Entering the office of Chief Innovation Officer Diana Gross in Leggett Hall, you can expect to be greeted by a warm smile and, quite often, jazz standards playing softly in the background. As Ms. Gross is in the midst of her seventh month at D-E, we sat down with her to discuss her role and innovation at the School more broadly.
With a background in professional development and using data and technology to design innovative programming, as well as having earned a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins in the area of the neuroscience of learning, Ms. Gross was well prepared for this next chapter. She says, “This role encompasses a lot of the work I have dedicated my career to.”
Going back a bit further, Ms. Gross grew up as a swimmer, an instrumental music lover, and a trumpet player. She likens her leadership style to the functioning of a relay team or an orchestra, in which cohesion and coordination are essential for the group’s success. “I lead from behind,” she says.
Ms. Gross also describes herself as a researcher and is working closely with faculty and administration to ensure we, collectively, are doing everything possible to prepare D-E students for college in an ever-changing world. She points to transferable skills and adaptability as vital competencies to achieve this goal and acknowledges a need to align them with our School values.
“Math does not change,” she says. “The way it is applied will change, and that’s where innovation happens.”
Ms. Gross is intent on uncovering how D-E is already setting itself apart from other schools, shining a light on these programs, and then building upon these innovations.
As just one example, she shares how conversations recently connected Art & Design Chair Marisol Diaz and Mathematics Chair Patricia Barrett. The result was MS math students exploring an artful book titled, Dear Data, by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. In it, the authors, who are information designers, created hand drawings of their personal data on postcards and mailed them to each other over the course of a year. For students, it was a clever example of data visualization that guided them in creating their own data books.
This concept of visualizing data was incorporated in the Sixth Grade Identity Unit *see Editor’s Note below, which focused on how what you eat shapes your identity and included projects across students’ MESH (Math, English, Science, and History) subjects, such as researching the origins of the ingredients in culturally meaningful foods and plotting this on an infographic.
“Data is the new gold, and data literacy is a key to the future,” says Ms. Gross, “so the open question is how do we continue to foster these skills?”
When considering what is worth further exploration in the area of technology, Ms. Gross refers to a peer-reviewed publication called the Handbook of Children and Screens, which reveals a concerning data point that girls begin to step away from STEM classes in 3-4 grade for societal and other reasons. Ms. Gross says she hopes to work with School leaders to find ways to counter this trend at D-E.
Ms. Gross also feels strongly about harnessing the power of the diversity inherent at the School. “You have to understand technology from a global perspective,” she says. “With its diversity, as well as its Pre3 – Grade 12 curriculum, D-E is a microcosm, a place ripe for applying truly innovative programming.”
Likewise, she says, “human development and social-emotional learning is huge.” Especially as Artificial Intelligence becomes more prevalent in our lives, appreciating the intersection of AI and humans is crucial, she adds.
To this end, Ms. Gross has facilitated along with the Technology Department the establishment of an Upper School Student Committee on AI and a field trip to the Student Artificial Intelligence Summit at Newark Academy in January. US students are hard at work planning an inaugural TEDxDwight-Englewood School event to be presented on April 3, 2025, for which the theme is “Learning Unbound: Igniting The Future.” Ms. Gross also facilitated a professional development day for faculty and staff, centered on AI and discussions on the impact AI will have on cognitive development and effective pedagogy, and included a student panel discussion.
Ms. Gross asserts that building a culture where innovation is embraced is key. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” she says, referring to the expression that an organization’s culture can prevent its strategy from being successful.
“It has to be a culture where people feel safe in trying something that does not work,” she says. “Innovation takes three things—people, time, and money—and people need to be encouraged to take risks.” If something didn’t work out as planned, it should be reframed as, “We didn’t fail; we learned,” she says.
It’s clear that Ms. Gross is committed to doing the work, building upon D-E’s rich traditions in academic excellence and program collaboration: “I plan to be here [at D-E] for the final 10 years of my career.”
