At Kent School, professional growth is more than a career milestone; it’s a way to bring the best ideas and strategies back to students. Associate Director of College Counseling Robert Harry recently turned a yearlong faculty development project into a national presentation focused on supporting students with diagnosed learning differences throughout the college application process. His session at the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) National Conference in Columbus, Ohio, later became the basis for an article on the NACAC website, “Tips to Create a Strong Education Session Proposal for the NACAC Conference.”

The project began through Kent’s Professional Learning Program, a yearlong initiative for all second-year faculty. Within that framework, Harry set a professional development goal to explore an area of college counseling he was less familiar with and present his work at a regional Association for College Admission Counseling conference. “That goal quickly gained momentum,” he said.

The work was first accepted for presentation at the New England Association for College Admission Counseling conference last June, where Harry presented as part of a panel with three colleagues. From there, the project advanced to the national level, earning acceptance at NACAC’s national conference last September, where the team shared its research and strategies with a broader audience of college counselors and admissions professionals.

Harry built a collaborative team that included both Kent colleagues and external partners. At Kent, he worked closely with April Pendergast, Associate Director of Learning Access, and received guidance from Shawn Rousseau, Director of College Counseling, and Cate O’Dwyer, Dean of Faculty, ensuring the work directly informed Kent’s College Counseling office. He also drew on his professional network, bringing in a college counseling colleague from St. Andrew’s School in Rhode Island and senior-level admission leaders from Union College and Vanderbilt University.

Over several months, the team met regularly to refine ideas, share research, and develop strategies designed to support both students and counselors. “One of my first lessons in this journey was that experts are all around us,” Harry said. “We were mutually supportive and consistently curious about how we were shaping our topic while remaining true to our original mission.”

Harry’s article will also be featured in The Bulletin, NACAC’s national newsletter, and in the Journal of College Admissions, extending Kent’s voice in the national college counseling conversation.