About NMH Future

Mueller: NMH will be well-guided in transition to 1 campus

January 27, 2005
By Janet Bond
Greenfield Recorder Staff

NORTHFIELD - Richard Mueller said he is not ready to put his feet up yet. While he has resigned as president of the Northfield Mount Hermon School, Mueller said he and his wife, Claire, will be looking forward to what is ahead.

Mueller traveled to both of the school's campuses on Monday talking with students and staff about his decision to resign. He made a public announcement on Wednesday. He said he is resigning as president of the school, convinced the school has the leaders and support it needs to carry it through its transition to one campus.

Mueller, who graduated from Mount Hermon School for Boys in 1962, had a 32-year career in the Foreign Service after college, before returning to NMH in 1998 as headmaster. He went to Vietnam and learned Vietnamese, to Taiwan, and several cities in China, and learned Chinese. He served as the American Consul General to Hong Kong before moving to the small, rural town of Northfield.

"After 32 years in the Foreign Service, this was a wonderful place to come to for the last seven years," he said.

Six years into his tenure as headmaster, the board of trustees decided to both consolidate and downsize and chose the Mount Hermon campus in Gill for the school's sole campus.

To lead the transition, Mueller was named president of the school, with responsibilities for alumni relations and finding a use for the Northfield campus that would meet the needs of the school both financially and philosophically. Tom Sturtevant, hired by Mueller as assistant headmaster, replaced Mueller running the school.

At the end of the first year, there are still no offers on the table, but Mueller is convinced the team now in place is completely capable of carrying the school into the future.

"I honestly said to myself, and the board, lets do it one year at a time. It's the right thing at this stage," he said.

Mueller said now he could think about "what Claire and I should be doing. We can think seriously about our own futures."

"I've given diplomas to 2,700 young people," he said, reflecting on his legacy. "To me, that's perhaps my best achievement, to really have been able to work with young people."

Mueller said the school will expand its search for a tenant for the Northfield campus throughout the Northeast and the east coast. "Our first preference would be to lease it; we would consider a joint venture."

But there have been no offers and no specific proposals. The ideas, of which there have been a lot, have all come from stakeholders, town residents, NMH staff, teachers, students, trustees and others, he said. However, Mueller said the school never thought of the transition as being a quick proposition.

Mueller said he does not see the job of president as being filled again. The specific aspects of his job are all being handled by staff in whom he has complete confidence.

He and his wife expect to adjourn to their house in Rhodes Island, but the 60-year-old does have a dream.

"I would love to work with a school that really cares about young people that don't have a chance otherwise. Maybe I'll go overseas and work with young people," he said.

His resignation from NMH comes not as a retirement, but as part of a lifelong strategy.

"You should always move on when you're feeling really positive about a place."
He combines that with a philosophy that offers a clue to what keeps him going:

"You should ask yourself how old you would be, if you didn't know how old you are. Sometimes I feel about 35."

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