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Educator Jill Swisher Muti '84 Profiled in South Carolina Newspaper

Educator Jill Swisher Muti '84 Profiled in South Carolina Newspaper

May 20, 2006

Jill Swisher MutiMay 20, 2006, Greencastle, Ind. - Jill Swisher Muti, head of school at Ashley Hall, "went to DePauw University, where she majored in flute performance and English literature and spent time studying abroad in Austria," notes an article in today's Post and Courierof Charleston, South Carolina. Ashley Hall is an independent college preparatory school located in Charleston.

For Muti, a 1984 graduate of DePauw University, playing an instrument "was and still is a defining part of my life. The way I process information and the world around me is through my music and books," she tells the newspaper, which notes that Muti -- who has a masters degree in musicology from Duke University -- still plays professionally.

The profile describes how, at age 26, Muti became the chairwoman of the fine arts department at Ravenscroft School in Raleigh, N.C., "and led projects that included building a new fine arts center and establishing a guild to support the school's arts activities. In 2001, she was named assistant head of the school. As such, she chaired Ravenscroft's strategic planning committee, led the faculty hiring process and ran the school's accreditation process."

Muti has been leading Ashley Hall -- an all-girls school founded by Mary Vardrine McBee 96 years ago -- since July 2004. "What (McBee) wanted for women was that they could go directly from a school like Ashley Hall and be placed at the best schools in the country. So she built this curriculum based on classical education. Ashley Hall has been true to that mission of preparing students extremely well in a single-sex environment for college through a classical education." Muti adds, "Having a sense of the history of the school, it's been easier for me to chart a course for the school in terms of where we'll be going. The question for us is, how do we take that classically based education and model it for the 21st century?"

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