(Courtesy of Rowland Hall) St. Mark's Grammar School in Salt Lake City, in the decades shortly after its 1867 opening.
As the successor to Utah’s first non-Mormon day school reaches its 150th anniversary, teacher Nate Kogan is what the Rowland Hall community calls “a lifer.”
Having attended the private Salt Lake City school from preschool to 12th grade, Kogan introduces himself to new students each fall by sharing how that 150-year legacy has shaped his life.
“I tell them, honestly, that it’s an honor to be able to serve on faculty with colleagues who helped craft my own love of education and desire to face academic and professional challenges,” said Kogan, a 2000 Rowland alumnus who now teaches Western civilization.
“I feel really grateful,” he said, “to help carry on that tradition and tell [my students] that I will do my best to uphold those same values for each of them.”
To mark its sesquicentennial, Rowland Hall is hosting a series of celebrations this weekend for current and former students, faculty and their families. There will be tours of the school’s old site in The Avenues — current home of The Madeleine Choir School — as well as an all-class reunion, presentations of the school’s history and a party at its east Salt Lake City campus featuring live music and food trucks.
Today’s Rowland Hall grew from two schools: St. Mark’s Grammar School, opened by the Episcopal Church in 1867, and then-all girls school Rowland Hall, founded in 1881. The two worked closely until merging in 1964, under the Rowland Hall name.
As Utah’s first day school not operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, St. Mark’s began with 16 students taking classes in a Main Street bowling alley. Rowland Hall moved from its original perch in The Avenues to two campuses in the heart of Salt Lake City.
A century and a half later, Rowland Hall serves almost 950 students, from preschool through high school, and has about 3,500 graduates.
Head of School Alan Sparrow said Rowland’s close-knit mindset and community cohesion never faltered through that history. Sparrow, who’s led the school for 26 years, attributed its longevity to parents, staff, faculty and students all sharing basic values of inclusion and community involvement.
“We want to produce students who go out into the world and make it better,” Sparrow said. “Education itself isn’t worth anything if you don’t produce someone who is ethically valuable, cares about being a good citizen and helps others.”
When Kogan graduated 17 years ago, he went off to Columbia University in New York City, convinced he wanted to experience a completely new place away from everything familiar to him. Instead, he said, he found a deeper appreciation of his time at Rowland Hall.
He taught history at independent schools in Texas for eight years after college — then jumped at the chance to return to Salt Lake City and teach at his alma mater when the call came in 2012. And Kogan is proud, he said, that his son and daughter now both attend Rowland Hall.
“People feel so strongly about Rowland and why it’s endured is because you are not anonymous when you’re there,” he said. “It’s a small place, but the bonds are close and students, faculty and staff care for one another and that lasts well beyond your time there.”
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