We build connection one relationship at a time, one day at a time, one conversation at a time. Throughout our lives, some of these relationships flourish as we nurture them, while others become overgrown with the weeds of busyness and inattention. Proctor's relationship with the Lakota Sioux on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota is one of those cherished relationships to which we have attended regularly over the last thirty-five years. Our connection grew once again as seven students and two adults (Patty Pond and Peter Logan '95) spent ten days at Rosebud learning, serving, and drinking in the rich culture of our Lakota family. Read reflections from this summer's service trip to Rosebud below.

Spend an hour during the summer months sitting in one of the hundred green Adirondack chairs sprinkled throughout Proctor’s campus and simply listen. Of course you’ll hear the sounds of birds singing their songs and frogs croaking their own tune from the pond. Listen a bit more closely and you’ll hear the steady sound of hard work: lawn mowing, weed wacking, building, constructing, fixing, and mending. While many of us enjoy a slower pace to summer, our Maintenance Team is operating at full throttle working on campus improvement projects that are unable to take place during the school year.

We never want to become a school where isolated pockets of academic novelty trump the whole of the work done in our classrooms. We simply want to be who we are, to be who we have always been, long before buzzwords like innovation, maker-spaces, and collaboration saturated our lexicon. We want to be a school where these buzzwords happen naturally through the work we do with our students. 

As we finished our last week in Vauvenargues and Aix we are starting to realize that the term is coming to an end. A scary thought appeared in our minds and reality slapped us in the face: Even though we as a group are still going to talk, we are not going to see each other everyday.

As the year winds down, things are just heating up in Proctor’s Drama department. Opening night of the spring musical is fast approaching (Friday at 7:00 PM is the first show), and the hard work that students and faculty have put into this show will finally be on display.

Proctor's Spring 2019 Mountain Classroom group is nearing the end of their nine-week road trip across America, and share a window into the daily operations and roles that allow the group to function on the road. Read Maura's '20 description of a day in the life of Mountain Classroom and Bella's '20 Top 10 gear necessities for future Mountain students. 

For the final three and a half weeks of the Spring Term, roughly two-thirds of Proctor seniors take advantage of a unique opportunity to create their own learning experience called Senior Project. Focusing on their interests, seniors can do projects relating to professional development, community service, or any other adventure they propose that is approved by the Senior Project Committee. We are currently in winding down second week of projects, and as part of my project interning with our Communications Team, I am sharing this blog update from a few projects around the world.

Proctor in Costa Rica affords a language and cultural immersion experience to Proctor sophomores every winter and spring. Studying at the Cloud Forest School in Monteverde, Costa Rica and living with local host families, students not only learn an incredible amount of Spanish and continue their regular sophomore level courses, but immerse themselves in one of the most biodiverse regions of the world.