Prior to entering your 10th year at Andover, you took a part-year sabbatical. What did you do during that time?
I spent four months during the 2002–03 school year as a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley. I also spent time with my West Coast family. Living in an apartment near the university and only two blocks from my daughter, son-in-law and three-year-old grandson, I spent hours and hours in the library and bookstores. And I babysat. It was a great combination.
What was your research about?
I was studying the reform movements of the 1830s and 1840s—in particular the abolition movement in the United States. This is the first time since working on my graduate thesis in history that I was able to immerse myself so fully in one subject—to eat, drink and breathe a topic day in and day out.
Why was this important to you?
This subject has been of long-standing fascination to me, and there is an interesting PA connection. Many of the principal participants in the abolition movement were in some way connected with the Andover Theological Seminary, which coexisted on the hill with Phillips Academy from 1808 through 1908. The seminary leaders, quite orthodox in theology, supported the colonizationist movement, as did most of the established clergy at that time. The colonizationists favored a gradualist approach that aimed to send former slaves to Africa. The immediatist position, which called for immediate abolition of slavery, began in the 1830s to capture the support of many students at both the academy and the seminary, and they attempted to begin abolitionist societies. They were denied permission by the faculty and administration. The seminarians agreed to this edict. The academy students did not; more than 40 of them left the academy in protest. The incident provides a great window on the relationship between the seminary and the academy.
So you indulged your passion for history?
Yes, and, in a more general way, I reconnected with scholarship. Because of the context in which we operate, leaders of educational institutions today are inevitably drawn away from the heart of the educational enterprise. You can lose sight of the fact that it’s all about what happens in the classroom. This experience put me in touch with all that again. After my return to Andover last spring, I was an adviser on an independent project with a terrific senior, Meg Coffin. We explored abolitionism, and then she concentrated her research on a
particular women’s abolition convention. Through that lens,
we examined the nexus of the abolitionist movement and the women’s rights movement in the 19th century. It was great fun.
Did you miss Andover Hill?
Absolutely! I missed the people—the students, the faculty, those I work with closely. But I knew everything would be fine here on campus. I had been very much involved in planning what was to take place while I was away, and I had regular check-ins with Rebecca Sykes, associate head of school, who stepped in as acting head during my leave. Becky is a gifted leader, and I had left in place an extremely strong administrative team, so I never worried.
What has been the focus of your time at Andover so far?
Actually, I think focus has been the focus of the last decade: identifying what needed to be done and doing it. When I arrived on campus in 1994, the academy had just completed the Long Range Plan of 1993, a well-thought-out study that highlighted the quality of residential life as its highest priority. It also directed us to appoint a faculty steering committee to look at the academic program and to address deferred maintenance on campus. In all these areas, we have made great strides. The Strategic Plan of 1996 enlarged on the ’93 plan and added the goal of launching a major fund-raising campaign. Nine years later, it’s quite gratifying that, in no small measure because of Campaign Andover, we have accomplished almost everything we set out to do. We also added some new initiatives in that time, such as building the Gelb Science Center. I can never say too often how grateful I feel for all the help we’ve had in getting this work done.
Can you be more specific about what was accomplished?
Well, to begin with, we reduced the size of the school, which allowed us to take some older dorms offline and to have more and higher quality residential interaction between adults and students by adding faculty apartments to large dorms. We made strides in raising faculty compensation and endowed more of our financial aid scholarships, two essential objectives if Andover is to maintain excellent teachers and students. Besides building the Gelb Science Center, we refurbished Cochran Chapel and increased its seating capacity, making it a more spacious meeting place for the whole school. We created the Shuman Admission Center, built the Harrison Rink, made numerous repairs to dorms, wired the campus and introduced state-of-the art technology. We greatly increased the budget for campus preservation, and along the way we enlarged the endowment. And all this was done with an eye toward keeping the lid on costs—for example, we made the facilities better, but not bigger.
You’ve announced that we’ve begun a new strategic planning process. Why is that necessary if we’ve come so far?
Institutions must always look forward. Five to seven years is a reasonable time between planning processes. I’m delighted that the planning committee is so strong and so representative; it includes trustees, faculty and administrators with a broad range of ages and perspectives. The committee will complete its work next summer and report to the Board of Trustees in October 2004.
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What does the academy hope to gain through the process?
The committee will follow a classic strategic planning process that looks at the strengths and relative weaknesses of the institution in the context of what’s going on internally, as well as in the larger world. For example, student demographics are changing. In the years ahead, the number of school-aged children will be on the decline. We have to know how that will affect us. We need to decide how to respond to this and many other challenges by bolstering our great strengths and shoring up our weaknesses.
What are you most interested in looking at?
We’ve always worked on the as-sumption that maintaining the strength of the faculty and student body is our top priority. But we’ve had many other issues to juggle, too, such as catching up on deferred maintenance and funding technology. Now, in my view, it is time to put faculty and students in ever-sharper focus. Each year, a handful of our most experienced and legendary teachers retire. Younger teachers coming up to take their places encounter challenges different from those their predecessors faced. How can we nurture this rising generation of teachers—these Andover legends in the making?
With students, on the other hand, we must address the issue of ongoing affordability. How can we ensure that a Phillips Academy education, already expensive, does not become impossible for everyone but the wealthy? How do we continue to recruit and enroll youth from every quarter—students of great promise in terms of character and intellect?
I want us also to continue paying attention to how we encourage each student to understand his or her individual role in creating a good community. This is the part of education that has to do with goodness as well as knowledge. This is the part that focuses on preparing them for what the Phillips Academy constitution calls “the great end and real business of living.”
In addition, I would love to find ways to help the internal community—faculty and students—understand and accept the importance of philanthropy. There tends to be a divide between the people who are teaching and keeping school and the people who are out raising funds. My own work combines these two endeavors, and so perhaps I stand in a unique position to bridge that gap, to help everyone recognize that philanthropy has made this school great. We have to cultivate the next generation of donors just as we cultivate the next generation of teachers. |
What administrative challenges does Andover face?
We will soon have some significant turnover of leadership. Board of Trustees President David M. Underwood ’54 will retire from the Phillips Academy Board of Trustees next June. Dean of Studies Vincent Avery is stepping down from that rotating position, and Chief Financial Officer Neil Cullen is retiring. We are searching for a new director of the Addison Gallery as Adam Weinberg heads off to lead the Whitney Museum in New York. These are normal passages in the life of an institution, but they will be difficult for me, especially because these are such talented and dedicated colleagues.
What a privilege it has been for me to have David Underwood, a great leader, as president of the board during my years at Andover to date! For him it is the end of 20 years of board service and 14 as president. We are very fortunate for the long tenure of our board members. David is a sterling example.
Do you envision a theme for Andover in the next decade?
Yes, I go back to the notion of the community and the individual’s place in it. We need to make sure that all of us—faculty, staff, parents and the program—are working together to help our young people develop and reach their potential, “intellectually, aesthetically, socially and morally,” to quote the academy’s statement of purpose. Tending to the “goodness and knowledge” aspect of a young person’s development within a diverse social context is a great challenge. But we are blessed with a remarkable collection of minds and hearts to bring to the task. The ability to teach and to model “goodness and knowledge” in an around-the-clock community is really what makes this experience unique. Let’s make the most of it! |
