Welcome Institute for Experiential Education Integration Design Team Members!

It is our honor to introduce the newly formed Institute for Experiential Education Integration Design Team and Project Manager. Thanks to a generous grant from the EE Ford Foundation, we have hired this outstanding part-time team, who will collaborate on a design sprint to create the new IEEI in under six months.

Our goal is to launch registration in April 2025 for an October 2025 experience tailored for school leadership teams, including Academic Deans, DEIB Directors, and Ex Ed Directors. To stay updated and be the first to know when the Institute opens, please fill out this non-binding interest form.

Welcome Barret, Cris, Lauren, and Whitney!

Design Team Members:

Dr. Barret Fabris is the Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at Lincoln School in Providence,RI where he also leads global education initiatives. Barret has a BA in History and Secondary Education from Loyola University Maryland, a Master’s from Drexel University in Global and International Education with a concentration in Peace Education, and a PhD in International Peace Studies from Trinity College, Dublin. Having been an educator for nearly two decades working in public,independent, parochial, and international school settings, Barret has been driven by two questions raised by educational theorist Henry Giroux, “How do we make education meaningful by making it critical and how do we make it critical so as to

make it emancipatory?”.

Cris Harris serves as Hawken School’s Dean of Experiential Education, where he builds and promotes learning opportunities that put the experience of the student at the center of education, including international expeditions, backcountry courses, hands-on wilderness medicine, and investigative journalism.? As an instructional coach and consultant, he helps faculty reimagine teaching and learning as transformative opportunities that break out of traditional classroom constraints.? A writer of poetry and non-fiction, his memoir I Have Not Loved You With My Whole Heart relates his experience growing up in a household marked by addiction, faith and the AIDS crisis.? He’s currently at work on a collection of essays about paradox in memory, science and religion.? His writing has been recognized with two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards for non-fiction.?

Lauren Kelley is the Upper School Head at Cascades Academy in Bend, Oregon.? In addition to serving as a classroom teacher for twenty years, Lauren has directed diverse experiential programs at a number of independent schools including global scholars, outdoor leadership, community engagement, international expeditions, and deep-dive immersives.? She builds programs that disrupt traditional education models and thereby empower teachers and students alike to rediscover themselves and their world, cultivating purpose and impact. She holds a BA in Religion and Philosophy from Vassar College and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Goucher College.??

IEEI Project Manager:

Whitney Hofacker is a lifelong experiential education enthusiast. She collaborates with organizations on designing and delivering a variety of curricular outdoor education, service-learning, global citizenship, and environmental programs. At The Athenian School, Whitney was the Dean of Experiential Education, Round Square Global Exchange & Community Engagement Associate, and Associate Director of the Athenian Wilderness Experience and host of the 2024 ISEEN Winter Institute. Most recently Whitney served as the ISEEN interim Director of Professional Learning and Programs. She currently lives in Samo?ns, France improving her French (immersion or bust!) and trying on the slow life of an alpine village.?