photo by Erika Jones
This year, Raj Mundra joins the Lick-Wilmerding High School community as the new Head of School.
Prior to LWHS, Mundra worked at Phillips Academy Andover for 28 years. He was originally a teacher and coach and eventually took on many other roles, including administrator in both the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office and Student Life office, Academic Dean and Deputy Head of School.
Originally after high school, Mundra decided to pursue pre-med in his home state of Massachusetts. However, once he graduated, he decided that he wanted to try something a little bit different before going off to medical school, so in the fall of 1991, he picked up teaching. “I didn’t know why I loved it so much,” Mundra said.
One year later, Mundra had his sights set on working in a school in India, so he headed to an international school fair where he instead found a job at a school in Switzerland. Mundra decided to pack his things and take on this new adventure overseas.
Eventually, Mundra decided not to pursue medical school. He said, “my priorities had changed.” Instead, Mundra followed a friend to New York City, where he taught at a school called St. Annes. “I was the middle school science teacher and third-grade science person mainly,” said Mundra.
By the end of the year, Mundra had made the decision to head to graduate school at Brown University to study education and biology. Along with his advisor, Ted Sizer, who was previously also a graduate school professor to LWHS Head of School at the time Al Adams, Mundra started to think about the role that independent schools serve. “[We were thinking about] what sort of graduates independent schools were producing in order to contribute back to the community,” he said.
With a graduate degree under his belt, he went back to teach at Andover. Eventually, Mundra made his way to Ocean Avenue by way of a head-of-school search firm that was doing a search for LWHS. “In my career, I have visited hundreds of schools… but there was something really unique about Lick.” he said. “Three things: sense of belonging, the design of the curriculum, and the developing an ethic of service. Belonging, design and service were all things that align with my values. ”
Although it is his first year at LWHS, his arrival has been a long time in the making. Mundra was first introduced to LWHS’ renowned motto, “a private school for a public purpose,” in 1996 at Brown University via Ted Sizer.
Currently, Mundra’s days involve a lot of work with the board, trustees, and parents. “Right now, it’s like, really learning about how we do the things that we do and why we do the things that we do,” he said.
Another large part of Mundra’s first year is learning about the LWHS community and curriculum. Mundra values community, design, curiosity and creativity in his own life and is learning how these values are applied to the LWHS curriculum. “ I am starting to see that our curriculum really values student voice,” he said.
Mundra is also excited about the possibility of (re)starting global programming. In fact, after he graduated from Brown University, Mundra moved to Mumbai for a year as a part of a program with Andover. Here, he spent time conceptualizing projects and traveling. Eventually, this is where he met his future wife.
In his time at Andover, Mundra took breaks to teach at a different school in Mumbai and a school in Mombasa, Kenya. Eventually, in 2004, Mundra forged a three-week program at Andover called Niswarth. With this program, he would take Andover students to South Asia. “The program values were humility, empathy and gratitude and we stayed in an ashram, and we worked with community organizations,” he said. The phrase of the program was familiarly titled “Head, Heart, and Hands.”
“Who knows? You know, we’re trying to restart the Senegal trip…but I think that there’s lots of opportunities,” he said in regards to the programming at LWHS.
Regardless of global programming, Mundra is really looking forward to contributing his strengths to the LWHS community. “Sometimes, one of my strengths is being a connector. And connecting different parts of the community, programmatically or even people it’s something I really like to do,” he said.
However, at the time being, Mundra is simply soaking it all in. “I’ve always liked being around smart, quirky, and talented kids who care about the world and want to make a positive difference. And, Lick, definitely has that,” he said.
When he is not at school, Mundra enjoys checking out all that the Bay has to offer. Including exploring state parks, his favorite being a small one in the peninsula.
He is really excited by the population of students at LWHS. He said, “I’m inspired by kids, being curious, by kids, designing, creating, you know different things, whether it’s the arts, you know, or the sciences, or the athletic teams or performances,” Mundra cannot wait to learn more about what makes LWHS tick. If you see him in the hallway, don’t be afraid to say hi!
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