TROY-: The Abaarso School of Science and Technology is about as far from Emma Willard school as one can get. Set in a leafy enclave of Troy, Emma Willard caters to a
select group of privileged young high school women from around the world
as well as New York. Tuition runs more than $63,000 for boarding
students. Jane Fonda and Kirsten Gillibrand went to school there.
Abaarso consists of squat concrete buildings surrounded
by a high security wall in the scrublands of Somaliland in the Horn of
Africa. Tuition is $1,800. Many of the students come from nomadic
families who follow their herds of camel or sheep throughout the
seasons.
And while Emma Willard’s buildings are examples of
classic collegiate Gothic architecture, Abaarso squat structures are
styled in “desert cement,” Trudy Hall said with a chuckle.
For Hall, who ran Emma Willard between 1999 and 2016, going from one world to other is the most natural move in the world.
She’s recently been living in Seattle with members of her
family but was back in the Capital Region earlier in June for the
unveiling of a portrait in her honor at Emma Willard. Hall also recently
walked the Camino de Santiago, an ancient 500-mile pilgrimage hike from
France to the Portugese coast. She called it her “senior gap.”
Her next big adventure starts in August when she arrives to run the Abaarso school.
During her 17 years at Emma Willard, Hall was credited
with boosting the venerable school’s endowment and leading a push to
bring in more international students.
At Abaarso, her challenge will be to build on a school
that didn’t exist before 2009. Many of the students don’t speak or read
English and the grade 7-12 school is about as far from a modern U.S.
boarding school as one can get.
The young women at Abaarso wear hijabs, or traditional
Muslim head coverings. Boys and girls study, eat and live separately,
said Hall, who visited the school in January.
“We call ourselves an American school but we honor all Somali customs,” she said.
Both Abaarso and Somaliland are in their infancy.
Somaliland broke away from Somalia during civil war there
in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s not internationally recognized as its own
nation, but Somaliland is currently viewed as more stable than Somalia
to the south which continues to be wracked by armed conflict.
Abaarso was started by Jonathan Starr, a Boston-based
hedge fund manager who wanted to do something more meaningful with his
life than simply making money. With no grounding in education, he went
to Somaliland, which he knew from a family friend, and built the school
from ground up. There were blunders and challenges along the way – water
has to be trucked into the school compound and their internet
connection is a recent thing. But graduates have gone on top colleges in
the U.S. and elsewhere. Starr and the school have been featured in a
number of profiles.
During a brief conversation with Hall it became obvious
that she relishes the challenges and the kind of on-the-fly innovations
needed to make Abaarso thrive.
Because some of the kids lacked English, they’ve used a
combination of immersion and Dr. Seuss books to help them learn the
language. Students help out with chores, and conditions remain
primitive.
Food comes from a market in Hargeisa, the Somaliland
capital about 45 minutes away. They buy whatever is available on a given
trip.
They wanted to tap the brightest students they could find
in this nation of 3.5 million so the founders created their own
admissions test. They get about 1,700 applications for 50 spots per
year. Among the traits they look for are natural ability, flexibility
and drive.
“They broke all the rules and put the kids in the middle of it,” Hall said.
The overarching idea is to train Somaliland’s future
leaders and innovators. So far, it’s been working. Already, some of the
graduates have come to U.S. colleges and universities such as Columbia,
Holy Cross and Marist.
Despite her years at Emma Willard, Hall is no stranger to
the challenges of foreign education. The Inlet (Hamilton County) native
got her start years ago in Kingston, Jamaica helping to conduct
education research. That job came after she met a Jamaican minister at
Harvard where she was studying for a counseling degree. She’s also
taught in Saudi Arabia – where the gender segregation was so strict that
her paycheck technically went to her husband.
There was also a personal connection with Abaarso. Starr,
the school’s founder, had helped one of his Somaliland students, Fahima
Ali, attend Emma Willard before going to Columbia University. Some of
the Abaarso grads spend a year in U.S. prep schools polishing their
writing skills before starting college.
“So much of education is who you meet along the way,” said Hall.
rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarlinTU
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