Pam McQueen to step down as principal after 30 years at Villa Madonna Academy, will continue as president

Laura Keener

Editor

Long before Pam McQueen ever walked the halls of Villa Madonna Academy as its first lay principal, a paperback copy of The Great Gatsby helped chart her course. Assigned by her high school English teacher, the novel gripped her so completely that, she said, “I don’t know — I read the first couple of chapters, I couldn’t put it down,” and “there was something about the characters in this that just changed my life.”

Mrs. McQueen said she saw herself most in Nick Carraway — the observant narrator who tries to make sense of the people around him and, ultimately, chooses integrity over illusion. As a young reader, she was drawn to Nick’s role as listener and truth-teller, she said, and to “the way he watches everything and then decides what really matters.”

That perspective, Mrs. McQueen explained, stayed with her in education: paying close attention to students’ stories, weighing competing voices and leading with a steady moral compass.

This spring, Mrs. McQueen will deliver commencement remarks one more time — like always, with Gatsby “in there” — and then retire from the principal’s office after 30 years leading the Benedictine school. She will remain at Villa Madonna Academy in the role of president focusing on strategic planning, alumni engagement and the next phase of fundraising.

Mrs. McQueen became principal three decades ago after teaching English at St. Henry District High School and Newport Central Catholic. “Brand new principal — first lay principal here,” she recalled.

She remembers arriving to an unfamiliar culture and quickly learning that the job was more than first-day excitement. “The first days were challenging,” she said, but she found mentors and, importantly, a warm welcome from the Benedictine Sisters who founded the academy. “They were incredibly supportive … and from the get-go, made me feel like part of their family,” Mrs. McQueen said. “I always felt welcomed, always.”

Over the years, Mrs. McQueen worked to make Villa Madonna’s Benedictine identity unmistakable. “I set out [that] the minute you walk into this building, you need to know you’re in a Benedictine school,” she said, describing graphics, a prominent Benedictine cross and giving each freshman a copy of the Rule of St. Benedict. “Every day we talked about hospitality and respect and reverence and stewardship. It’s in our announcements and it’s in everything we do.”

Those values, she said, helped sustain a close-knit faculty community through decades of change. “We don’t go to work in the morning — we go to school,” Mrs. McQueen said. She points to milestones such as opening the new gym in 2000, earning multiple National Blue Ribbon recognitions and other honors and navigating a major capital campaign that began in 2019 and paused during the pandemic. Despite rising costs, “we raised the money to renovate that building,” she said and the campus’ new STEM wing is nearing completion.

Mrs. McQueen also championed a distinctive grade-level model, integrating junior high students into the high school setting. The approach, she said, reframes early adolescents as “young adults,” giving them expectations and role models while surrounding them with a Benedictine house system designed to teach community. “It works. The model really works well,” she said.

During her tenure, she and faculty members began connecting with 24 other Benedictine high schools in the United States, forming a colloquium. “We have this tight knit group of Benedictine heads of school and we all work together,” said Mrs. McQueen, noting that she, faculty members and students have visited and welcomed students from California, New Jersey, Alabama and more.

Next year, Villa Madonna Academy will return to a leadership structure that separates day-to-day academic oversight from long-range operations and advancement. Mrs. McQueen has held a dual role, but the school is splitting responsibilities so she can focus on the president/executive director portfolio.

In the model, the president leads advancement, finance and community relationships, while the principal concentrates on curriculum, student life and instructional leadership. “It’s become more and more — I think more and more is expected of principals through the years,” Mrs. McQueen said, citing student mental health needs, teacher support and new programming. “So, you really need somebody that can focus 100 percent” on the principalship.

The search for a new principal is nearing completion, with the school down to its final candidates, she said.

As she transitions, Mrs. McQueen says she will work intentionally to give the incoming principal room to lead. “For me, it’s going to be important to step back and let the new principal create his or her culture,” she said, while still staying present with students and families. “I want to do that too … but to not be intrusive … just to be a support, however they might need me to be.”

About her time as principal, Mrs. McQueen said, “Being here has been the gift of a lifetime. It’s bittersweet … I will miss it,” she said, as she looks toward a new chapter — still at Villa Madonna Academy — in a singular role as president.