Comprehending the complexity of the role the advisor plays within Proctor’s educational model can only be fully understood once a family has experienced the relationship first hand. We fully recognize this is not the cliche` pitch of "You have to see it to believe it!" prospective families want to hear, but we feel strongly the only way to fully appreciate the role of the Proctor advisor in your life is to live it yourself. In the meantime, here is an open letter to incoming families from a Proctor advisor. 

Last games, last projects, last rehearsals, and last snow…. the year winds down. Watching the ski area to see when the last snow will fade from the middle trail is like watching the final pinches of sand running through an hourglass. Cupped by a dip in the middle trail this white patch has been diminishing slowly in May, and Tuesday it finally disappeared. One last time I visited winter, touching its cold while across the valley the flanks of Ragged flashed summer green. The season turns over, the overlap of beginnings and endings similar to a school transitioning from one year to the next.

When asked to write a piece on how Proctor prepared me for college, I couldn’t help but chuckle because I couldn’t think of just one way Proctor helped me. I look back at my three years at Proctor and realize that everything I experienced made me grow into a person who would be successful at a university. It might sound corny, but being a day student actually prepared me to live far away from home in college. I was able to see my boarding student friends live alone, some of them for the first time. Because I watched them grow as people through dorm life, I wanted to engage myself in residence life in college. I saw Proctor dorm parents building a community within the dorms and creating a family where people felt safe to speak their minds. Seeing that made me realize that I wanted something similar out of my college experience. Of course, there are no dorm parents in college, but being an RA is pretty close!

(photo) Jacqui Morris

I have adjusted to life in Aix, and time is going by pretty fast. It’s hard to believe that two weeks has already gone by and that we are leaving for Paris tomorrow! With my excitement for the future, I want to reflect on yet another remarkable seven days in France.

On the same evening as our beloved New England Patriots convincingly won the AFC Championship over the Pittsburgh Steelers 36-17, we welcomed Eric Barthold back to campus to speak with faculty, student leadership, male athletes, and our ninth grade boys about redefining masculinity in today’s society.

Three years ago, when I was having hot chocolate at a café in France, enjoying the relaxed and romantic ambiance, I knew I wanted to come back. European Art Classroom definitely became one of the strongest reasons that I love Proctor.

One of the perks of vacation is taking time to look back through the 283 blog posts we published as a community over the past year (wow!!!). Each of these posts, written by faculty, staff, students, parents, and alumni, represents a piece of Proctor’s story. As a whole, they provide a wonderful narrative of a school deeply committed to providing an education that operates at the intersection of individualized academics and experiential opportunities within a strong, nurturing community. Today, we share the Top 10 most read blogs of 2016! 

Every incoming 9^th grade student is scheduled into Freshman Seminar. It’s a class meant to help them with the transition into high school, being away from home, and navigating this so, so different landscape. Its focus is helping students thread safe passage through the siren calls of distracting technology and the bewildering social landscape. It’s about the role sleep and nutrition play. It’s about taking care of oneself. It’s also a place to slow down, a quiet space away from the jangle of classrooms and dorms, a place to catch one’s breath.