel, Middle School faculty
• Santana Sluss, Early Childhood faculty

I also want to thank the faculty, staff, parents, caregivers and students who made time to connect with the candidates during the days before break. Gordon is a school that is defined by its people, and these meetings allowed all the candidates to get an authentic sense of what makes this school and this community so special.

With excitement for the journey ahead,

Noni Thomas López, Head of School