Welcoming Dr. Dawn Nichols, New Head of School

• Incoming & Current Freshman Families
  Sunday, April 24, Upper Commons from 5:30pm - 7:00pm
  
  
• All Others
  Monday, April 25, Upper Commons from 5:30pm - 7:00pm

Dr. Nichols is a highly successful educational leader who has worked in public, independent, and independent Catholic schools. These experiences have provided her with a variety of perspectives, which help inform her approach as a school leader. She currently serves as Head of School at Visitation School in Mendota Heights, MN. At Visitation, where she has been Head since 2000, she has a strong track record of program development, fundraising, developing teaching excellence, enrollment management, capital improvements, strategic planning, and community building. For the last sixteen years, she has been a tireless supporter of her school, its staff and its students. She has been unwavering in advocating what is right and best for students, in guiding parents, in partnering with her Board, and in engaging the broader community to accomplish their common goals. She does all of this with a grace and approachability that is authentic, inspiring, and firmly rooted in her independent school’s Catholic traditions.

Dr. Nichol's leadership style is collaborative as she believes the inclusion of all voices is critical. Her leadership is defined by vision, honesty, empathy, accountability, and a shared sense of purpose. She is also an extremely hard worker and knows that she cannot expect of others what she does not expect of herself. She has unique strengths both as an educator and business person, leading vital programs and initiatives that have positioned her current school as the preeminent independent Catholic school in the upper Midwest. Even in a large, complex school organization such as Visitation (Early Childhood to grade 12—four divisions), she is a very present leader. As she notes, a Head must be aware of the changing market and that a school must work hard to continue to be relevant while staying true to its core values. In this context, leading a school must be done by laying out the vision, using data, drawing upon the expertise of stakeholders, and making all a part of the process.

 

Dawn is very committed to education and she believes in the mission of Catholic independent school education. She has spent the last forty-four years in the pursuit of excellence in the educating of young men and women. Starting in 1972 as a public school teacher in the Cleveland Ohio area, she quickly discovered that she loved working with students of all ages. After ten years of teaching and serving as an administrator there, Dr. Nichols moved with her family to Raleigh, North Carolina, where she began a fifteen year stretch at Ravenscroft School. While there, she served in a variety of roles, the last being Associate Head and Director of Upper School. Thereafter she moved on to Visitation and the Twin Cities, to assume the Head of School role. Her school experiences along with her lifelong love of learning have fueled her passion to make education her life work.