Matthew Stuart is currently the Director of the Middle School at the National Cathedral School in Washington, DC. He also serves on the faculty of the summer conferences for the East Ed Diversity Collaborative. Prior to Washington, DC, Mr. Stuart was a member of the faculty at The Spence School in New York, NY, where he held various posts. He was a 1998-99 Klingenstein Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University, where his research was entitled "Building Communities. Understanding Complexities. How Does an Independent School Head Encourage Parents and Trustees to Support the Inclusion of Gay and Lesbian issues?"
Mr. Stuart has been teaching in independent schools since 1985. Along with heading the Performing Arts Department at Spence, he taught drama and speech in the Middle and Upper School. At Spence from 1989 until 2002, Mr. Stuart was also the Director of Student Affairs, and his responsibilities included guiding student leadership training, school clubs and assemblies, and helping students to develop the annual student Bias Awareness workshops. In 1994 and 1995 he was the co-director of the Spence Teaching Institutes, weeklong faculty professional development workshops around issues of diversity and anti-racism. In addition, he coordinated the mentoring program for new faculty. He began his independent school career at the Hewitt School in NYC, where he was the director of drama for the Middle School.
Matthew Stuart has facilitated numerous workshops and conference presentations for faculty, administrators, parents, trustees and students across the country. His workshops focus on facilitating dialogue, in order to understand why to be inclusive of diversity issues, such as race and sexual orientation, as well as the logistics of inclusion, incorporating curriculum, and social awareness. The workshops have been presented to a variety of constituents. He has presented at national conferences for the National Association of Independent Schools in Baltimore, MD, for GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) national conferences in Atlanta, GA and Chicago, IL, and for the NAIS People of Color Conference in Providence, RI. He has also worked with the Colorado Association of Independent Schools, the Klingenstein New Teachers Summer Program (for teachers in the first five years of their career), and both the NYC Interschool Heads of Schools and the NYC Interschool Fellows, who are first year teachers. He has done workshops with the faculty of the Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY and Grace Episcopal Day School in DC, the students at Trinity School in NYC and Agnes Irwin High School in Philadelphia, the Parent Associations at Packer-Collegiate School in Brooklyn, NY, Allen Stevenson School in NYC, and at The Spence School, as well as with the Board of Trustees at Spence. In addition, he has been a guest lecturer on diversity issues for courses in the M.B.A. program at The New School for Social Research in NYC.
In addition to his work in diversity, Matthew Stuart is a professional theatre director and has a B.F.A. from Syracuse University.
Mr. Stuart believes that all schools have a moral mission to insure that all students will have an equal opportunity for personal discovery and educational prosperity. Belonging to a school community that devotes itself to providing for all of its members, and seeing them subsequently succeed, is both inspirational and necessary.