Everything we hope for our students rests on the strength and renewal of our faculty. We know, from decades of experience and research across disparate fields, that young people flourish when faculty are fully present in their lives and committed to relationships of trust, challenge, and wise mentorship. That is the professional standard we expect and celebrate—and that our campaign will support. For decades, Deerfield has refined the high-engagement model that seeks exceptionally talented and highly committed faculty who want to engage with the whole student—in the classroom and beyond.  We seek to provide our faculty with unprecedented tools to achieve their best in the form of enrichment from a new Institute and Center, peer mentoring, and opportunities to incorporate their family life more easily into their Academy life.  

Guided by Head of School John Austin’s A Framework for Schools, relationships at Deerfield are built on a single animating conviction: That the deepest obligation of a great teacher is not to provide answers but to cultivate the capacity to ask better questions, to hold complexity, engage in disagreement with confidence and humility, and think for oneself. In a world increasingly hostile to nuance, this capacity is not a luxury. It is the worthiest ability Deerfield can teach.