Jeffrey and Frances Slemrod Want to Celebrate Faculty and Staff Who Inspire

From the time he stepped onto campus for New Student Orientation, Alex Slemrod ’01 found his place at George School. “He immediately made friends on that first day; kids liked him, and that had a big impact on him,” remembered his father, Jeffrey. “The way he was accepted for who he was reinforced that we made the right choice.”

Alex soon began to flourish and take his education seriously. This was in part because his George School teachers took him seriously too. “His teachers would write long and meaningful notes on his papers,” Jeffrey said. As an adjunct college professor himself, he appreciated the time, effort, and thought those notes required.

So, when Jeffrey and his wife, Frances, thought about where to direct their philanthropy, George School immediately came to mind. “Education is what led me to where I am today,” Jeffrey said. “It’s why I am able to make this gift.”

The Slemrod awards will recognize faculty and staff for their engagement and commitment to George School.

Jeffrey and Frances appreciated the way that individual teachers, coaches, and staff got students excited about and invested in their learning. “There are teachers and staff at George School who have the magic that inspires students to rush to class or practice because they don’t want to miss a minute of that time,” he explained. “They make a difference in students’ lives every day, and we wanted to do something for them that makes a difference in their lives.”

Jeffrey remembers visiting a friend at Harvard Business School who was teaching a course similar to his own on business organization and behavior. “I watched as he asked his students a question, then probed each individual student’s answer to get to the base logic that led the students to make the decision they did,” he said. “I never taught my class the same way again; that experience informed my own teaching from that point forward and changed my perspective about education.”

When Jeffrey found out a short time later that his friend did not receive tenure, it came as a disappointing surprise. Here was a professor who was inspiring students to change the way they thought and engaging them in transformative ways. He and Frances believe that kind of work should be recognized and valued.

As director of organizational development at Pfizer, Inc., Jeffrey spent a large part of his career focused on the effectiveness of individuals and teams in the workplace. When he moved into the classroom as a professor, he studied the work of educators in the same way and recognized the need to value effective and meaningful teaching.

He also has had a lifelong interest in investing; he started reading the Wall Street Journal as a young person. “When I was ten, my father took me to a brokerage firm,” he remembered. “There was a guy there writing prices on a blackboard. I thought that was pretty cool; it made me want to learn more and get into investing.” When he had a family of his own, investing often became the topic of discussion at the dinner table.

“If you read the Wall Street Journal carefully, and if you know enough to pay attention to certain things, there are techniques you can use,” he said. “I would ask my son, ‘what is the difference between book value and tangible book value?’ It was important to me that my family recognized that these best practices are important to know, and that investing was a family business.”

In a recent issue of Under the Trees, Jeffrey was pleased to read about the Entrepreneurship course George School offered this year. “I was excited to see George School expanding into an area of education that shows we are paying attention to what is going on in the world,” he said.

Jeffrey and Frances view George School as an investment that added value to their family, and even though Alex graduated more than twenty years ago, they still feel very much a part of the community.

“It is a special place that means a lot to us,” Jeffrey said. “We knew that when we were ready, we would find a way to support the people who make George School a special place. We want to celebrate the positive things that are happening here.”