This interview is the fourth in a series of five introducing new members of the senior administration of Charlotte Latin School.

Tricia Tam is already familiar to many people in the Charlotte Latin community — starting in fall 2023, she took charge of the school’s social media accounts, documenting life at the school with enthusiasm and a keen eye. In April of this year, she stepped up to become Interim Director of Marketing and Communications, leading the school’s strategic efforts and finding new ways to connect the Latin community with each other. Before coming to Latin, she handled a wide variety of marketing responsibilities — brand design, community engagement, video editing, communications strategy — for a host of clients that included schools, nonprofits, and political campaigns.

How would you describe your role in Marketing and Communications?

As an independent contractor, I had the privilege of watching from the wings and building relationships. Now I get to figure out what we can do that has the greatest return for the Latin community. It’s about having cohesive messages and marketing efforts, so we can give people across the entire school the support that they need.

What’s surprised you since you came to Charlotte Latin?

When I first arrived, I was surprised by how much it felt like my alma mater, Marietta College, which is a small, private, liberal arts school in southeast Ohio. Crucially, the “and kid” sentiment was the same. I love how at Charlotte Latin, you can be great at many things — a student and an artist and an athlete — and not be confined by one singular definition. 

When you were younger, would you have guessed that you would end up working in a school?

I wouldn’t have guessed it, but it wouldn’t have been surprising to me. It was an environment that was easy for me to navigate. I wanted to be a dolphinologist, and then later on I figured that the proper term for that was “marine biologist.” I also wanted to be a geneticist: when I was a freshman in high school and we had to give a speech, I chose the ethics of cloning as my topic. And everybody thought I was going to be a lawyer. I never said that to anyone; I had no desire to be a lawyer. But evidently there was something about the way I communicated that made people think that. 

I thrive in learning spaces because there’s always something happening — and nothing happens without connections with other people. I did find my place among nonprofit organizations and education spaces; that’s where I’ve spent the last ten years of my professional life.

What aspects of the Portrait of the Latin Leader resonate with you?

Humble Collaborator and Dynamic Communicator. I love that our department gets to be the ultimate “team player,” collaborating with everyone across the school on our shared mission. It's challenging and exciting to find the right mix of messaging, packaging, and timing so we can reach people in a way that doesn't just inform them, but helps build a stronger Latin community.

What have you been curious about recently?

I’ve been focused on improving things for Charlotte Latin, so today, I want to know what college recruiters are looking for in school profiles and what media day looks like for independent school athletes. But I go down intellectual rabbit holes: I got curious recently about an archaeologist who was doing work in a lake bed that had preserved fish from the Eocene epoch. When he pulled apart the layers of sediment, you could see a predatory fish chasing other fish, almost like it was a cave painting. That sparked my curiosity: what was the catastrophic event that preserved those specimens?

Tell us about an adventure you had.

When I was younger, I traveled in Kerala, which is a state on the southwestern coast of India. I was in a yoga ashram for a week, and then my friend and I visited a tea plantation in the mountains. We thought we were taking our yoga on the road, so we rolled out our mats next to the plantation — but we almost got arrested. We had to roll up our mats and get the heck out.

What might surprise people about you?

I grew up in the country, on 110 acres in rural Ohio. My grandfather had a dairy farm — I grew up taking black-and-white Holstein cattle to the fair. In your childhood, you don’t realize how much gravity the things you do will have in your life later on. I was in the 4-H Club, and I would often recite their pledge: “I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to a larger service, and my health to better living for my club, my community, my country, and my world.” I love how that expresses the idea that you dedicate every part of your well-being to serving a greater good.

As an adult, I wanted to figure out what traditions I wanted to establish for my family. When my children were toddlers, I was trying to frame good behavior positively for them, so I would often tell them, “You have a good heart, a calm mind, and helping hands; I love you.” At some point it clicked — did I just do the 4-H pledge with my kids?

What were you proudest of about your work before you came to Latin?

In one of my previous roles, I was the director of marketing and communications for a community nonprofit. It was for an area of Charlotte that had its heyday in the ’60s and then got left behind. I was proud of the community building and community engagement that we were able to do. We got people to come together around public art projects, schools, and local government. We united people based on the things that they cared about — and we did all that through communication. You can have something that people want, but that’s not enough: you need to make them aware of it and why it matters.