Princeton Day School
The award was presented at the Annual Dinner in New York City. Read Cindy's poignant acceptance speech from that evening. Judith Fox, former Head of School at Princeton Day School, had the honor of introducing the recipient:
"Good evening. My name is Judy Fox and I have recently retired after having been Head of Princeton Day School for six years.
It is delicious irony that I have the honor of introducing this year's Ken White Award recipient. You see, apart from a budget in deficit, I am probably a business officer's worst nightmare. I still think COLA is a soft drink and LIBOR is what happens to a pregnant Austrailian. When this year's honoree, Cindy Stadulis, met with me for our annual budget development marathons, she was ever-alert for the "tell" – the sign I was approaching data-overload. Given my limited capacity for relishing numerical detail, this was predicted to happen in about 13 minutes!
And yet, often two hours later, I was still engrossed in Cindy's presentation. She has a knack for embedding the "big idea," the educational importance of budget decisions, into the facts and figures she developed. She found the "hook" to keep me connected to an aspect of her work that required my total commitment, for the sake of the students, the faculty and the very future of the school.
The "x's" and "o's" of Cindy's career are posted online as part of the announcement of her selection. And they are formidable! She is accomplished in financial management, building construction and maintenance, navigating the shoals of state and local regulatory agencies, developing emergency and crisis plans, researching insurance, labor law, purchasing agreements, food services, housing provisions, financial aid programs, athletic and recreation facilities, and on and on. If it comes up and needs doing and doesn't clearly fit into a typical school category, it lands on Cindy's desk. And I have never heard her say other than, "Of course; I'd be glad to."
Among the more anecdote-worthy of such circumstances are:
Giving permission to a ballooning club to take off and land on school property
Reviewing security tapes, CSI-style, after a break-in
Handling a call from an angry neighbor about a 2 A.M. party next door in faculty housing
Managing a complaint by one teacher in faculty housing against another whose barbecuing on a common patio released noxious odors
Untangling the complexities of a 14 year old sexual harassment complaint leveled by one staff member against another, with all the alleged witnesses no longer at the school
And that was just in 05-06!
Many of the people in this room hold positions equally challenging. So to introduce Cindy I'd like to describe what distinguishes her for me. It derives as much from how she works as from what she does. Two qualities are hard to quantify because there are seldom reports or studies that explore them. They are honor and compassion.
Cindy both has and confers honor. She is a woman of deep personal integrity that defines her. Her reports are thorough and all-inclusive, even when the news is hard to hear. She owns ALL her decisions, including those she wishes she'd made differently. She is your loyal colleague by default. And you have to work hard to shake her belief in you or in what you do. With respect to decisions affecting people, Cindy's sense of fairness matters most. She cares deeply about equity in the school, and she enriches administrative discussions with that point of view.
As for compassion, about the only thing that could override Cindy's sense of fairness is her empathy for those struggling with painful life circumstances and striving to help themselves. She would work tirelessly for an employee returning from an illness or a single parent who needed an extended payment plan for tuition. As much as she is driven by reason and logic, so she is driven by care and concern for those who depend on her.
We all know that there are many in this room worthy of recognition for the fine work you do for your schools. Cindy is an exemplar of your expertise and commitment to excellence. And a fine one she is! She does you proud, representing you all and wearing the mantle passed along by previous winners and by Ken White, himself.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is with honor, pride, joy and great affection that I present to you, Cindy Stadulis."