Head of School Dr. Lisa Kaenzig

Installation Remarks 

September 19, 2025

Thank you so much, Kyla, for that lovely introduction and for your warm welcome. Kyla and I met when I was visiting campus last September, and I was impressed then with her presence and understanding heart. It is a true privilege to lead alongside her, as she serves this year as our Student Head of School.

Standing here fills me with joy and gratitude. When I accepted the honor to become the 11th Head of Foxcroft School, it was because I believe deeply in the transformative power of an all-girls' education. That belief has shaped my career, my values, and has led me to this wonderful moment.

My early conversations with the Search Committee and the Foxcroft Board of Trustees started the process of me falling in love with this extraordinary school. At my lunch with students exactly a year ago this week, I first thought to myself: this place feels like home. This return to Virginia, to girls’ education and leadership, captured my heart then and continues to fill me with wonder and awe now.  

In that lunch with Foxcroft girls in Brick House, I felt a clear sense of being in exactly the right place, and later that same day, in a quiet moment with my partner Christine right here in Miss Charlotte’s Garden, I fully understood what our founder, Charlotte Haxall Noland, envisioned when she spoke of a school that "...girls would want to come to and hate to leave." That is exactly how I feel about this special community.

Miss Charlotte was a visionary ahead of her time. In 1914, she dared to imagine a school where girls could discover themselves. She carefully built and nurtured a community – a place rooted in belonging, in joy, and in clear purpose – a school for girls that would transform their lives at this critical stage of adolescence where everything is still possible and where the right set of educational and leadership experiences can make all the difference in the trajectories of their lives.

Miss Charlotte’s spirit remains alive here in an environment of learning that is best for girls, and that is most clearly embodied in the work of our faculty. There is magic happening in our classrooms, a special alchemy that shifts the ways our girls think about themselves and their own abilities. You can see the outcomes of that “secret sauce” in our alumnae, women whose lives transform their communities, their families, and their careers. Foxcroft’s legacy shines through its alumnae, and each of them has bloomed in ways that remind us why this place matters for our girls today and will continue to do so for generations of girls to come.

Several of our extraordinary alumnae now serve or have served on our Board of Trustees. I hope you will join me in a moment of thanks to all of the remarkable individuals who have served as Foxcroft Trustees and devote their time, their many talents and their treasure to the school they love so very much. Please stand so that we can recognize you.

Growing is part of the ethos here at Foxcroft. We look around and observe this campus alive with trees, plants and many other living creatures. Walking from Covert to Schoolhouse each morning, I remain enchanted by our garden of a campus. I watch the smiling faces of our girls headed to class, and I can see them blossoming before my eyes. It is a remarkable thing for all of us who are educators at Foxcroft – every single person who works here and is a part of this special community – to witness and to cultivate this growth in our girls.

Our faculty, administrators and staff care deeply about our students and, working together, they support extraordinary growth in our girls and also in one another. We literally grow girls here at Foxcroft. We see the roots and seeds that they bring to us in early adolescence, and we foster it, carefully guiding their growth, celebrating their triumphs and helping them learn during these critical teenage years. 

How lucky I feel to be a part of our community of “girl gardeners” here!

Gardens, of course, do not grow overnight. We are deeply grateful to our families who start the growing process in the years before they enter our campus and then entrust their daughters to our care. Our Foxcroft families give so much time and talent to fostering a sense of belonging and support for our entire school community. My deepest thanks to all of you who have current students here and to the many who are parents of alumnae and of future Foxcroft girls.

Students at Foxcroft learn to have understanding hearts and the importance of fostering connections with others. It is true that everything around us here at Foxcroft is about growing living (often wild!) things. Here, it is in our traditions - in the whimsy and lively spirit of Fox/Hound, of New Girl Runnings, and in Sing Sings, among so many others. 

What a joy to celebrate GIRL ENERGY! Please indulge me a moment in tapping into our girl energy here in the garden – which feels so extra potent, as we near the end of our closed period. I am quite aware that the end of this ceremony tonight will soon free our most wild things. So, let’s hear that girl energy now, first from all of our Hounds! And, now, from our Foxes!

Telling the stories of Foxcroft and our amazing history is an important part of my role here; so, I want to share a bit about my own story and how this new chapter in my life and career is a manifestation of my dreams. My journey is rooted in my family, important mentors, and many educators who believed in me, who helped me grow, shared their own stories and modeled courage in taking on new challenges.

At times, it has seemed a winding path, filled with twists and turns. I look back now, though, and I see the common threads and the primary theme: it has always been about supporting the journeys of other women and girls. Attending independent schools in my own childhood shaped me in ways that I have always appreciated. Support from my family has been critical, including the models of my grandparents who were educators and of my mother who is a college professor and earned her own Ph.D. when I was 17 and my sister was 14. My sister Crystal, trained as a scientist, is now starting her own path as a new Head of School in Texas. We enjoy sharing our stories of new “headship” together. 

Most of all, I have learned from students – from young women who were once girls and are now making positive changes in every career imaginable all around the world. The more than two decades that I spent serving as a college dean of women was the best possible training for the role I hold today at Foxcroft.

I want to give thanks to my entire family who have been my best cheerleaders, supporting me along the way and to my very close friends and treasured colleagues, both those joining us in the Garden here this evening and to those joining via livestream. Each of them has helped guide my path to this remarkable moment. I remain so grateful to each one of you. Thank you!

My greatest gift is my own chosen family, my partner and trusted confidant Dr. Christine de Denus (who helped me realize this dream) and our daughters Morgan and Madison who fill my life with joy each day. Raising them through their adolescent years – filled with the usual ups and downs – may be my most important “credential” in understanding the importance of this role in helping to guide teenage girls through this critical stage of development.

Of course, no garden community like Foxcroft grows without generations of nurturers. Today, I honor our former Heads including Cathy McGehee and Mary Lou Leipheimer (who is here with us today) for enriching Foxcroft’s soil and cultivating its strength. I look forward to building on their important work and legacies while we continue to chart our course forward. 

I am profoundly grateful for our Board leadership — past Chair Natalie Wiltshire, whose wisdom guided our transition with grace and insight, and current Board Chair Elizabeth Lester, whose unwavering faith in our mission — and in me — has been foundational.

To our students: you are the constant energy and the enduring promise for Foxcroft. You are our literal wildflowers, our youngest trees, and you serve as the current generation of the strong roots of this remarkable place. My own promise to you is that I will work every day to lead a community where you can take risks, grow strong, and discover the full breadth of your unique voices.

Miss Charlotte reminded us that we must be brave and dare to have big dreams. And so we are, and we do here at Foxcroft. There is courage and connection that weaves through our strong traditions, through innovation, through service, and through joy. 

Today, I choose to follow in that proud tradition of courage: courage for this new chapter I am so excited to embark on, the courage to plant new seeds, to nurture one another through both the happy and the challenging days, and to work together – with constant wonder, awe and pride -  as Foxcroft continues to blossom and to bloom across our many generations.

Thank you for welcoming me and for trusting me. I am so excited to see what we can grow together in this next chapter for Foxcroft!