Dean Jim Patterson will assume the new position of Director of External Learning next year. The job entails “leading and overseeing all the portions of the Harvard-Westlake program that are outside of the traditional academic classroom in some way,” Patterson said.

Patterson will work on planning school trips, working with the school’s global initiatives and focusing on entrepreneurial ventures, he said.

“We’re at a point in time where the school has a lot of different programming in all these different areas, and it’s a tremendous opportunity to bring them together and provide a vision for where these areas can really go,” Patterson said.

As part of his new position, Patterson envisions increased school trips for students to be exposed to additional non-academic experiences through trips.

“When I first started here we had numerous trips abroad,” Patterson said. “We had numerous trips that would take kids out of Harvard-Westlake to a lot of different areas, and it’s kind of diminished over time in my two decades here. I easily could see how some of those trips could increase over the course of the next two to five years.”
Patterson will also continue as summer program director.

“Being a Harvard-Westlake student isn’t just taking five core academic classes and participating in our co-curricular activities and knowing that we’re a great college prep school,” Patterson said. “We have all of these learning opportunities outside of that curriculum that you also get to take advantage of.”

English teacher Adam Howard ’93 will assume Patterson’s position as dean next year, but Patterson will continue to work with his current juniors he has been advising through the college process, he said.