Familiar Faces in New Roles at HM
Canh Oxelson Kaitlin Howrigan
(Photos: Barry Mason)
Effective July 1, 2024, two valued HM administrators transitioned into new roles on campus. Canh Oxelson, who has served as Executive Director of College Counseling (CoCo) for the last 13 years, is now serving in the newly created position of Associate Head of School for Operations. Concurrently, Kaitlin Howrigan, already an experienced and well-regarded college counselor at HM, was chosen to lead CoCo as Executive Director.
In this new position, Canh will be working closely with our physical education and athletics departments, the Mindich Center for Community Values and Action, the John Dorr Nature Laboratory, and other school-wide community initiatives. He will also develop enrichment opportunities for young alumni attending college through five years post-college. During his time with CoCo, Canh guided more than 2,500 students and more than 4,000 parents and other guardians through the college admissions process. He led the creation of college counseling workshops, most recently with the addition of parallel programming for our parents and other guardians, and introduced the now-invaluable annual case studies program. Beyond the walls of CoCo, he has moderated, presented at, and hosted regional and national independent school forums and served on a number of advisory boards.
Canh graduated from the University of San Francisco where he was a president’s scholar. He earned his Master’s in education at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Prior to his arrival at HM, he worked in the admissions offices at the University of San Francisco, Saint Mary’s College of California, University of California-Santa Cruz, and the University of Pennsylvania, and as Upper School Dean and Department Chair at Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, CA.
At the conclusion of the search to find a replacement for Canh, the unanimous decision was to appoint Kaitlin Howrigan to the role. She was previously a senior associate director of CoCo, having provided the community eight years of exceptional service. Her commitment to caring for and advising students includes working with UD faculty members as a faculty outreach coordinator and other colleagues to establish our First Generation Program Initiative for parents and other guardians. Outside of the CoCo office, Kaitlin has served as an independent study mentor for seniors and facilitates a section of orientation for 9th graders. In addition, she served for many years as a facilitator of and curriculum developer for our UD Seminar on Identity course, presented at Unity Week and Wellness Wednesday, and taught AP microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Seven cohorts of HM graduates and their families can attest that Kaitlin has contributed greatly to the culture and ethic of care that defines the good work of “Team CoCo.” In her words, “My team orientation began early growing up as one of five kids on a family farm and as a four-sport varsity athlete. That foundation has helped me understand my strengths and weaknesses, as well as how my teammates complement, compensate for, and enhance my own and the greater team's performance.”
Kaitlin graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. in economics and then joined the admissions office as an employee. During her 11 years employed at Harvard, she served in its undergraduate admissions office in multiple capacities, most recently as associate director of recruitment and senior admissions officer. She also served as a resident tutor, proctor, and academic advisor, and held leadership roles in database administration and analytics.
Tom Kelly shared that “this is not the first time we have seen substantial changes to this office or other critical areas of our N-12 programming. In each and every instance, change has given us new opportunities for growth, a process that has served our community of learners well and allowed HM to maintain its reputation.”