Profile: Judith Warren Little ‘64 by Seamus Gallivan ‘96, Alumni Engagement Coordinator Judith (seated) served as editor of Park’s Literary Board in her senior year A joyful Judith in the Colorado Rockies in 1969 Judith Warren Little came to Park in 1960 for high school, seeking positive peer culture and honors-level rigor, with help from a scholarship and her mother’s role as secretary to the Head of School. Fulfilled and inspired, she embarked on a remarkable career in education and sociology and now gives back as a member of Park’s Board of Trustees with a focus on collaborative culture and programmatic rigor. “Park struck me as a perfect combination of cultivating individual talents and building community, and I still find it that way,” she said. “And that, of course, is what Mary Hammett Lewis intended when she founded the school.” With intentions of following in Lewis’ footsteps to become a teacher, Judith earned a degree in English Literature from Brown University, where she found “much of the same intellectual stimulation and sense of community I'd enjoyed at Park.” Relocating to Boulder, Colorado, she served as a sub and drove a 60-passenger school bus (in the mountains) since teaching jobs turned out to be scarce, which led her to earn a PhD in Sociology from the University of Colorado. After nine years of work in educational research, she joined the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley, eventually becoming Dean of the Graduate School of Education and remaining active in research with a publication tally of three books, 20 research reports and monographs, and 66 journal articles and book chapters. She’s also an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. “I became interested in schools that enabled, rather than impeded, the kind of environment I experienced at Park. I’ve spent my entire career studying schools, finding that even under difficult circumstances such as Covid, teachers who experience strong, collaborative relationships with expectations for learning and adaptation, first of all accomplish amazing things for their kids, and second, manage to sustain a real commitment to teaching.” Not to say she’s all work and no play - an avid sailor, Judith started on Lake Erie, raced on San Francisco Bay and bareboat chartered in Greece. In retirement, she’s taken to traveling - at the time of publishing, she’s halfway around the world, yet still actively supporting Park and reflecting on how her years as a student here propelled her passion for and career in education. “What I take away now is how much the culture supported the rigor, creating such a safe place in the classroom to be curious, confused, questioning, and trusting that, for example, if you were confused or wrong about something, you were never made to feel deficient or stupid, which I can’t say is always the case in many of the public school classrooms I've been in.” Now as a member of Park’s Board of Trustees, Judith has engaged with administrators and faculty to share her insights from a lifetime in education while helping Park stay true to its roots and branch out further. She's steering a new committee for program excellence, conceived by then school president and now Park Foundation executive director Keith Frome, who recruited her to the board. “Working with the division heads has been a highlight,” she said. “They’re so amazing, intentional, and thoughtful about the quality of teaching, their own growth, and the growth of the teachers. “I’ve been really pleased to see the spirit that I felt infused in Park when I first went there in 1960 is still infused in Park today.”
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