Teacher (Principal) Feature: Dr. Pew

Clementine Kline ’25

Before we were all introduced to Dr. Pew via our grade-wide town halls, I had the distinct pleasure to get to know the man behind the self-described bald head and beard. As we settle in, I notice that we are wearing the same pair of black and white Adidas Sambas, though Dr. Pew’s are accompanied by tall mismatched colorful socks. “Nice shoes,” I say to begin, and we both laugh. “I hope you include this in the article,” says Dr. Pew, and who am I to disobey?

Your daughter Henrietta graduated last year, so you've seen Bard from the outside, and now you're seeing it from the inside. How will the perspective of being a BHSEC parent affect your perspective as principal?

I’ve come into a brand new job in a brand new role in a totally new place, and yet I've been learning about this place through osmosis through my daughter for four years, right? If she were here, she'd probably tell you that I'm not the best listener and yet, these past five days that I've been here, I have been surprised by my ability to respond quickly and understand what's going on because I've learned it through my own child. I say this at every school I've ever worked in: this is a house of learning. And everybody is doing the learning. It does not matter what your title is, what your age is, whatever type of power or fake power you have. We’re all learning. But for me, I have the great luxury to have had that learning started four years before I even got this job. [We pause for a moment as we realize that a teacher left her phone in Dr. Pew’s office. Ms. Turitz rushes off to find her].

This is a unique position to be in, to have been a parent and now an employee. How did this return to Bard happen, and did you ever consider a career at BHSEC while Henrietta was here? 

I remember sitting in the cafeteria of my last school in the late summer and I saw an email where I learned that there was a vacancy here. The way that a principal appointment works in New York City is an incredibly slow process. There's a lot of procedural steps. There's something called the C-30 regulations, and these are legal regulations, so you can't cut corners. [The teacher who lost her phone enters, only to exit in search of Ms. Turitz and her phone]. It was a long process. I didn't sleep from September until last week. The only reason I slept this week is because I'm so exhausted at the end of the day! [We giggle in shared sleep deprivation]. But from the time I heard of the posting, the posting became live, I applied to it, and then you sit and wait. And then I received a call from Dumaine Williams for an informal conversation, and we had a quick meeting here at the school. But that's the Bard side, that's unofficial. Then there was the actual C-30 committee meeting where I came here on December the 18th and then I just waited and waited and waited and waited for a lot longer. 

Oh boy [I remark as I can’t help but notice the similarities to the college application process].

And then there was what they call the level two interview in early March, which was just me and the superintendent. And then after that happened, because this is Bard, I traveled upstate and met with Dumaine. I spent the whole day on the campus and then spent about two hours with Leon Botstein in his home talking about this school, with him picking my brain on certain things, asking me a lot about my life. After that it was lots more waiting and chatter, and I know the chatter here started at a certain point. One of my references in my list of references was my dissertation chair for my PhD. And by pure coincidence, my dissertation chair and the superintendent are working on a project together in a different high school in our district. And so there was a connection there and in all the waiting, you know

Things happened?

Yeah like “we really liked Brian!” It was that type of thing, right? All these crazy connections. But that's the long answer to your question of how did I do this. I waited for a whole lot of steps. And if I'm being honest, none of these steps would have been possible if my child had not gone here, if it wasn't for Henrietta

Wow, thanks Henrietta!

Because she gave me some real street cred around here. [I laugh]. Really! In almost every introduction to staff members they all said “Oh I had Henrietta then! Or I had this or…” So that was a big part of it.

And Bard is a big community, it’s a lot about everyone knows everyone. I have a teacher who always says “everything is connected to everything.”

Yeah, who says that?

Professor Gubbay!

Oh yeah, he's so great.

He’s sooo great. Related to the whole parent thing—my parents talk nonstop about their love for Bard. What about Bard impressed you as a parent? 

Number one, it's what's on paper that everyone knows about. What you get when you leave this place, which is a public institution, is extraordinary—that you can walk out of here with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree. And my daughter, who is in her first year of college, is a junior because of that. That alone is absolutely extraordinary, but that's not the first thing that impressed me about this school. In 2016 or 17, I came to this building, way before Henrietta went here, on an interview for an assistant principal job. I had never had an assistant principal job before, and I interviewed with Dr. Lerner and I walked out of the building and said to myself, “I am not getting that job, but that is where I want my child to go to school.” At the time I had no leadership experience. I was fresh out of the classroom. I was a dean at the time, and it takes a lot to get prepared for jobs like these. So my first exposure to this place was interviewing for a job I knew I wasn't getting, right? But the reason I wanted Henrietta to come here is because of the vibes. Even though it was late in the evening, there were things going on in the school. There was a play rehearsal. There was a club and some music down here, and then the interview was right next door in the art room over here [He gestures in the correct directions of all of these locations, as if he was reliving that day]. I could tell it was a very active space and it just gave me these incredible vibes. So then Henrietta did come here and when she was here, even more impressive, in my opinion, than the ability to walk out of an institution with two degrees is the way that this place just brought Henrietta to life. She's already always been a lively person, but she came home for four years, I'm really not exaggerating, nearly every day talking about some incredible friend, course content, professor, or experience. And then there's this funny like gleeful sorrow at the end of the senior year. Like, “I love this place so much,” this glee, but I'm so sad that it's about to end. 

Yeah, I’m experiencing the same thing now.

Because you're a senior, right? The sense of belonging that occurs here among hopefully everybody, but a lot of people I’m coming in contact with, is another thing that really just made me love this place. [Ms. Gamper walks in and we go on a brief tangent about our shared love of Roman museums before she makes plans to talk to Dr. Pew at a later date].

I know it's very, very early in your time here, but do you have any goals for either the rest of the year or the fall?

Yeah, my goal is to maintain and sustain a great organization. There are many schools where the incoming principal has to do reinvention, re-envisioning, rallying people around their new ideas. This is not that place. [Val walks in and sits down to work at the opposite end of the table]. My goals are about making a commitment to the community, and for a partnership between me and other leaders and teachers and parents and all of that, so that we keep this place the amazing place that it is. And then, if we choose to do things differently, that it's done collectively, right? That we are listening to each other, and we're getting the input of our parents and most importantly, the people we serve in our school, our students that we are listening and learning together and allowing the collective dialogue if we choose to reshape things. 

That partially answers my next question, which is kind of a tricky topic. In recent years, the student population has expressed frustration over apparent clashes between Bard's ethos and the DOE's involvement with the school. The question is always how do we support that culture of Bard throughout all of this? 

Yeah, it's a challenging one and it is going to require me to spend a lot of time listening and learning so that I am not just a believer in, but fully part of the ethos that makes this place so incredible, and then do the work of preserving what we are, while remaining in compliance of what we have to do. [Ms. Canty walks in and sits down to work next to me]. There are guardrails that can be put up around the giant bureaucratic engine of the DOE so that a small select group of people are staying honest with what requirements are. And then making sure that we're allowing Bard to continue to be what it is. This is another thing Henrietta used to say all the time. “Let Bard be Bard,” “Leave Bard Bard,” “Stop trying to take away who we are,” right? That's another commitment that I make to this place and why I have also made a long commitment. This is the sixth school that I've worked in and I intend for it to be the last school that I work in, because we can't have constant change and expect to have continuity. 

Absolutely. And I think that perfectly explains why there has been so much tension, because there has been a lot of change! And I think we’re happy to know that we're stable now. Okay, before I move on to some wild card questions—

Oooh, come at me! 

Is there anything else you'd like to say to introduce yourself to the BHSEC student population? 

I guess the one thing that I would say is, [he turns to the far end of the table] and Val, you’re here, this is a question you might be able to help us with—the concept of an early college school, is this something that is unique to Leon Botstein? Like, did he come up with this or do we have other models before him? 

[Val] We were the first, so Simon’s Rock is not public, it's a private early college. Simon’s Rock really is the first, and it wasn't founded by Leon, but we—Bard brought it in. 

I grew up in San Jose, California, and in the first semester of my freshman year, I just wasn't loving school and I went to who I'm pretty sure was an assistant principal or maybe she was a guidance counselor and we had this conversation about it. And she said there's all sorts of ways to navigate this. So this is big school mentality, right? There's like 3,000 kids in the school, and she said, all you gotta do is get this many credits and then you can graduate. And I had this very kind educator who sat me down and showed me different ways that I could do that. My mother had forced me to go to summer school the summer before, not because I failed anything. She just wanted the kids out of the house. So I already had some credits in my pocket. Then I elected to go to summer school the next year, and then when I was an 11th grader, I made sure not to fail any classes. They allowed certain extracurriculars to be credited, so if I was in the school play after school, it counted as an elective and then I could take an additional ELA course. And then I took two courses at the community college when I was an 11th grader, and I got all my credits for graduation at the end of my 11th grade year. 

Wow!

I didn't do that because I was smarter than other kids. I graduated high school a year early, but it was through the support of  an educator who helped me learn that there's a system here that can be navigated, and here's how you navigate it honestly and take advantage of everything that's around you, so that you can get what you want, which for me at the time was getting out of high school early. I made it up myself because I was taking some college in my 11th grade year, the same time when I was in high school, which is similar to here, but I wasn't able to do it—I did all the work—but I wasn't able to do it alone. I did it because there was someone who was there to help me. 

Amazing. Okay, so now we're onto the wild card section. 

Ok wild card let’s go.

You say you're from San Jose—

San Jose, California.

West coast or East Coast? [He sighs deeply]. The fated question!

Whenever I'm in California, I say to myself, “I know how to live here, I know how to do this.” And then when I come back to New York, I feel like this is my home. Like I'll never leave New York City. Actually, if we're gonna talk about a whole coast, West Coast. If we’re gonna talk about a place I want to live forever, New York City.

Easy. 

Yes. 

Okay, if you could teach any BHSEC elective, what would it be? 

I would teach a course on restorative justice!

Great! And that's what you did your PhD on?

That’s what I did my doctoral research on, yeah. 

Amazing. What is something about you that might surprise people? 

Ohhh. I don’t know…y’know, I like to eat. Carol [Turitz] was making fun of me today because of how many sandwiches I ate. There are very few foods I don't like, but two of them are celery and cucumbers. I don't know why, and I like vegetables, but for some reason I cannot stand celery and cucumbers. 

I can agree with you on half of that. I'm really not a celery person, but I love a good cucumber. 

I was gonna say I feel like that’s a boring example. 

I mean, they are like 90% water.

They are, but really, really bad tasting water. 

Ok…do you like pickles though? 

I love pickles.

Great [prepare for a pickle tangent].

In fact, I was here on Saturday until like 9 o'clock at night and then in the middle of that giant rainstorm, I was on the way into Katz's deli and I got a pastrami sandwich and I asked them to double the pickles. 

Of course. It's the only way. Have you ever been to the Pickle Guys? 

Yeah, of course! Right over here? [He gestures in a direction that may or may not point towards Grand Street].

Duh!

Yeah, they have a spicy pineapple. It’s incredible. 

I looove their pickled pineapple. And their mango is really good too, if you’re going for fruit. Okay, pickle sidebar over.  If you could eat dinner with two famous people dead or alive, who would you choose? 

Oh god, that one’s hard. Two famous people dead or alive…give me a sec [he is deeply concentrating].

Of course. This is an important question. 

Kendrick Lamar and John Coltrane. 

Oooh, okay. Two music people!

Both very experimental musicians in their own field. Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize for Music and I actually think John Coltrane did too. [aside to Canty] Would you mind googling that? Did John Coltrane win the Pulitzer Prize? [We both laugh at the amount of people we’ve roped into this interview]. But y’know Kendrick Lamar is like this pop musician, but he puts a lot of layered, textured meaning into what he's saying. 

[Canty] In 2007 [Note: this was a posthumous special citation].

He did? Knew it! [He claps]. So these are two experimental musicians who were born and raised in marginalized societies and suffered through some of the worst aspects of that marginalization, who then became artists, and they did it in different, very inventive new ways. 

Amazing. 

Together, one living and one dead. 

I love that answer. Okay, on another music note. What three songs could you listen to on repeat?

Well Justin [points to him, standing outside his office] right here was coming down the hallway and he said something and I said MUSTAAAAAARD—I love that song. What is that song called? [He says to Justin, before starting to sing]. Turn this tv off, turn this tv off…

Oh that’s what it’s called! [Ms. Canty and I say in unison] 

tv off!! I love that song. Ummm there’s a…[he picks up his phone and opens Apple Music]...I’m not good with the names of the songs, I’m ok with the words…it’s A Tribe Called Quest. Hang on one second…[he continues to scroll through music]...Check the Rhime. 

Let's hear it [I say as he turns his phone up to max volume, then he walks over to his speaker]. Oh boy, we’ve got Sonos going!

[Canty] I know that one! 

[Check the Rhime is now blasting through the main office]. That’s my song. And then uhhh…[he turns down the music so that he can focus on his final pick, still surfing through apple music]. 

Hang on, hang on, I'm gonna get it. [A buttery cello suddenly replaces A Tribe Called Quest on the speaker]. This is Yo-Yo Ma playing Cello Suite No. 1 in G major by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Amazing.

That's my last one. 

Nice range there! Okay, as an homage to Lizzie and Louise's beloved teacher features, they would always end with this question: If you were a cupcake, what would you be? [He laughs].

Like what flavor would I be? Umm carrot. It’s got the most stuff in it.

Would it have walnuts or like—

Absolutely walnuts, raisins, all of it.

All of it! Cream cheese frosting?

Yes obviously. 

The only way!

As I leave his office, I thank Dr. Pew for taking time out of his certainly busy schedule to talk with me. I recall waiting in the main office before the interview and Ms. Turitz saying “Welcome to Bard, we keep you busy.” I propose changing our motto to “Bard, a place to think: we keep you busy,” and Dr. Pew seems to approve. After our party of two became a party of five, it seems that Dr. Pew’s office really is the hottest club in town. Music is played from K-Dot to J. S. Bach, Dr. Pew is no longer a stranger, and we’ve learned that everything really is connected to everything.