As September inches into October, early fall resonates across campus in emphatic, brisky sneakers rushing to and from class, in NFL Sports Center highlights reverberating from the Wise, in the Dining Hall’s purple carrots and midnight kale, in Mike Koenig’s perennial SAT announcements.

Grace Hovem '16 shares her writing, photography, and video editting skills in this blog post she submitted for her AP Environmental Science course. Enjoy!

Friday was a beautiful gray day—a perfect day for a field trip. This was a field trip consisting of three locations, cold feet, and cameos by notable singer/songwriters as well as salamanders.

Proctor's 2,500 acres wood lot is perhaps our greatest physical asset. It provides a sense of place valued by faculty, staff, students, and especially our canine friends! Each of us appreciates this land differently. Some of us work in it while others harvest it. Some hike it, others run it. Our children explore it. Frances O'Gorman chose to journal about it. 

Proctor’s commitment to environmental stewardship runs far deeper than our Environmental Mission Statement and annual celebrations of Earth Day. Our commitment is institutional and drives our forward progress as we seek carbon neutrality as a school.

Here at Proctor, our decisions are guided by a robust Environmental Mission Statement. Written by Proctor Environmental Action (PEA) students and adopted with the full support of the Proctor faculty in 2008, the Environmental Mission Statement has been instrumental in guiding us in significantly reducing our use of fossil fuels, dramatically increasing our generation of alternative energy, and strengthening our environmental education program. From Housekeeping to Athletics to the Science Department, every aspect of the school is touched in some way by this statement, including the food served in the Cannon Dining Hall.

Since its inception, Proctor has cared deeply about stewarding the environment. Our annual celebration of Earth Day provides an opportunity to welcome guest speakers to campus and to replace classes with hands-on workshops.

At the beginning of the winter term, Proctor began accepting students into the newly-created Environmental Studies Concentration, an interdisciplinary program of study designed for students who are passionate about environmental issues and the natural world. 

There is a known predictability with the fall season. The nights are crisp, the days warm, the leaves shed their green hues for reds, yellows and oranges, and we watch in the morning as mist rises above the pond indicating that the air around us is cooler than the temperature of the water. All predictable changes.