Chuck Harmon, Head of School 

A.B., Davidson College, M.Div., Yale University, MFA in Creative Writing, Warren Wilson College

For Chuck Harmon, teaching has been a vocation, a calling to a life in schools. For over thirty years Chuck has worked in independent schools as a coach, advisor, department chair, college counselor, academic dean, associate head, and Head of School, but always as teacher. He has taught English to Yale freshmen and Spanish in a Montessori kindergarten, and he’s also been an instructor of yoga, skiing, and aerobics. Convinced that the 21st century offers both challenges and opportunities for change in the global community, Chuck is dedicated to professional growth and a student of social change, educational trends, and the science of learning.

His academic career includes interdisciplinary training in the humanities, and advanced degrees in literature and theology as well as in Creative Writing from Davidson College, Yale University, and the MFA Program for Writers. He was a Rhodes Scholar finalist, elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and awarded several fellowships, including from the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

Chuck has a wide range of interests that include jazz, American literature, rock and roll history, contemporary politics, food, travel, and sports in general, baseball in particular. Once a competitive runner, cyclist, and swimmer, he still enjoys participating in a variety of sports and outdoor activities, hiking, camping and beachcombing.

In keeping with his devotion to teaching and counseling as a career, Chuck is devoted to his family, in particular his best friend and partner of thirty years and their two sons, as well as a community of friends who have been a part of an intentional extended family that nurtures and sustains him.

It has been an honor and a privilege for Chuck to serve as Head of School at York since 2002.