Yesterday’s weather was just about perfect: sunshine, 70 degrees, no black flies. The only problem? We were in Phase 1 quarantine on campus due to a few diagnosed Covid-19 cases on campus. Remote classes continue today, Day Students remain home, and our Boarding Students are living and learning in dorm pods while we isolate and mitigate the spread of the virus. It has been a tough week in many ways, and yet at this point in the pandemic, we are refining our appreciation for stoic philosophy and becoming quite adept at identifying what lies in our control and what does not. 

We post images, share videos, and try to write insightful blog posts in an attempt to help provide a range of perspectives, but sometimes we simply need to ask our students how they are navigating life at boarding school during a global pandemic.

After three decades of successful fall semester at sea programs, Proctor Academy has expanded its Ocean Classroom programs with a new eight week winter program at sea voyaging aboard the iconic Maine Schooner Harvey Gamage. Proctor’s fall semester program has run for the past 27 years in a row, most recently aboard Roseway, and has set an educational standard that has increased student demand beyond the capacity of one sailing ship. Now, Proctor will be working with two ships, Roseway and Gamage, thus enabling additional students to access the thrill and adventure of going to sea. 

As the spring sunshine warms campus and students migrate out of their dorms onto the pathways and fields around campus during this post-Spring Break quarantine, we are filled with hope for the term ahead. At the same time, our community processes the loss of a long-time community member to cancer last week and walks alongside another as she battles late stage cancer. Both far too young, both remarkable humans who have made this school a better place and touched the lives of countless students, colleagues, and friends over the past decades. We find ourselves, again, learning how to hold the contradictory emotions of joy and mourning with grace. 

In Michael Porter’s 1996 Harvard Business Review piece titled “What is Strategy”, he outlines the concept of strategic fit, the idea that an organization’s success is not determined by isolated attributes, but by the interconnectedness, or fit, of all its components. This notion of “fit” explains how Proctor’s unique combination of on-campus experiential learning opportunities, integrated academic support, authentic relationships among faculty and students, term-long off-campus programs, and high level arts and athletics all work in synergy to provide an unparalleled educational experience. The complexity of Proctor’s USSA/FIS Ski Program serves as a microcosm of how this concept of strategic fit operates within the greater Proctor model. 

Amidst today’s chilly late-March rain showers and heavy clouds, we welcome students to campus for the Spring Term. A two-week Spring Break allowed us all to hit reset, to take a few deep breaths, and to reflect on all we have accomplished this year as a school community. During a year of “Can’ts” for so many institutions, we have been a school of “Cans”. 

Each student finds Proctor for a reason. For about 35% of our students, Proctor’s integrated academic support program, Learning Skills, serves as a key component of the independent school search. For others, it might be our term-long off-campus programs, athletics, the arts, or maybe the sense of togetherness that exists at a place like Proctor because of the faculty and staff who have dedicated their lives to nurturing and sustaining our community. 

Over the course of this week and next, our Admissions Team is welcoming small groups of accepted students and their families to campus, many for the first time ever, to tour our facilities, connect with our faculty, current parents, and some local day students. While the rest of campus is on Spring Break, this Covid-19 friendly version of our traditional Revisit Days has the same goals in mind: present an authentic view of the Proctor experience to help our newly accepted students see if Proctor feels like the right match.