“My father was a teacher and coach for a long, long time. My sister is an educator. My wife is an educator. So there’s a lot of teachers in our family.”

As an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Turner studied public policy, environmental studies, and business; however, this early exposure to education prompted him to consider teaching as a second career. “But my second career came five years after college,” laughed Mr. Turner.

Even though Mr. Turner does not work directly in the fields he studied as an undergraduate, he reveals that his studying public policy and urban studies has informed the work he does as a school administrator. He admits that as a student at Germantown Academy, he was never really exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints or experiences, something that he now believes is an essential part of any young person’s development. He notes that it was his time living in West Philadelphia that finally allowed him to broaden his world view. However, he hopes that by expanding diversity and inclusion efforts at Shipley, current students will not have to wait until college to get this same experience.

“I think getting comfortable with our lack of comfort… realizing that it’s actually okay to always want to do better… the idea of leaning into discomfort and embracing that as a strength, I think is really important,” reflects Mr. Turner.

Similarly, Mr. Turner expresses concern over the growing amounts of stress students experience and hopes that in the future, Shipley can promote a healthier school-life balance. He notes that technology can play a role in this lack of balance as well, stating “with this phone in my pocket, I could work 24 hours a day if I chose to.”

Mr. Turner’s instillation on September 20 was centered around the theme of “courage for the future,” a mantra that he believes reveals much about Shipley’s educational philosophy. “It takes courage to lean into discomfort… and that it takes grace for other people to let you do that. We need to take good care of each other and the school is a long history of doing that. It just looks a little different 2019 or 2020 that did in 1894,” reflects Turner.

Now after fully moving in and beginning to learn the names of those in the Shipley community, something that he admits has been the most challenging part of becoming a new head of school, Mr. Turner is prepared and excited for the year ahead and his time as a Gator.