Hawken School is an independent, coeducational, college preparatory day school in Northeast Ohio. Hawken currently has two main campuses, the Lower and Middle Schools in Lyndhurst and the Upper School in Chester Township, plus a third, an urban campus in

University Circle University Circle is a district in the neighborhood of University on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio. One of America's densest concentrations of cultural attractions and performing arts venues, it includes such world-class institutions as the C ...

, The Sally & Bob Gries Center for Experiential and Service Learning, which is utilized by all grade levels. Hawken's motto is quoted from

John Lancaster Spalding John Lancaster Spalding (June 2, 1840 – August 25, 1916) was an American author, poet, advocate for higher education, the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria from 1877 to 1908 and a co-founder of The Catholic University of Ameri ...

's ''Education and the Higher Life'': "That the better self shall prevail, and each generation introduce its successor to a higher plane of life"; although a sign with the secondary motto, "Fair Play," hangs in every classroom on either campus. A new middle school complex at the Lyndhurst campus was built for the 2006–07 school year. Construction on the Gates Mills campus finished in 2016, marking the opening of Stirn Hall. D. Scott Looney is the current Head of School, having assumed the position on July 1, 2006.Hawken School. "Meet the Head of School." Hawken School. Accessed January 20, 2012. https://www.hawken.edu/headofschool.

History

The school's founder and namesake, James A. Hawken, opened his school for boys in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

's Hough neighborhood in 1915.Hawken School. "History." Hawken School. Accessed November 25, 2012. http://www.hawken.edu/history?rc=0. First housed at 1572 Ansel Road, the school later moved to 1588 Ansel Road, shortly before relocating to its current Lyndhurst campus in 1922. Because James Hawken believed in one-on-one education for the boys at his school, the original building on the Lyndhurst campus, now containing part of the middle school, has many rooms designed to seat between eight and ten boys."Chapel Grappel." Chapel Grapple. Hawken School, Cleveland. 2011. Speech. Later, in 1961, the school added a 325-acre high school campus in Chester Township, housing formerly grades 10 through 12, and now also grade 9. The school became coed in 1975. In the fall of 2006, Lincoln Hall was added on to the Middle School, adding much-needed classroom space. In the fall of 2009, Hawken commenced a tablet computer program for grade 6 which later spread throughout the middle and high schools. The Sally & Bob Gries Center for Experiential and Service Learning (also called The Gries Center), located in

, opened on August 29, 2010. In the summer of 2011, the

preschool A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary sch ...

underwent a renovation. Additionally, due to increased enrollment, the school has renovated the lower school building, adding 5,540 square feet of space into the 2nd and 3rd grade area, as well renovating 8,125 square feet of space. Changes included the addition of a new classroom to the

Kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th ce ...

and 1st grades; renovations to the performing arts classrooms as well as the addition of a fourth classroom; relocation and remodeling of a science classroom; restoration of the main lobby and exterior remodeling. The new Hurwitz Hall's construction finished in August 2013.Hawken School. "Announcing Hurwitz Hall." Hawken School. Accessed May 10, 2013. https://www.hawken.edu/LYproject. In late 2013, Hawken announced plans for a $24.5m renovation of the Gates Mills campus, Stirn Hall. Designed by architectural firm Westlake, Reed, Leskosky, the project would bring the academic complex to 106,000 square feet. This project finished in the fall of 2016, with the grand opening on August 20–21. Hawken has long-standing rivalries with the three other founding members of the Cleveland Council of Independent Schools:

Laurel School Laurel School is a private school for girls in Shaker Heights, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1896 by Jennie Prentiss and operates on two campuses; the Lyman Campus in Shaker Heights and the Butler Campus in Novelty. Notable alumnae ...

Hathaway Brown School Hathaway Brown, commonly referred to as HB, is an all-girls private school located in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The school serves pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students. Hathaway Brown is a member of the National Coalition of Girls' Schools, ...

, and

University School University School, commonly referred to as US, is an all-boys, private, Junior Kindergarten–12 school with two campus locations in the Greater Cleveland area of Ohio. The campus located in Shaker Heights serves junior kindergarten through eigh ...

Athletics

Ohio High School Athletic Association State Championships

* Girls

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

- 2013 * Girls Track - 1999, 2000 * Girls

Swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

- 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 * Boys

- 1988, 1989, 2017, 2021 * Boys

- 1977, 1978 * Boys Soccer – 2000

Accreditation and membership

*Accredited,

Independent Schools Association of the Central States Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independen ...

*Accredited,

Ohio State Board of Education Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

*Member,

National Association for College Admission Counseling The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), founded in 1937, is an organization of more than 25,000 professionals from around the world dedicated to serving students transitioning from secondary to postsecondary education. ...

*Member,

National Association of Independent Schools The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) is a U.S.-based membership organization for private, nonprofit, K-12 schools. Founded in 1962, NAIS represents independent schools and associations in the United States, including day, boa ...

*Member, Ohio Association for College Admission Counseling *Member, College Board

Notable alumni

William Bayer William Bayer (pronounced “byer”) is an American novelist, the author of twenty-one books including '' The New York Times'' best-sellers ''Switch'' and ''Pattern Crimes.'' Bayer has written a series of novels featuring fictional New York Pol ...

, 1953, Edgar Award-winning crime fiction writer * Charles B. Bolton, 1927, dentist * G. Armour Craig, American academic and president of Amherst College * William Daroff, 1986, Jewish community leader * Steven M. Dettelbach, 1984,

United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...

for the Northern District of Ohio * Kenyon Farrow, 1993, award-winning writer, journalist, and social justice activist *

Alexis Floyd Alexis Floyd (born December 22, 1993) is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Neff in the Netflix series ''Inventing Anna''. Early years and education Alexis Floyd was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, in a musical family. Her mot ...

, actress, best known for role of Neff in

Inventing Anna ''Inventing Anna'' is an American drama television miniseries created and produced by Shonda Rhimes, inspired by the story of Anna Sorokin and the article in ''New York'' titled "How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People" by Jessica Pres ...

, Netflix series * A. Marc Gillinov, 1980, heart surgeon at

Cleveland Clinic Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit American academic medical center based in Cleveland, Ohio. Owned and operated by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, an Ohio nonprofit corporation established in 1921, it runs a 170-acre (69 ha) campus in Cleveland, ...

, Judith Dion Pyle Chair in Heart Valve Research at Cleveland Clinic * Richard J. Green, 1983, American chemist known for his work against

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

denial * Peter Harrold, 2002, professional ice hockey player in the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

Scott Healy Scott Healy is an American pianist, keyboardist and composer best known as the keyboardist for Conan O'Brien. He was the keyboard player for the Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band on '' Conan'' on TBS. His association with O'Brien dates back t ...

, 1978, keyboardist for The Max Weinberg 7 * Roberta A. Kaplan, 1984, lawyer *

Arthur Laffer Arthur Betz Laffer (; born August 14, 1940) is an American economist and author who first gained prominence during the Reagan administration as a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981–1989). Laffer is best known for the La ...

, 1955, economist * Jim Margolis, 1989, Emmy Award-winning producer * O.J. McDuffie, 1988, professional football player in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

* Mark Moyar, 1989, military historian, professor, former USAID official, author of (inter alia) ''Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965'' (2006) * Alan B. McElroy, 1978, screenwriter *

Nick Minchin Nicholas Hugh Minchin (born 15 April 1953) is a former Australian politician and former Australian Consul-General in New York, USA. He previously served as a Liberal member of the Australian Senate representing South Australia from July 1993 t ...

, 1971,

Australian Senator The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. There are a ...

and Minister for Finance and Administration *

Molly Shannon Molly Helen Shannon (born September 16, 1964) is an American actress and comedian who was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1995 to 2001. In 2017, she won the Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in ...

, 1983, actress * Justine Siegal, baseball coach. * Melanie Valerio, 1987, 1996 Olympic gold medalist in swimming *

Nico Walker Nicholas Walker (born April 19, 1985) is an American author and US Army veteran who served time in prison for bank robbery. His semi-autobiographical debut novel, ''Cherry'', was published by Alfred A. Knopf on August 14, 2018. Career From 2005 ...

, 2003, best-selling author and bank robber * Evan Wright, 1983, writer for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' and '' Vanity Fair''

References

External links

Official site
{{authority control Educational institutions established in 1915 Independent School Association of the Central States Preparatory schools in Ohio High schools in Cuyahoga County, Ohio High schools in Geauga County, Ohio Private K-12 schools in Ohio Private high schools in Ohio Private middle schools in Ohio Private elementary schools in Ohio 1915 establishments in Ohio