A Hall Honoring Paul Sugg Opens the Winter Term

Roxbury Latin began its winter term, and welcomed the new year, on January 3 with a celebration honoring beloved, veteran faculty member Paul Sugg, who served as RL’s Dean of Students for 23 years. The Hall marked the installation of the Paul E. Sugg Deanship, a generous gift of alumnus and trustee Jim Quagliaroli ’93 and his wife, Kim.

Mr. Sugg, who began at Roxbury Latin in 1983, has served as an inspiring teacher, a dedicated coach, and a caring advisor to RL boys for 40 years. For more than two decades he also served as Roxbury Latin’s firm but fair Dean of Students—both advocating for RL boys and holding them accountable. He is an exemplar of what we hold dear in our school: knowing and loving the boys in our care.

“While I regularly acknowledge the Board of Trustees as the force for institutional continuity, and the students of the school as our most distinctive feature, it is the faculty and staff who inexorably provide RL’s connective tissue,” began Headmaster Kerry Brennan in Hall that morning. “Faculty and staff daily, yearly, and generationally breathe life into our capacity for affecting positively the lives of hundreds of boys… We are called to this work. We are fortunate to do it here, in this hallowed place, and to recognize and esteem colleagues both long in the tooth and wet behind the ears who bring energy, commitment, talent, and panache to our collective enterprise. Schools like ours not only tolerate, but usually revere, idiosyncratic colleagues, quirky manifestations of lived experience, personality, and individual needs and goals. Today we will celebrate such a remarkable individual.”

Read Headmaster Brennan’s complete tribute to Paul Sugg.

Read Paul Sugg’s complete address.

“This day, we also celebrate the profound act of gratitude that leads to a former student remembering with fondness and possibility a teacher and coach who changed his life for the better,” continued Headmaster Brennan. “Over the years, we have been fortunate that a number of alumni, parents, and other friends of the school have seen fit to establish professorships and chairs, many honoring by name individual faculty whose impact has been acknowledged through this benefaction… In growing an endowment that helps to take care of faculty and helps to compensate them fairly, benefactors signal both appreciation for what has occurred and a hopefulness about what is to come.

“Jim Quagliaroli, Class of ’93 and trustee, acknowledges the impact Roxbury Latin had on the man he became by honoring a teacher and coach who was instrumental in his development in order that subsequent teacher-coaches, and in this case, deans of students, might have a similar impact on students yet to come. What a marvelous instrument for signaling a regard for the circle of life that is schools: One cohort paving the way for the next, teachers inspiring and shaping the next generation to be good and to do good.

“Jim stood out during his time as a student, as one of the school’s most dynamic and versatile leaders. Both faculty and Jim’s peers admired his unwavering work ethic, and his pursuit of excellence. However, while Jim challenged himself to grow and improve, he never placed his drive for personal success above what was best for the class, or the team. Today, Jim is managing partner of Silversmith Capital Partners, a Boston-based growth equity firm that he co-founded in 2015. Jim’s resume includes notable prizes and honors, but it also includes an impressive list of leadership and service commitments that have marked Jim as a person who cares deeply not simply about doing well, but—more important—about doing good.”

Roxbury Latin is so grateful to Jim and Kim Quagliaroli for their generosity and for the ability their gifts afford us in honoring our faculty in meaningful and important ways.