Welcome Lise Schickel Goddard

With gratitude and excitement, I thank Chewonki leaders for envisioning together a path for continuity and care of the learning community. I am deeply honored to serve as Interim Head of Semester School in 2021-2022. I look forward to joining a team that inspires transformative growth, appreciation, and stewardship of the natural world, and the building of thriving, sustainable communities. Now and in the landscape ahead, Chewonki’s mission remains its North Star, a guide for all we will do individually and together.

I feel a sense of wonder at this moment of congruence and alignment. For 17 years, I proudly served Midland School in California, a small boarding school on 2,860 acres with a Jobs Program and a farm—which, like Maine Coast Semester, is dedicated to college preparation, experiential learning, and responsibility to community and environment. I am called to serve mission-driven schools that STAND for something in the world, to lead daily operations, to articulate and amplify their story, and to align constituents around the mission. Having recently returned to our home in Maine after many good years in California in independent school leadership, I am ready to take the torch from Susan Feibelman and run the next leg of the journey in service of a program I have admired for years, want to learn from, and envision ways to support.

Chewonki has long held my imagination and heart. It was sparked by a summer afternoon visit when our twin boys were 5 years old and inspired over many years in shared orbits with Chewonki colleagues. Last winter, it was an honor to send our boys as Semester 64 students and gain a window into the power of Chewonki’s people and program. It seems fitting now to follow our boys after seeing first-hand the life lessons they learned during Maine Coast Semester at Chewonki.

 Jeff, Will, Ziggy and Lise in Yosemite National Park