Principal for a Day

Salvadori board members take over the administrative reins in this annual outreach program.

By Michael Bettencourt, Administrative Director • For a PDF version of this article, click here • Posted October 24, 2006

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On Thursday, October 19, 2006, the Salvadori Center partnered with PENCIL (Public Education Needs Civic Involvement In Learning) to sponsor several Salvadori Board members in PENCIL's Principal for a Day program.

Principal For A Day is PENCIL’s flagship partnership program. Each fall PENCIL mobilizes hundreds of New York business leaders from all five boroughs to experience first-hand the accomplishments of and challenges facing our City's public schools. The goal of the program is for participants to translate their one-day experiences into long-term relationships that enhance the learning environments at their schools and support student achievement.

Principal Linda Pough, Mysore Nagaraja,
and Dr. Leonisa Ardizzone meet with
two young scholars at PS 52Q.

Salvadori Board Member Mysore Nagaraja, President of Metropolitan Transportation Authority Capital Construction Authority, visited PS 52Q in Queens with Salvadori Executive Director Leonisa Ardizzone.

Mysore Nagaraja speaks
with students at PS 52Q.

Greeted by two students and Principal Linda Pough, Mr. Nagaraja began the day making the school announcements and participating in the pledge of allegiance. He then visited several classrooms to observe lessons and speak with students. Students were excited by his work, which involves overseeing all of the major capital construction projects of the MTA, such as the Second Avenue subway. He spoke knowledgably and simply about what it takes to build and maintain the subway network, and promised to see if he could arrange field trips for the students and staff to MTA construction sites.

Pablo Neruda Academy welcomed Salvadori Board member Jay Cross, President of the New York Jets. Hosted by Salvadori architect-educator Janny Gédéon, Mr. Cross first met with co-directors Harriet Gribben and Dina Heisler before taking a tour of the school.

Harriet Gribben, Co-Director; Mr. Jay Cross; Dina Heisler, Co-Director; and Janny Gédéon, Salvadori Architect-Educator.

L to R: Harriet Gribben, Co-Director;
Jay Cross; Dina Heisler, Co-Director;
and Janny Gédéon,
Salvadori Architect-Educator.

While at the school, he met with students to talk with them about what it was like to run a major sports franchise. He pointed how important it was to be prepared to tackle life head-on, not only in terms of a formal education but also by cultivating more intangible but equally important aspects, such as patience, a sense of humor, and a clear sense of what one is supposed to accomplish in life.

In his own interactions he showed himself open and relaxed, fielding the inevitable questions about the coming prospects of the Jets but also sensitive to the concerns of being a young person in today's society.

Other Salvadori Board members who participated in Principal for a Day were Leonard Fusco of GF55 Partners (at East Bronx Academy for the Future) and J. Robert Mann of E.J. Electric Installation Co. (at School for the Physical City).

For more information about Principal for a Day, please contact the Salvadori Center at thecenter@salvadori.org.

Mission of the Salvadori Center: Our founder, Mario Salvadori, a world-renowned structural engineer, believed that the built environment held all the knowledge that a person needed to be an intelligent and active member of the community. What teachers need to make this knowledge available to their students are tools with which they can “unpack” the knowledge embedded in the built environment.

The Salvadori Center gives these tools to teachers and students through a pedagogy grounded in what it calls “project-based, hands-on/minds-on activities” that employ the principles of architecture, engineering, and the design process. Through this method, teachers and their students can unlock the math, science, art, and humanities embodied in the structures and systems that surround them.