Staff Summer Professional Development

Stories from the Field

Logan Staff Summer Professional Development

This summer, several Logan faculty took their curiosity beyond campus. Susan Maclay attended Math in the Mountains; Amber Rudeen participated in the Colorado Open Lands Conservation Leadership Series; John Shoe returned to the NAIS School Leadership Institute as a faculty member; and Katie Peterson joined the CERN International High School Teacher Program.  Across very different fields, each said their experiences provided fresh pathways to think about teaching, learning, and leadership at Logan.

CERN’s 2026 International High School Teacher Program
Katie Peterson, OOBEE

Did you know that the biggest experiment ever built by human beings is in Switzerland? It's called the Large Hadron Collider, or the LHC for short, and Katie Peterson, one of our OOBEEs, got to see it in person this summer at CERN. CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, operating the world's largest particle physics laboratory near Geneva, on the border of France and Switzerland.

After a competitive application process, Katie was selected as one of just thirty-four high school physics teachers from twenty-four countries to take part in CERN's 2026 International High School Teacher Program. Throughout July, the group learned directly from scientists actively engaged in research and innovation at the cutting edge of their fields.

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They also went on field trips. Her cohort visited the world's only antimatter factory, a clean room where engineers are building the trigger for the upgraded CMS particle detector, the control room for the ATLAS experiment, and much, much more.

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“It was incredibly exciting to work with committed educators from around the world,” Peterson said, “I particularly enjoyed working with my small study group of teachers from Kyrgyzstan, Chile, France, and Brazil.” Guided by a team of educational researchers, the cohort worked together to translate abstract concepts in physics, engineering, and computer science into hands-on experiences for students in the classroom.

While Katie expected to collaborate with extraordinary colleagues, the culture at CERN itself proved exceptionally inspiring. She was repeatedly struck by the generosity of spirit of the individual researchers, who gave freely of their time to answer endless questions, not only in lectures and on field trips, but in hours-long conversations over dinner, or in mind-blowing insights shared between rounds of bowling and pizza.

CERN's mandate is rooted in the belief that scientific inquiry should benefit all of humanity. Its experiments have produced groundbreaking discoveries in fundamental physics, including the famous Higgs particle. In the process of making these discoveries, CERN's scientific community has developed technologies that benefit everyone. 

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web at CERN, and his lab's data infrastructure helped shape the early internet. CERN scientists also developed the technology behind life-saving PET/CT imaging and invented Timepix pixel detectors, which improve the targeting of proton and ion beam radiation therapy for cancer patients. Scientific teams at CERN have advanced superconductivity and computer chip technology as well, and researchers are currently testing AI and machine learning algorithms that will analyze the raw data from particle collisions, occurring at a rate of 40 million bunch crossings per second, with future systems expected to process data equivalent to a quarter of all 2025 global internet traffic in seconds. CERN does all this, while maintaining a stated commitment to environmental sustainability.

CERN's culture of commitment to open source, open science, and data sharing left a lasting impression. In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, remarked that “CERN is a model in miniature of the rest of the world in a few years time.” Katie is so grateful to have had the chance to glimpse that future firsthand this past summer, and is looking forward to bringing these experiences into student unit support and OOBEE trips.

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‍National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Summer Leadership Institute (SLI) 
John Shoe, Lead of Innovative Programming & SLI Faculty

This summer, John, our Lead of Innovative Programming, joined the faculty of the National Association of Independent Schools’ (NAIS) School Leadership Institute (SLI), an intensive three-day program that helps school leaders examine their leadership styles, identify strengths, and consider areas for growth across five key facets of independent school leadership.

The opportunity marked a return to SLI for John, who participated in the institute in 2024. John shared that the experience had a lasting impact on his leadership practice, and after six years in a leadership role at Logan, he was eager to bring what he had learned to a new group of school leaders. When NAIS announced that it was seeking faculty for the institute, John applied. Following several rounds of interviews, he was selected from a pool of more than 100 candidates.

The faculty role offered a different perspective on the institute. Rather than sitting among school leaders from across the country, John was helping facilitate their exploration of leadership identity, strengths, and growth. The participants represented a wide range of independent schools and leadership roles, creating opportunities for John to build relationships and connections across the broader independent school community.

The experience also offered a reminder of something John values about teaching: educators learn alongside the people they teach. As he worked with participants to articulate their own leadership identities, he was also refining his understanding of his own.

That learning took place in some very new territory. At one point, John found himself presenting to a ballroom filled with roughly 100 school leaders, a very different audience from the students and colleagues he is accustomed to addressing at Logan. The experience required him to approach his role in a new way, and ultimately reinforced the value of authenticity in leadership.

By the end of the institute, John had returned to the central questions that guide his work as a leader and teacher. The experience gave him new connections within the independent school community, a renewed perspective on his own leadership, and fresh energy for the year ahead at Logan.