by Bronson Schmidt ’25
October 2, 2024
The nervous hum of a new school year has permeated the halls of USN as another ten months of academic exploration looms ahead. This year especially feels ripe with change; seven new teachers, a new schedule, and importantly, a new head of high school.
USN officially welcomed Dr. Chai Reddy as the new head of high school this summer. Students who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Reddy at the Leadership Retreat or in the hallways can find him in room 4250 where he and Laura Snow plan his daily escapades. Dr. Reddy’s day consists of meetings, emails, and a plethora of administrative tasks which characterize the Head of High School role.
Born and raised in Oklahoma, Reddy wasn’t sure who he wanted to be when he grew up. After 18 years in his home state, he decided to find an answer to this question by diving into the field of education. Reddy’s curiosity for how he could teach others culminated in his attendance at Lake Forest College just outside Chicago, where he began to search for his life’s purpose.
“I thought teaching might be kind of cool to do for a year or two, until I kind of figured it out,” said Reddy. “I taught math and science and a section of eighth grade Spanish in a school in the Philadelphia area and did that for a year. Still didn’t know what I wanted to be, so I thought, ‘let me do this teaching thing.’ My background is in ancient history and world history. So I taught that and coached at a school in the Cleveland area.”
Reddy’s history teaching experience ended up landing him a job at the Punahou K-12 School in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he would work for 15 years. During his time at Punahou, Reddy moved into more demanding administrative positions similar to his responsibilities here at USN. Reddy’s stay in Honolulu ended when an opportunity to become the head of high school at Beaver Country Day, a school outside Boston, Massachusetts called him back to the Northeast.
Last year, Reddy made the move from Boston to Nashville when an opportunity opened at USN. Reddy’s varied background has given him a unique perspective on the world of independent schools that USN is a part of.
“Every place is different. And so spending time in all those cities and getting to know different schools, [I found that] the independent school world is actually really small. You tend to see people at conferences and different areas,” said Reddy. “People know each other, so it’s nice having that network and being able to tap into it for questions.”
This network of independent schools eventually led to Dr. Reddy visiting USN in March of 2024 to interview for the position of head of high school, where he met students and teachers and began to see what the school had to offer. This interview process left an impact on Dr. Reddy’s perception of the school.
“I think there are some places where there’s an assumption that [hard work is] a zero sum game. [But] here I feel like people are invested in each other’s success. I feel like that came out over and over again during my interview day,” he said.
Reddy officially became a USN employee on July 1. Moving from Boston to Nashville was a big change for Reddy, his wife, and his two kids, especially with the stark differences between the two cities’ weather and cultures. With a few months under his belt, Reddy has gained a fresh perspective of Nashville that shifted his view of USN’s role as a city school.
“USN is a leader in the community. From what I’ve heard from different people who are not affiliated with USN but live here, USN [has] always had high academic standards– but I think our value doesn’t come from what our students’ GPAs are or what our AP scores are, but the impact [the students] have in the community,” said Reddy.
USN is certainly an important leader in the community of Nashville, but Reddy sees USN as far more than just a part of the cultural landscape of Middle Tennessee. One of Reddy’s biggest visions for the school over the next few years is increasing USN’s role in the international community in order to use the school’s resources to the best of its ability. This idea of being a “global citizen” could take many forms– Zoom meetings with schools across the globe, fundraising, education campaigns, and perhaps most importantly, travel.
Reddy is passionate about his philosophy of global citizenship, as it’s something he’s strived to achieve at his past schools.
“There are a lot of opportunities to learn about yourself and […] the world within your own communities,” said Reddy. “The value of travel comes from the relationships you can form with individuals and with the place where you’re going, and so knowing where you come from, being able to assess those things, and building those relationships is really important to do.”
Potentially exploring more international travel is just one of the many goals of Reddy’s work. Reddy is working to bring his ideas to the table, while developing existing ideas that USN embodies. Being the head of high school isn’t a one person show– it requires a team of intertwined, constantly adapting administrators in order to respond to the high school’s needs.
“I’m really lucky to have an amazing team that I get to work with,” he said. [For example], working with [Jeff] Edmonds, in terms of looking at our academic profile and working with teachers, [and] working with [Nicole] Jules from the Student Affairs piece and asking ‘what are our values as a community? How do students feel [like] it’s a place that they want to take care of?’”
Reddy’s interconnections with other administrators extend outside of the high school as well. As a representative of one third of the school, Reddy is constantly working with School Director Amani Reed, Assistant Head of School Quinton Walker, Middle School Head Shavon Davis-Louis, and Lower School Head Kristian Noden. Both Walker and Noden assumed their new roles in the past year as well.
“We don’t want students who come through USN’s lower school, middle school, and high school to feel like they just went to three different schools,” Reddy said. “Certainly there will be things specific to each grade level, but we want to make sure that experience is coherent across [divisions], and not something different.”
The list of how Reddy has interacted with and will continue to interact with the entire school could go on and on. However, Dr. Reddy’s influence on the school isn’t strictly limited to his administrative responsibilities. Part of being the head of high school includes being connected to the community: attending events, knowing everyone’s names, and generally knowing what’s going on in the school. For Reddy it’s particularly difficult to begin to make these connections because he doesn’t have any role outside of being the head of high school, something which he’s expressed concern about.
“If I were teaching a class, I would know all those students because I would see them every day, [but] I don’t have that,” said Reddy.
Despite this obstacle, Reddy has already begun delving into the extracurricular melting pot of USN’s student body as much as he can.
“I have to make sure I’m getting around and attending performances, concerts and games and different things because if I just see a student pass by in the hall, there’s nothing affixed to [their face]. But if I can say, ‘Oh, I saw that student score a goal, or dance’ – things like that just help me remember things,” Reddy said.
Reddy’s goal to know the student body better isn’t just limited to attending events.
“Admittedly, I am not good at remembering names. It just takes me a while. So my wife tests me on usn.org [as I] try to learn names by studying a handful […] every night. That’s some of my homework that I’m doing,” said Reddy.
While Dr. Reddy can attend games and study names as much as he can, there’s still a concern that he won’t be able to connect with students if their paths don’t happen to cross. This was an expressed concern of many students last year– at the spring Leadership Retreat in 2024, note cards were collected from students with advice to the incoming new head of high school. The consensus was that students wanted the new head to be connected to the student body. On the most fundamental level, the best way to foster that connection is for students to actually talk to the head of high school. That means that you, the reader, should talk to Dr. Reddy!
Dr. Reddy has excitedly provided some conversation-starting “get to know you” facts for this article.
Musical interests:
“My wife does not think I have moved past like mid 90’s to early 2000’s in terms of sort of alternative and rock. I also really like 90s hip hop. Here’s a controversial statement for the community– like all styles of music, except country.”
Pets:
“[My dog’s names are] Pearl and Ethel. Pearl, because she’s a chocolate lab, but she has like one little white spot right here, also one of my favorite bands, Pearl Jam, so sort of a double meaning for her. Ethel– that was the name she had in the Humane Society, so we just kept it, figured it’s like two old lady names– can we see if we can put together a Golden Girls assortment?” said Reddy.
Off campus eating hot takes:
“I think that SatCo used to be really worth the money, but now it’s getting too expensive. I like pizza and so I’m really curious for people to give me pizza recommendations and suggestions. […] If anybody wants to come up and share that, I would be very appreciative.”
Sports interests:
“I played football in high school, and then I played rugby for 10 years. I played in college, and then after that as well, and I would say playing rugby was my favorite thing to do in terms of sports that I played. I coached football for a lot of years, so I really love football as well.”
It’s clear that Dr. Reddy is eager to connect with students on the stage, during games, and in the hallways. In a time where USN is experiencing so much change, it’s important for students to make a lasting impact on the school. How students act doesn’t just determine how they are perceived in the moment– their actions create an image of USN that defines the school and its values. It is a student’s responsibility to create the most positive authentic image of USN possible, and to do so could be as simple as popping into Dr. Reddy’s office to see if he’s free for a quick get to know you chat. The students at USN right now are those who will shape Dr. Reddy’s image of the school– so make sure to show him all that you’ve got
