Deerfield Appoints Andover Dean as First Woman Head
The News Staff
Deerfield Academy has lured a senior administrator from Andover to serve as its new Head of School starting next year.
Dr. Margarita O’Byrne Curtis, the current Dean of Studies at Andover, will succeed Eric Widmer, who has been headmaster at Deerfield since 1994.
“I am delighted and honored to join such a thriving, dynamic and caring community of learners. I look forward to the opportunity to lead a school with such a distinguished heritage and promising future,” Dr. Curtis said in a statement.
Dr. Curtis, a Spanish teacher by training, came to Andover in 1986, according to a report in The (Andover) Phillipian. She was appointed Language Department Head in 1997 and became Dean of Studies in 2004. The Dean of Studies position is the equivalent of Choate’s Dean of Academic Affairs, the position currently held by Kathleen Wallace.
She will be the first female head of school in Deerfield’s 209-year history. The school only began admitting female students in 1989.
“To Deerfield she will bring the highest qualities of leadership, character, and intellect,” Mr. Widmer said in a statement. “She is a rare scholar/educator with skills to inspire, to lead, and to manage a diverse educational community like Deerfield.”
Dr. Curtis, a native of Colombia, graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans and subsequently obtained a Ph. D. in Romance Languages and Literature from Harvard University. Before coming to Andover, she was a professor at Harvard for four years.
Mr. Widmer, Deerfield’s current Headmaster, will step down from his post in June to be the founding Head of School of King’s Academy in Jordan. The school, financed by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, a Deerfield alumnus, is designed to be the Middle East’s first New England-type boarding school. The 600-student school will be modeled after Deerfield.
Originally contacted about the job by Deerfield representatives early last summer, Dr. Curtis initially had no interest in the position, she told The Phillipian. But in late October, she was persuaded by the Search Committee to express interest in the position, and was ultimately chosen over two other finalists.
“The whole thing was very last-minute,” Dr. Curtis told the newspaper.
