The two most important days of the year are upon us: Admissions Revisit Days on Friday March 30 and Friday April 6. Over the course of these two Revisit Days, we will welcome more than 120 accepted students and their families to campus to attend classes, engage with coaches, teachers, dorm parents, and advisors, listen to student panels, and (hopefully) walk away with a deep appreciation for who Proctor is as a school.
As Director of Enrollment Chris Bartlett stood in front of our start of Spring Term faculty meeting discussing the importance of upcoming Revisit Days, faculty nodded their heads at the need to showcase the best version of our authentic selves for visiting families on March 30 and April 6. As independent school educators, we know full well the balance every school seeks to manage during Revisit Days as our Admissions team works to enroll the most dynamic, fun, engaging, diverse student body for the 2018-2019 academic year, while not simply putting on an Admissions dog and pony show that fails to give prospective families a genuine window into our community.
All the non-weather related signs of spring are here. You can hear birds chirping above the soft dripping of sap into buckets hung on sugar maples around campus. Daylight has reclaimed the early evening hours it abandoned back in November. Spring athletic teams have dispersed around the country for spring training trips. Andover’s annual town meeting has come and gone with the usual small town issues that remind us of the importance of the greater community in which we live. It feels as though spring should be here, but Mother Nature has other plans this March, and, once again, a powerful lesson in patience is bestowed upon us as we hurry up and wait for spring to arrive.
The long-awaited admissions decision date for the independent school world has arrived. Emails were sent to all 600+ applicants at 6:00 PM this evening notifying each prospective student of our Admissions Team’s decision. We are incredibly excited about the group of individuals we have chosen to make up the Proctor Community for the 2018-2019 school year!
Often, when difficult issues arise and injustice brushes our lives in the most personal of ways, we feel empowered to speak our minds. Finding the right medium to be heard is as much a challenge as finding the words to speak. Our responsibility as adults in this learning community called Proctor is to both model and encourage respectful dialogue that challenges the status quo while not compromising the integrity of our relationships with others within the community.
Gun violence. I would rather not write about this topic. I would rather write about listening to the singers who performed in the chapel last Sunday, or Corby talking about his art, or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (performed tonight and tomorrow night). I’d rather write about ski jumping or basketball, women’s hockey or Nordic races. I’d rather update on the construction in the Field House or the latest heroics on Maintenance. I’d rather sing the praises of the artists who dominated the art show up at the Ava Gallery in Lebanon. But my weekly Notes can’t always be whipped cream and bonbons.
Four times a year Proctor’s Board of Trustees arrive on campus for two days of meetings, conversations, and planning. They are parents, alumni, and friends of the school and their relationship can stretch back decades or just a year or two. They come to Andover to share their talents and their love for the school, bringing invaluable perspective from different worlds. Renovations or running an endowment? What it takes to be a successful entrepreneur or artist? They’ve got that. They are not on campus four times a year to be prescriptive but to help, and their wisdom and work contributes mightily to the success of Proctor.
In mid-October (oh to feel that autumn sunshine and crisp breeze right now!), I shared thoughts on the annual ninth grade hike to the Proctor Cabin in a blog titled, Shaping and Sustaining Culture (read it here if you’re so inclined), in which I reflected on the intentionality required of crafting the culture of a school like Proctor. Specifically, the blog explored the challenge facing our first year students: “Do I passively embrace the culture that exists here at Proctor or am I willing to actively shape it?”
