Proctor Academy hosted the 3rd Annual Rail Trail Rally to benefit Special Olympics New Hampshire Saturday morning. With over 250 participants, including 80 Special Olympians, hundreds of volunteers, and every Proctor student (who was not taking the SAT's) taking part, the event was the biggest in its three year history. Even larger than the event itself, however, is the impact the event has left on each of our lives.
Perhaps it was serendipity that Robert Azzi, a Muslim American, came to speak on Monday night. His arrival at the invitation of the Andover Library and Proctor also coincided with the first Presidential Debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Mr. Azzi spoke in the Wilkins Meeting House, sharing his reflections about being a Muslim in the United States. Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, the son of a mill worker, an architect by training and a photographer and journalist by trade, Mr. Azzi lived in the Middle East for decades as a photographer and reporter, working for Newsweek, Paris Match, Fortune, National Geographic and other publications. He has been a Nieman Fellow in journalism at Harvard University, where he also served as a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard Divinity School. He spoke for two hours, about the same amount of time as the candidates.
Proctor’s start to the school year is probably more staggered than most schools. The sequence of faculty/staff meetings, International Student Transitions Program, Wilderness Orientation, and Preseason Sports Camp culminates in a busy Sunday afternoon before the start of classes when the entire community joins together on campus for the first time.
Proctor welcomed Dr. Derrick Gay to campus Tuesday to help us explore the double-edged sword of diversity at independent schools. Through interactive conversations, faculty investigated the challenges around diversity efforts at Proctor, including how we understand our own identities, the power of the words we use on a regular basis within the cultural context of our varied student experiences, and how to develop tangible strategies to better integrate diversity efforts into our educational mission.
Each year, the Proctor community welcomes new faculty and staff to campus over the summer months. Wednesday evening, Head of School Mike Henriques and his wife, Betsy Paine, hosted a wonderful dinner for new faculty and staff at their home on campus. The energy among the new adults in the community this summer has been palpable and everyone is visibly excited for our first students to arrive on campus next week.
Ask any of Proctor’s Social Science teachers about Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and they will eagerly offer an explanation of social contracts and the rationale for forming communities around agreed upon rules and structures in order to preserve life and liberty. Whenever we join a community (nation, state, town, school, church, service club, or otherwise), we voluntarily sacrifice some of our individual freedoms because we believe the benefits gained from living in community outweigh the cost of forgone individual rights. Each of us makes this same decision when we join the Proctor community.
Over the past few months, I’ve been listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Revisionist History. Maybe it’s because of my love for basketball and fascination with the statistics Wilt Chamberlain was able to amass during his career, but Gladwell’s episode The Big Man Can’t Shoot struck a chord with me as we prepare for the upcoming school year and the work we will begin with our students in less than a month.
Sharing a room with a roommate is one of the most stressful parts of attending boarding school. Will they snore? Will they keep our room too messy? Will they listen to different music than me? What if their feet smell? These fears are valid (your roommate will probably be different than you and may have smelly feet), but we want to reassure you the opportunity for personal growth and the formation of deep friendships makes having a roommate one of the most valuable experiences you will have at Proctor.
