Forecasting the weather has always been a tricky endeavor. The early calls for Thursday’s storm were for wind, a little snow and cold weather backing in after the event, but nothing epic. Nothing like a winter hurricane. Nothing like Grayson’s bombogenesis of 24 hours. And there is something delicious in the unpredictability, something cleansing in the wildness of a storm.
We are in the midst of an unprecedented cold stretch in central New Hampshire as daytime temperatures have not climbed above 5 degrees and nightime lows have consistently been -10 degrees or colder for the past six days. Students will return from Winter Break this evening to relatively balmy temperatures in the upper single digits. Keeping Proctor's forty-five buildings and myriad heating systems within each running has kept our Maintenance Team incredibly busy during this stretch. Today, we pause in the midst of a professional development day to thank them for their tireless commitment to keeping us warm!
The sun set over the west end of campus for the final time in 2017. As we reflect on 2017 and the frigid sub-zero temperatures that have held their grip on campus over the past week, we look forward to 2018 with hope for what is yet to come. Hope (for our students, for our community, for our environment, and for our world) is only as powerful as our actions, however. We must not only hope for change in 2018, but believe we each possess the ability to positively impact the world around us.
The past twelve months have reminded us, once again, of the power of a school community like Proctor. We have felt the purest of joy and deepest of sadness as we have, together, navigated the rollercoaster of life. As we prepare to usher in 2018 with open arms, we take a few minutes to look back at a few of the most powerful moments of 2017 via Instagram. Enjoy!
Proctor Academy's Mountain Classroom heads into a two week winter break after spending time in Baton Rouge, Lousiana and the enviornmental justice NGO L.E.A.N. Through oral history interview projects, students met and had conversations with residents of those communities most impacted by the enviornmental issues they are studying. Read on for Sam '18 and Augie's '19 reactions to the past week on Mountain 2018!
Students depart campus for Winter Break today, but things will be far from quiet for varsity hockey and basketball teams, as well as our snow sport athletes. Check out a complete schedule of holiday tournaments and winter break training and racing schedules for the Hornets below. If games are in your area, we hope to see you come out and support our athletes and coaches!
I wrote about the “small marvelous” last year at this time, wrote about the bell that sits in the bookcase in my office, the bell that was dug up on Proctor grounds by two self-proclaimed “dirt fisherman” Dave Elwell and Dana Newton, the bell that must have jostled off a harness a hundred years ago to sit quiet and silent in the dark for years before the metal detector pinged on it. But it rings again when I pick it off the shelf, the small metal clapper knocking against the nickel sidewalls to send out a warm, wholesome sound. A chuckling ringing, a smiling sound. I imagine it shaking out its winter melody, the sound of sure-footed joy, as a horse-drawn sleigh slips through snow-packed Andover streets. Not hard to conjure after this week’s snow.
A "Pain Point" is not just something you describe to your podiatrist when discussing a bunion or the knot in your neck after a long day in the office. Within business schools, sales and marketing organizations, and companies across the globe, this term has become de rigueur. A pain point is the challenge a potential customer faces that will impel him or her to buy your product or subscribe to your service. A successful organization needs to solve a "pain point" in order to vie for your business. Whether we like to think of our efforts in the Admissions Office in this way or not, identifying and solving for a family’s pain point is our responsibility every time a family walks onto campus.
