Victims Decry Makeup of St. George’s Search Committee

By Bella English
Boston Globe
June 16, 2016

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/06/16/victims-decry-makeup-george-search-committee/mjs7Ur3rIjAWbAYLI3ycyN/story.html

A committee charged with finding the next leader of St. George’s School is already coming under fire for not including any victims of alleged sexual abuse at the school, the scandal that many believe led to head of school Eric Peterson’s recent decision not to seek renewal of his contract after next year.

Two weeks ago, Peterson, 50, informed trustees that he will leave by the end of the 2016-2017 school year. The Middletown, R.I., prep school has been embroiled in controversy since December, after Anne Scott and two other alumnae told of being molested or raped by athletic trainer Al Gibbs in the late 1970s.

In a letter to the school community on Thursday, Tad Van Norden, a St. George’s alumnus and trustee, introduced himself as chairman of the new search committee, which is made up of trustees, parents, faculty, and alumni. Nine of the 12 search committee members are trustees, who have also been criticized by victims for their handling of the scandal. Of the remaining three, two are faculty members and the other is cochair of the school’s Parents’ Committee.

Van Norden said the committee, aided by the executive search firm Spencer Stuart, hopes to identify candidates in the early fall, and a head of school by year’s end.

But Scott, who is co-leader of SGS for Healing, a group of victims and other supportive alumni, expressed disappointment over the composition of the committee. “It’s very disheartening — and doesn’t bode well for a successful recruitment — that the Search Committee lacks diverse alumni perspectives, does not include survivors, and has no external representation,” she said.

In his letter, Van Norden said the committee will “solicit feedback from all of our stakeholders.”

In late December, the school issued a report saying its investigator found a total of 26 students were sexually abused by six school employees, most of it in the 1970s and ’80s. But when that report was criticized for its lack of independence from the school administration, a second investigator, Martin Murphy, was selected by both the school and SGS for Healing. His report is due in late June.

Peterson, who took over as headmaster in 2004, has been criticized by survivors for what some say was his failure to handle abuse complaints.

Bella English can be reached at english@globe.com