Latin School of Chicago

Background: Latin's band plays at the celebration at the end of a successful campaign. The middle school, with its own teachers, had a new home on the fifth floor of the upper school. In October 2000, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and respected author Elie Wiesel spent an afternoon at Latin. Wiesel's visit was part of the school's yearlong project focusing on the Holocaust. "Linda O'Keeffe was the receptionist, and all calls came through her," said Hobbs. "There was one number for the school, and nobody had a direct line. We all had a computer on our desk, but there was no IT department. The annex bathroom was our printer and fax room, and the dot matrix printer sat on a wooden plank over the bathtub. At some point in the mid-'90s I remember sitting in a meeting with Walid El Khoury, who had been hired for the Math, Science and Technology Initiative, trying to budget our technology costs for the next five or 10 years. We were completely overwhelmed by the amounts we were considering, because up to that point the school had had almost no technology expenses." Hobbs explained that those early cost estimates were only a drop in the bucket compared to how much the school needed to invest in technology, as computer use snowballed. Within a decade, Latin was a very different place, with a sophisticated networking system, professionalized Information Technology Department and more than 200 individual phone extensions. Along with success in so many areas during Frank Hogan's 12-year tenure came a more intangible positive feeling about Latin School among students, parents and faculty. 114 L AT I N M AGAZINE "When I came to Latin, the school's leadership had very clear goals," Hogan wrote in 2003. "Over the last 12 years, I believe we have come very close to reaching all of these ambitious goals. But more, there has been a renewal of spirit and confidence in the school that is truly invigorating. Everywhere you look – in the classrooms, on the playing fields, in the studios and theaters – there is evidence of a vibrant community that believes in itself and dares to meet the next challenge." When he retired in 2004, Hogan left the school in a much stronger position than when he had started. Interim Head of School Shelley Greenwood, who had worked closely with Hogan as vice president of advancement for many years, would continue to build on this positive feeling as the school entered a new era. A global financial crisis, however, was just around the corner, and under the leadership of Don Firke, the school's 14th head, Latin would again have to focus more inwardly to address the challenges of the time. In the coming years, the school also turned to reevaluating its academic program with the goal of providing a new generation of students with the knowledge and skills they would need to succeed in the increasingly complex and interconnected world of the 21st century. n

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