For nearly 175 years, Proctor Academy has played a central role in the day to day operations of the Town of Andover. Originally a town academy serving children of all ages, Proctor’s evolution to a boarding school in the 1930s initiated growth in both physical plant and the seasonal population in town. Today, Proctor serves as the town’s largest employer and annually welcomes students from more than 25 states and 13 countries to campus. Just as COIVD-19 has shifted each of our lives, the role Proctor plays within the Town of Andover as it seeks to reopen for the 2020-2021 school year must also shift. 

As we enter month six of quarantine with our family here in Andover, New Hampshire, we have limited the social interactions of our three children to afternoon swims at Elbow Pond, time with grandparents, and campfires in the backyard in the evenings. During this time of isolation, the connections these small outlets have provided have proven the lifeblood for our family, not because life by ourselves is bad, but because life with others is better. 

We all have that person in our lives. The one who is our first call when a major life event happens. The one who we can wake in the middle of the night without a second thought. The one whose hug is the best medicine. For many of us, our parents or our best friend serve as that person. At Proctor, the advisor doesn’t seek to replace the parent or best friend, but becomes another person for each of our students. 

The blur of a COVID-19 induced summer quarantine is upon us during these seemingly endless days of summer. We each have settled into our own summer routine: exercise, work, reading, house projects, family time, swimming, sleep, repeat. And while we can hardly complain about the luxury of living in lake-laden rural New Hampshire during one of the hottest and sunniest July’s on record, our annual anticipation of returning to a school-year routine is starting to creep into our existence. 

Traffic continues to flow down Route 11 to local lakes and mountain getaways, and daily admissions tours on campus provide a sense of normalcy. Our intense focus since June has been on developing a return to school plan that will allow us to safely and responsibly repopulate campus in September, a most abnormal way to spend our summer and one that has challenged us to think critically about every aspect of who we are and what we do as a school. 

Stumbling upon a wolf pine in the midst of Proctor’s vast woodlands, its wide arms spread wide over the new growth forest below it, reminds us of the slower pace to the life of trees. These relics and their sturdy presence steadies us as we navigate change and look for direction. 

Central to Proctor’s mission and Profile of a Proctor Graduate is the belief that collaboration sits at the core of all we do. Knowing how to work alongside peers, to share expertise, to work toward a common goal, these skills will serve our students well beyond their high school years. 

The 4th of July in the town of Andover, New Hampshire looked a little different this year. Not just because COVID-19 canceled festivities on the Town Green, the parade through campus filled with local fire departments and scout troops, or fireworks over Carr Field, but because of a much needed reframing of our understanding of Independence Day in America.