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New Head of School Leads Stuart With Focus on Academics, Spirituality, and Service; Highlights Importance of Single Gender Education

PRINCETON, NJ, August 23, 2010 – When school starts next month, a new Head of School, Patricia L. Fagin, Ph.D., will welcome the nearly 500 students to Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart.

Dr. Fagin is Stuart’s seventh Head of School, and the first in the school’s 47-year history who does not belong to a religious order. Coming from another Sacred Heart school, Dr. Fagin is strongly committed to maintaining Stuart’s focus on the Goals of the Sacred Heart Network, inspiring academic excellence, developing a life of faith, fostering personal growth, and encouraging a strong sense of community and commitment to service.

“Working with students of all abilities, I’ve seen first-hand that having a spiritual base to rely on is vitally important as they work through the challenges and joys of learning,” said Dr. Fagin. “The Sacred Heart goals, which Stuart students live and breathe every day, help students build that foundation, create their own community based on shared beliefs and values, then turn outward and take action to help and transform the broader community.”

Stuart is a Catholic girls school, well-known for its active community service outreach and requirements, both in the Princeton area and beyond. “Relationships matter,” said Dr. Fagin. “Relationships among communities, and among individuals. Stuart students build relationships through service commitments helping others, and, equally important, the students benefit personally – they learn and grow from those experiences.”

Dr. Fagin notes that relationships are key to the education of girls. “When we teach girls using skills and reasoning that is integral to them, they learn better. For example, learning can be relational. When we show girls how facts build upon facts and tie together, they understand those relationships – and gain knowledge. The value of an all-girl education is that we can teach to girls’ unique strengths and intrinsic understanding.”

“Dr. Fagin’s commitment to Sacred Heart values, and her vision, shared with parents and trustees, of Stuart as a school that enriches, inspires and empowers young women, made her the perfect choice as our new Head of School,” said Steve Lemenager, Stuart’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees. “All of us in the Stuart community – students, parents, alumnae, faculty and trustees – welcome Patty Fagin and look forward to her leadership as the new school year begins.”

Dr. Fagin will be recognized as the new Head of School on September 16 at an Installation Ceremony at 10:00 am, in Stuart’s Cor Unum auditorium, officiated by Monsignor Greg Malovetz, Stuart’s chaplain.

Patty Fagin comes to Stuart after six years as Head of School at Villa Duchesne in St. Louis, MO, an all-girl, Sacred Heart school for grades 7 – 12. Prior to that, she was executive director of Guilford Day School in Greensboro, NC, a school for students with learning disabilities in grades 1 – 12. She earned her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She had previously earned an Educational Specialists degree in School Administration from the University of Missouri and a Master of Arts degree in Media Communications from Webster University, both in Kansas City, MO. Her Bachelor of Arts degree in Special Education is from Fontbonne College in St. Louis, MO.

About Stuart: Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart is an independent Roman Catholic school for girls in kindergarten through grade 12, as well as a coed preschool and junior kindergarten. Now celebrating its 47th year, Stuart is a member of the National and International Network of Sacred Heart Schools. Stuart offers an education deeply rooted in the goals and criteria of the Sacred Heart that enriches, inspires and empowers its students. While academic rigor is emphasized at Stuart, values are also placed on physical, social and moral growth.