Judy Chamberlain has been at the helm of Miami's prestigious Ransom-Everglades School for just two years, yet she has charted a course that will sail the institution into closer contact with the community in the coming years.

Judy Chamberlain 

"I think one of the things that I've centered on is trying to create a focus outward from Ransom-Everglades," she said. "We've been here almost 100 years and we've been part of the fabric of the community. But, I don't think we've focused as much on the community as we should have. We're looking to do a bit more community outreach, towards creating many more volunteer opportunities for the kids."

Chamberlain, 53, whose official title is Head of School, says community involvement is especially important for Ransom-Everglades students because so many of them make Miami-Dade home as they become adults.

"So many of our students after college return to Miami to live and to work," she said. "So we want to make sure that Ransom-Everglades influences how they will be citizens of Miami, how they will handle their responsibilities as they become leaders of Miami."

Ransom-Everglades, which has two Coconut Grove campuses and derives one part of its name from founder Paul Ransom and the other from a 1958 merger with the Everglades School for Girls, draws its 875 students from throughout Miami-Dade, though a few commute from Broward County.

"You will find our students engaging, interested in what they're doing, interested in telling you what they're involved in and interested in you as a person," said Chamberlain. "These are kids that are alive and energetic and are going to be the next leaders of Miami. It's just very exciting for them to be here."

Founder Ransom first came to Coconut Grove for health reasons in the late nineteenth century and began tutoring local youngsters. He soon established a boarding school in the rustic Dade County Pine pagoda structure that now serves as an administration building. The school became known as the Adirondack Florida School and forged a formal association with an upstate New York school, a relationship that lasted until World War II.

"It actually started as a migratory boys boarding school," Chamberlain explained.  "The boys would start the year in September in Lake Saranac. After the winter break they would come down to Coconut Grove and spend three to five days in the classroom, depending on the week, and the rest of the time they would sail. They would keep journals, sail down to the Keys, do marine studies and basically follow a curriculum that combined life skills with academic skills. Then they would go back in the spring and finish up there."

Following the war, Miami's population had grown to such an extent that the school was re-named and the migratory aspect of the student body ceased, though it continued as a boarding school. In 1978, Ransom merged with the Everglades School for Girls, which had been around since 1955. Today, the Everglades property on South Bayshore Drive serves as the middle school, while the Ransom campus on Main Highway hosts the upper school.

"There's a rigorous program in place here," said Chamberlain, "and we create enormous intellectual opportunities for kids. We prepare them to enter the most competitive colleges, nationally and internationally. Then, there is the extra-curricular ­ which is offered in athletics, in performing and visual arts ­ so there is a whole range of program to explore in every imaginable discipline and activity. It's a very exciting, dynamic environment and the kids appreciate the relationships they develop with their friends and their teachers. The combined dynamic creates a very powerful experience."

Chamberlain, a career educator who grew up in a New Jersey suburb just outside New York City, attended Baldwin, a boarding school in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She graduated George Washington University with a major in Latin and later earned a master's degree from Catholic University in Washington, DC.

"I always thought I would teach and I was intrigued by Latin," she said. "It is a dead language, but it was a puzzle, it was very intellectual, it was what I wanted to do at the time. And then, in fact, I did end up teaching."

Chamberlain taught Latin for 20 years, first in the public school system in the nation's capitol, then switching to a private school. She 'drifted' into administration and found herself in charge of a middle school in Washington, then became head of Winchester-Thurston School in Pittsburgh, where she remained for seven years. In 1995, she undertook a project in New Mexico.

"I was offered the opportunity of founding a school in Albuquerque," she said. "I went there and worked on that project for three years. Unfortunately we never developed the funding we needed to make it a reality. It was a great experience though, because I spent three years thinking about how to create the best possible learning environment for children."

Chamberlain, with her husband of 21 years, stockbroker Christopher Wong, brought that experience to Coconut Grove in 1998 to take charge of Ransom-Everglades, a school revered by its alumnae and gearing up to celebrate its centennial in 2003.

"We're at a very exciting time at Ransom-Everglades," said Chamberlain. "We're thinking back to our roots and looking forward to the next century."