SAS to Celebrate New Head of School and Chapel Restoration

by Kevin Cummings, Messenger Staff Writer
Starting today (Friday) St. Andrew’s-Sewanee School will celebrate two big occasions during Upper School Family Weekend, the installation of its new head of school and restoration of St. Andrew’s Chapel.
Karl Sjolund, the new head of school, will preach during the Eucharistic installation service at 2 p.m., today (Friday), Sept. 23, at the Outdoor Altar. The Rt. Rev. John C. Bauerschmidt, Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee, will be the celebrant at the service.
Sjolund, who was previously headmaster at Salem Academy in Winston Salem, N.C., started at SAS on July 1. He said the first two months have been frenzied and exciting.
“I’m drinking water from a firehose right now and I’m still trying to figure out what’s next. But I sure am having fun doing it,” he said.
Sjolund is only the third head of school in SAS’s 35-year history.
“I’m just so pleased with how welcoming this community is, the SAS community and also the greater Sewanee community,” he said. “It’s been such a warm embrace, it really has, for both my wife and I.”
Sjolund’s wife, Susan, is the new head coach for the University of the South’s equestrian team and they have twin daughters, one at Furman University and the other at Samford University.
He said staffing at SAS is almost complete and he is looking forward to the fall meeting of the board of trustees in October.
“I inherited a tremendous team of very talented professionals and I have added a new director of admissions, Anneke Skidmore, who’s an SAS graduate,” he said.
Enrollment is up by 16 students compared to last year, with 247 students enrolled at the school. This includes 77 boarding students and 31 international students.
He said the board will discuss such issues as the next capital projects for the school, increasing staff salaries and building the scholarship fund for students who need financial help.
Sjolund said he was drawn to SAS because of the location, but also because he loves the Episcopal boarding school environment and students from all over the world coming together for an education.
“It was the people more than anything else that sold me on it,” he said. “The leadership, the faculty and probably more than anything else, the students. I thought it was an incredibly talented, kind and happy student body and that was what I was looking for.”
On Sunday, Sept. 25, at 10:30 a.m., the school will also host a special rededication service at its newly-renovated Chapel, with the Rt. Rev. Neil Alexander, dean of Sewanee’s School of Theology, presiding.
SAS raised approximately $1.35 million, with about $850,000 of that for restoration of St. Andrew’s Chapel and the rest for an endowment for operation and maintenance of the Chapel, said Tim Graham, assistant to the head of school on special projects. The building, which was consecrated in 1914, seats approximately 250 people.
Workers started the restoration of the Chapel in April and have essentially completed a number of renovations, such as replacing and repairing stucco and wood, repairing the roof, landscaping, weathering windows and doors, removing carpeting, refinishing wood floors, a new fire alarm system, replacing the shingle roof with Spanish tile, a new sound system and restoring pews and artifacts.
Graham said about 450 donors contributed to the Chapel renovation and endowment with donations ranging from small to $200,000.
“The donors represented a broad base of support for the school, which really reflects the breadth of support for that Chapel, and the importance of the Chapel,” Graham said. “People understand the importance of the Chapel in the life of the school. It really is the central building on our campus.”
The project also included repairing and waterproofing the Chapel’s bell tower, which officials will name in honor of the late Bishop Robert Tharp, a former SAS trustee.
Both the installation ceremony and Chapel rededication are open to the public.