St Margaret’s-McTernan School To Be Chase Collegiate School

WATERBURY — The Board of Trustees of St Margaret’s-McTernan School announced at an all-school assembly that the school is changing its name to Chase Collegiate School, effective July 1.

“The Board of Trustees has unanimously voted to move St Margaret’s-McTernan School into the next phase of its distinguished history,” said Fern Feldman, chair of the Board of Trustees. The school, in its present form, was established by the 1972 merger of St Margaret’s School (for girls) and The McTernan School (for boys.) The hyphenated name was a compromise and served the purpose of recognizing two very prominent institutions, but the name never really reflected the school’s mission as a unified pre-K through twelfth grade, nonreligious independent day school. The Chase Collegiate School name more aptly describes the school and its students it serves. Currently, there are 440 students, from nearly 50 Connecticut towns, enrolled on the 47-acre campus.

The name Chase Collegiate School recalls the prominent Chase family, founders of St Margaret’s School and McTernan School. “Collegiate” was the original name of the institution — established in 1865 — Collegiate Institute for Young Ladies, located in Waterbury. Chase is an important name in the history of Waterbury, the country, and in the school’s heritage. Augustus Sabin Chase and Frederick Chase, whose manufacturing expertise and wide range of philanthropic and social activities served many corners of the Waterbury community, valued the combination of academic rigor and character development as preparation for higher education — elements still central to the school’s mission. The blending of Chase Collegiate is a succinct way to describe St Margaret’s-McTernan School in the future — a school that combines the best of its rich heritage with a vision for tomorrow’s students.

The name change is only one component of the school’s strategic plan, which includes a long-range vision and campus master plan. John Fixx, headmaster, said, “We are changing our name but not our identity. We’ll continue our commitment to lifelong learning, personal achievement, and contribution to the community. We have a long, distinguished 140-year history, and our new name celebrates it.”

For more than a year, the School Name Committee, led by alumna and Waterbury native Judith Kellogg Rowley, conducted in-depth marketing, branding, and public relations analyses to determine whether the St Margaret’s-McTernan name still accurately describes the mission and future goals of the school. The School Name Committee, comprised of all sectors of the school’s community, unanimously recommended to the Board of Trustees that a new name, culled from the school’s venerable heritage, would best support the school’s plans for the future.

“The School Name Committee deliberated for months on this historic change for the school and ultimately decided that it was time to usher in a new era in the life of this dynamic school,” said Mrs Rowley.

“In making this historic change, our trustees are doing what their predecessors did many times during the past century and a half: they have taken a bold step at a critical moment to ensure that we can continue to give our students the best possible education,” said Maggie Smith, alumna of St Margaret’s class of 1969 and member of the School Name Committee.