Proctor’s five term-long off-campus programs provide remarkable cultural immersion experiences for more than 70% of Proctor students. These programs, along with Proctor’s summer service trips, are fundamentally transformative for each student. Some students, however, choose to use the summer months to have additional immersion experiences.
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.
Over the past ten weeks, Mikaylee '17, Sadie '17, Drew '17, and Hannah '17 have lived and learned in the Monteverde region of Costa Rica at The Cloud Forest School. They share reflections on their term off-campus and the relationships made with their host families.
Over the past three weeks, more than seventy members of the Class of 2015 took part in Proctor’s Senior Project program. Begun over 25 years ago, this program affords graduating seniors the opportunity to explore an area of passion, vocation, or expertise. Students work very closely with both an on-campus sponsor (usually a faculty/staff member) as well as an off-campus mentor who has significant experience in the chosen field of study.
The awards season. It arrives every year with graduation, and on Monday we moved through our underclass awards. In a week, many more will be handed out. So much goes into wrangling the names of the winners, and each year I am reminded that the only award that’s easy to determine is one calculated by GPA: do the math, pick the winner. Simple. But do the numbers ever tell the whole story? No. Do they tell the story of character and grit, of intrinsic drive? Sometimes. Maybe. Not always.
In the eight short weeks of the Spring Term, Proctor’s drama department holds auditions, learns hundreds of lines, builds an intricate set, organizes dozens of costumes, and performs a full-length musical. It’s a miracle, really.
Students are entering their second to last week of classes before final exams. The Spring Term may feel like it is flying by, but the work done by each of our students is remarkable. We see glimpses of student work each time one of our off-campus programs posts a blog since all are student written and feature student photography! We do not yet have digital portfolios for each of our students (those are a work in progress), but in this post we highlight student work on-campus.
I often find myself sitting outside on our patio under the sun reflecting back on the week. This week is no exception. If I were to sum up all of our experiences this past week into writing, the blog would go on for an eternity.
