The Legend Is Back
Mr. Shepard invited me to his office with a big smile on his face. He has at least twice the energy of your average sleep-deprived RC student, and I believe he might have been Mr. Keating from Dead Poets Society when he was slightly younger. With his calm voice, quick wit, and crisp navy suit, he has the aura of a man who has seen it all.
If you've been around on campus, you've probably seen him walk around and chat with students. One of my first encounters with him was when he ordered "sade soda ve Eti Form" from the canteen. It was the first time I had seen a headmaster in the canteen. Indeed, he is our new headmaster. But "new" is definitely not the right word to describe his relationship with school leadership roles, Robert College or Türkiye. He has deep ties with our school and country. Born in Syria, Mr. Shepard moved to Türkiye when he was eight years old. He is the fourth-generation member of a family that has lived and worked in Türkiye and the region. His great-grandfather, the first generation, arrived in Gaziantep as a medical doctor during the Ottoman reign in the 19th century. Mr. Shepard's grandfather practiced medicine in Gaziantep's American Hospital. Consequently, Shepard's father was born in Gaziantep, and he later moved to İstanbul.
Several members of Mr. Shepard's family had close ties to or taught at Robert College. His grandmother taught English at RC. His uncle taught English at the Bebek Campus while his aunt was a French teacher at the Arnavutköy campus. Mr. Shepard started his education in Türkiye. After attending the RC Community School in Istanbul and Tarsus American College, he attended Middlebury College in Vermont, where he received his B.A. in Mathematics in 1977. After various teaching assignments in Swaziland (Peace Corps), New Hampshire, and Tarsus, he started his RC career in 1983 as a mathematics teacher.
While most of us are expected to be on the RC campus for 5 years, Mr. Shepard's RC career spanned 18 years from 1983 to 2001. He taught Mathematics, including "Math 6", the equivalent of Calculus BC. During his tenure at RC, he completed his Ed.M. in International Education at Harvard University. He started the RC Summer Camp. He became the head of the Math Department. Lastly, he became Head of Lise and served as the Lise Principal until 2001. Between 2001 and 2017, he was the Headmaster at Üsküdar American Academy, the Superintendent of SEV American High Schools, and Founding Headmaster of SEV American College. He held various teaching and leadership positions at both RC and SEV schools for a total of 34 years.
Returning back to RC as the Headmaster after 24 years, Mr. Shephard has highlighted some of the key differences between the past and the present. First, the class sizes were smaller (135 students) because RC in the past consisted of Orta and Lise sections, lasting seven years from prep years (11-year-olds11-year olds) to Lise 3 (18-year-olds18-year olds). Second, the Murat Karamancı Student Center did not exist. Instead, there used to be "the Bubble," which hosted soccer tournaments throughout the school year. The old cafeteria was where today's Commons is. Third, the students had a much stricter dress code called school uniforms, with girls wearing shirts and skirts in checked fabric (and not allowed to wear pants) while boys had to wear grey pants, white shirts, and a tie!
When asked about his plans for Robert College, Mr. Shepard highlighted a few key areas of focus for the school's future. The first initiative involves revising the student schedule. In particular, he aims to adjust the release times on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays – a change that has already received positive feedback from the RC community. The second focus is on improving the physical space and learning areas. He aims to create extra space in the Commons area, making it more comfortable and functional for students. Above all, he believes that the primary goal in improving the indoor space should be improving student learning. The third and long-term initiative is to increase the capacity of boarding students. Currently, we have approximately 200 boarding students, roughly 20% of the overall student population. The long-term objective is to increase the boarding space for students and hence increase the ratio of students from outside Istanbul.
When I was writing a differential equation on the board during my AP Physics C elective one day, I looked around and suddenly saw Mr. Shepard watching from next to the door. I felt some pressure, but thankfully, I could solve it correctly. When I looked back from the board, though, he wasn't there anymore. I guess I have to get faster.
Anyway, this made me curious about whether he misses being a teacher. When I asked if he prefers being a teacher or a headmaster, Mr. Shepard reflected on the differences between the roles. While he enjoys the challenges of leading the school, he sometimes misses being in the classroom. Being a teacher allowed him to interact directly with students. He recalled a memorable moment when a history teacher did not congratulate him on his promotion to Lise Director, saying, "The students are losing an excellent mathematics teacher." For Mr. Shepard, one of the most rewarding aspects of being a teacher in the classroom is getting to know students personally and understanding what's going on in their lives. It is much more challenging to get to know the students as a Headmaster. Nevertheless, he often visits the classes these days to get to know the teachers and the students more closely.
In terms of his personal style and the messages he's conveying to the RC community, Mr. Shepard believes that the fire drills and the flag ceremonies are important events for the school and the Turkish education culture. Mr. Shepard had a feeling that he had to repeat the fire drill, teaching the importance of maintaining silence and discipline. He is also often warning and correcting students in flag ceremonies in the same spirit. He also opposes cats wandering inside the buildings, firmly believing that the cleaning staff should not be responsible for cleaning up after them, in line with his advice of "Respecting Others", one of the three "Rs" that should be the basis of all that you do, outlined in his "Message from the Head of the School".
In the middle of our interview, Mr. Shepard's dentist called. He answered the phone, made an appointment for himself, and even made a joke about Istanbul traffic and negotiated the appointment time from 6 to 5 pm. "Eğer daha erkene almazsak orada uyumak zorunda kalacağım," he joked. Even I couldn't have made that joke. So, for anyone who thinks he doesn't speak Turkish, he certainly can joke in it!
If he could give one piece of advice to all students, Mr. Shepard says, "Have fun in your learning, and stretch yourself!" Education and true learning, he notes, can be stressful. He believes that having a little stress can be productive; indeed, it may be a signal that students are pushing themselves to try something new. "Give yourself more stress, not by being more competitive against other students. Instead, feel stress by trying something new, learning something new," he insists. He adds, "Challenge yourself so that you can reach your full potential." His final piece of advice is about the students' well-being. He reminds them to get enough sleep, often neglected by RC students during their demanding schedule.
