Susan Esty P’22

Susan Esty is a teacher, school counselor, and administrator, who has more than 25 years of experience in education. She is the Dean of Students and Residential Life. Previously Esty served as Abbot Cluster Dean and Director of Wellness Education.

Susan and her team researched and designed the Academy’s new, four-year wellness education program, called Empathy, Balance, and Inclusion (or, more informally, EBI), which they continue to develop, deliver, and assess. The EBI program is a combination of social-emotional learning, health education, and cultural competency training. She has also served as the advisor to several student organizations, including Out of the Blue, which in 2019 released a compilation of student stories centered around identity and social justice, which the school uses to teach new students about living and learning in an intentionally diverse community. With Flavia Vidal, Susan co-founded a student leadership organization called YES+ (Youth Educators for Sex Positivity), which provides all-gender, inclusive peer-to-peer sex education, including their popular “Cupcakes and Condoms” events. At her former school she was Director of Advising & Counseling, a long-time member of their multicultural education steering committee, co-founder of their community education program, and advisor to their multicultural coalition and student of color affinity group.

Susan has a master’s degree in child development and a doctorate in counseling psychology. For her doctoral internship she studied multicultural psychology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Susan is passionate about residential life and has served as a house counselor to junior boys in Rockwell and Newman House. She lives on campus with her husband, two daughters, and their overly friendly dog, Linus.