Lise Schickel Goddard '88

Sometimes insight and wholeness come through your nose, the sense most closely linked to memory. They did for me in a Lillard hallway at a reunion a few years out of college. I couldn’t have told you I liked the unmistakable smell that permeates Lillard dormitories, but its old familiarity transported me to the enduring feeling that followed me everywhere at Tabor, from classes to friendships to the rhythm of oars on Sippican Harbor. The memory was so powerful that it landed whole and almost brought me to my knees. In an instant I felt the old magic again, the feeling that something exciting was about to happen!

It’s a lovely legacy to feel from high school, truly, and it has shaped my life path ever since. Another word for it might be a sense of the possible. It compelled me west, towards new horizons, starting at Stanford. I’ve spent most of the past 31 years since graduation in California, rooted by annual Christmas cards exchanged with my advisor Bruce Cobbold (GBC).

High school can be transformative. It filled me with inspiration for what can be. It’s no coincidence that I’ve given my career to delivering on this calling as a teacher and school leader. I have always sought communities and schools that promote this kind of inspiration.

After a few great years at St. Andrew’s School in Delaware and then graduate school in marine ecology, there was no question I wanted to return to a vibrant boarding school community where people look out for each other. The bar was set high. It would have to be a school where my family and I could live our values of living lightly and be inspired by a community of learners. I chose Midland School on 2,860 acres in the mountains behind Santa Barbara. To me, it represented the ultimate educational experiment, the outlier on the curve, the rustic college prep school that doesn’t insulate students from the elements, but, rather, builds one’s inner resources while connecting with community and landscape.

Midland embraces an ethos of leaving a place better than you found it. Midland has held my heart for 16 years, and while my early work here revolved around teaching science and formalizing an environmentally-based curriculum through annual solar installations by sophomores (after 16 years, ~40% of campus is powered by student installed arrays), I’ve moved into the realm of institutional voice, Dean of Studies, and scheduler. Midland’s innovative program and scheduling work is featured in the Fall 2019 issue of Independent School Magazine.

Midland is a school that matters, one that challenges its students—and can inspire other schools - to engage with the natural world, to understand resources and impacts, to develop one’s voice, and to be of use. Valuing experiential learning and human connection, Midland’s packing list requires axes and bans cell phones. A Midland education builds one’s inner resources and work ethic while cultivating simplicity and gratitude.

While the smells of my school landscape have changed from Sippican shores to parched sage landscapes that come alive with rain, they share the thing that keeps me going—the feeling that something exciting is about to happen!