Teacher, historian named new BU Academy headmaster

James Tracy, a highly successful secondary-school teacher and historian whose work has received national attention, will become headmaster of Boston University Academy July 1, BU President Jon Westling announced recently. Since 1999, Tracy has been serving as an adjunct professor of history at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and an assistant to BU Chancellor John Silber.

Tracy will replace Jennifer Hickman, who has been acting head of the private secondary school for gifted students since Peter Schweich -- the former BU vice president who launched the school in 1993 -- stepped down last summer.

James Tracy, author, history teacher, and assistant to BU Chancellor John Silber, will become headmaster of BU Academy this summer. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

"Jim Tracy is an outstanding teacher and educator," Westling says. "He has an extraordinary gift for working with talented students in a highly competitive and demanding academic community. Dr. Tracy's vision of how to combine the pursuit of intellectual excellence with cultivation of good character is compelling. He is a splendid teacher who is answering the call to build a better independent school."

Tracy taught history for six years at the private Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn., before being hired by Silber last fall to assist him on several writing projects. From 1994 to 1995 he was a visiting fellow in Yale University's history department. Currently, he teaches a history course at UMass-Boston entitled Socrates, Jesus, and Buddha.

A native of Boston, Tracy received a bachelor's degree in history and religion from UMass-Boston in 1984 and a Ph.D. in American history from Stanford University in 1993. His 1996 book, Direct Action -- a history of radical pacifism in the United States from World War II to the civil rights movement -- was nominated for the American Historical Association's award for best book of the year in American history and is currently being adapted into a documentary film.

A thoughtful man whose philosophical bent is evident when he speaks, Tracy says he became dedicated to teaching and to furthering independent schools out of a concern to "ensure the sense of democratic, civic responsibility in America." He says he recognized immediately that the strength of BU Academy is its first-rate faculty. "The caliber of teachers at BU Academy is, perhaps more than anything, what drew me to the school," he says. "They have strong training, and in addition to being scholars in their own right, they are uniformly committed to being in the classroom and connecting with students. That esprit de corps is essential, and it's rare. And the students here are a teacher's dream: hard working, focused, well trained and bright."

BU Academy provides students in grades 8 through 12 with a classical education emphasizing the humanities, science, and math. In the first two years at the Academy, all students complete the same courses, which are taught in an interdisciplinary manner. As high school juniors, the students take a BU class in biology and either a classical or modern language, and as seniors they complete a full BU freshman course load. The school currently enrolls 95 students. This year, the median combined SAT score for seniors is 1420.

Tracy was also drawn to BU Academy, he says, because of the way its rigorous academic curriculum is blended with an attention to personal character development, which he says is essential to implanting in students what he described in a recent essay as a "commitment to republican virtue."

"I think that a classical education, fundamentally, can and must be a humanizing education," he says. "Mere skill development is necessary but not sufficient. Students need to be given a sense of their responsibility to their larger society, and to those less fortunate. Otherwise, a classical education is a pointless exercise."

Tracy has been present at the Academy for the last month, overseeing admissions and hiring faculty. He says that as headmaster he will aim "to get the word out about the excellence of BU Academy to the greater Boston community" and to build an endowment for the school. "That would allow me to do a lot of faculty development, which is necessary if we're going to retain the best teachers. It will also provide more money for scholarships, which will help us to diversify the student body." Tracy says he will also aim to integrate the Academy "institutionally and culturally" more fully with BU, including having more members of the University faculty visit the school regularly as guest speakers.

In commenting on Tracy's appointment, Westling says, "BU Academy is one of several important steps that Boston University has taken to address the need for better high school education in the United States. Along with the BU-Chelsea Partnership, the rigorous undergraduate and graduate programs in the School of Education, and the important projects that BU has undertaken to assist the Boston public schools, BU Academy is part of the University's wide-ranging commitment to improving American secondary education. I am confident that as headmaster, Jim Tracy will make BU Academy a national model for secondary education of highly talented students."