By Will Robins

If you have walked around the Commons near Director of Global Engagement and Inclusion Erica Coffey’s office, or attended the Thanksgiving assembly, you may have noticed a relatively new face here at Collegiate. Sara Boisvert has been Collegiate’s new Director at the Powell Institute for Responsible Citizenship since she arrived in July of this year.

Photo courtesy of Sara Boisvert.

Over her career, Boisvert has worked primarily in education, including working as the Director of Admissions and Global programs at the Pingry School, a college preparatory school in New Jersey, for a collective total of over ten years, as well as working as the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at the University Liggett School in Michigan. She also worked as the Director of Global Programs at Choate Rosemary Hall, a boarding school in Connecticut, for over six years. At Choate Rosemary Hall, Boisvert served as an adviser to the Gakio-Walton International Scholars Committee, a group dedicated to supporting students from Kenya and continental Africa to Choate. Nikki Wasomi (’19), an international student, said in an article from The Choate News, “I have always admired her for her crazy good organization skills and the way she was able to juggle transport arrangements and endless meetings.”

Prior to her work in education, Boisvert acquired a bachelor’s degree in both political science and environmental studies at Middlebury College in Vermont. However, even more interestingly, she also spent two years volunteering in Tanzania for the Rift Valley Children’s Village as an Education Director and Volunteer Coordinator, which she spoke about during our Upper School Thanksgiving Assembly on Tuesday, November 26. The Rift Valley Children’s Village is a local refuge for orphaned and marginalized children. They currently house and provide care for 101 children. During her time working there from July 2007 to February 2009, Boisvert said, during her speech at the Thanksgiving assembly, she “learned more about myself than I could have imagined. It was in this space of completely immersing myself around those who were much different than me that pushed me to reconsider life-long held beliefs in a new and different way. I had to try to understand Tanzanian culture without the judgment of my western perspective and to stay open-minded to practices I did not fully understand. It was also here that I continued to unpack my understanding of my privilege of being a white woman and an American citizen.” 

As the new Director of Responsible Citizenship, Boisvert hopes to, “further the work of Responsible Citizenship and allow students to have opportunities where they can expand and challenge their current beliefs.” If you see her around campus, feel free to say hi and ask her about her adventures in Tanzania.