50 Stories for 50 Years: Louisa Zendt, ASSIST Board of Directors, Appointed 2016

September 21, 2022

To celebrate our 50th anniversary year during 2018/19, we collected stories and profiles of people and institutions that have helped us build our organization, which first began as one person’s dream in 1968. We will feature one story per week on our blog. Please enjoy these “50 for 50” profiles featuring ASSIST’s dedicated board members, dynamic staff, welcoming host families and enthusiastic ASSIST Scholars.

Louisa Zendt
ASSIST Board of Directors, Appointed 2016

In my role of Dean of Admissions at two boarding schools between 1992 and 2018, I have been the delighted recipient of the “happy folder” that arrives at the end of February with the presentation of our upcoming year’s ASSIST Scholar. As the folder is passed around the office, the admission team members make their way directly to the most telling page in the file. The family photo collage and the personal essay are always the most popular go-to pages.

The beautiful glossy ASSIST folder sits empty on the counter while the contents are passed and then blended into our standard file system and finally scanned into our database. The byproduct, the glossy folder, then enters my own collection–over 20 ASSIST folders have been reused in my home, by my husband and children as well, with only a
few getting away from me by someone a little faster in the admission office!

My deepest ASSIST Scholar memory, however, goes back to the 70’s when I was a student at St. Andrew’s School in Delaware. I was aware of this bright interesting German boy on our campus, Ulrich Reif, two years older than me, but our paths rarely crossed and I knew nothing about his one-year experience in the United States. I remember shouting at my father on the dorm hall phone. “But I don’t know him!” I said when Dad announced that we were hosting Ulrich at our house in Philadelphia for our spring vacation. Panic set in. Both of my parents worked. All of my siblings were away. How would I entertain this person on my own all day?!

Of course it was a fabulous three weeks. We left my suburban home by train almost every day and toured Philadelphia as if I had never been there. I was fascinated by seeing “my city” through the eyes of a “foreigner.” How did he already know so much about Philadelphia? Why was his knowledge of the history of my country so vivid? This concept of hospitality, and of the mutual benefits of learning and expanding the mind through international exchange, was obvious to my father but just dawning on me. Seeds were planted. I remember making a decision that spring that I would travel a lot in my life, now hungry to see through multiple perspectives and share my own, just as our ASSIST guest had so fluidly and generously expanded our world.

About Louisa:
Louisa has found an important home for her many talents as a member of ASSIST’s Governance Committee, Messaging and Host Family Task Forces, and Admissions Advisory Council. Louisa’s background in teaching and in leading independent schools and her service as a board member at multiple independent schools and school associations has given her the depth of understanding ASSIST needs to work most effectively ASSIST member schools. Louisa graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Arts and Education. She went on to teach art at the Montgomery School, to serve as Director of Admission and Financial Aid at the Oregon Episcopal School, and then to serve as Director of Admission and Financial Aid, Academic Advisor, International Student Advisor, and Crew Coach at St. Andrew’s School in Delaware for the past twenty years. Louisa lives in Oxford, MD, with her husband, Harvey.