Elizabeth Cromwell Speers ’86

(2017–2022)A.B., M.A.Wilmington, DE

Elizabeth “Bessie” Cromwell Speers ’86 is the head of Tower Hill School in Wilmington, Delaware. Appointed in 2015 with a quarter century of independent-school experience, she is the first woman to hold the senior leadership position at Tower Hill. Previously, Speers was head of the Ethel Walker School in Connecticut where she oversaw programmatic advancements, investments in technology, and a successful $50-million centennial campaign. Her prior appointments include: assistant head of school at Episcopal Academy outside Philadelphia; director of placement and strategic planning at Calvert School in Baltimore; director of admission and financial aid at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore; and associate director of admission at Loomis Chaffee School in Connecticut. An English major at Middlebury, Speers holds a Master of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University, and in 2014 she was a Klingenstein Fellow at Columbia University’s Teachers College.