Volume 96, Number 2
1. Because Jane Fried knows how to get mileage from a cup of hot chocolate.
by Theresa Pease
| Dean
of Admission Jane Fried remembers her first visit to Phillips Academy,
in 1991.
She had taken time off from her job in the Dana Hall
admissions office, with its brocaded furniture and elegant chandeliers,
to pursue a job lead at Andover. When she opened the door to Hardy
House, she found herself staring straight into a bathroom—a facility,
she would learn later, that you had to be slender to use. To her left,
about 50 people jammed a 20-by-20-foot space. Strains of Korean from
a large Asian delegation mixed with shouted instructions in English
as administrative aide Grace Taylor tried to maintain order in her
dulcet Southern tones. Confusion reigned. “I had to virtually fight my way to Grace’s desk to leave a resume. I could hardly keep from laughing,” says Fried, who, thanks to Campaign Andover, now occupies the spacious and graciously appointed Shuman Admission Center, with the restored Hardy House as a wing. While Fried chuckled at the earlier pandemonium, she says many families over the years were less than amused to see crowds that sometimes topped 150—parents, applicants, admission officers and tour guides—trying to do business in a space more suitable for 20. “People thinking about sending a 14-year-old off to boarding school are nervous at this juncture, and the interview is often the most anxiety-producing part of the process. Parents don’t drive up to Andover and see a charming, quaint little New England campus; they see what looks like a college. Then they used to go to Hardy House and enter this mob scene. Yes, there was life; yes, there was energy. But there was, at times, chaos.” Beyond the overcrowding and the tight-fitting privy, the old Hardy House lacked handicapped access and appropriate space for filing and processing the thousands of applications, academic records, test results and letters of recommendation that flow in each year. Administrative and clerical staff were crammed into stairwells and closets, and PA faculty members who came to help read and evaluate application folders would find themselves ensconced in hallways when they could not commandeer the desk of an admission officer who was on the road. True, the 1804 building—the oldest on campus still standing on its original foundation—was dripping with charm and homeyness (not to mention rainwater from the leaking roof). But the antique quirkiness of Hardy House and its series of add-ons presented problems as it strained to accommodate the 2,000 families who visit between Sept. 1 and Jan. 30 each year. Because what Fried calls the building’s “rabbit warren” layout allowed for few private spaces, the confidentiality of student application and financial aid information was often at risk, and there were safety hazards in the steep stairs, narrow halls and low overheads. Several parents whacked their heads on the same low-curving arch where a potential applicant’s family once watched in horror as admission officer Jennifer McCleery literally knocked herself unconscious while navigating them down a tight corridor. While Fried and others believed the unwelcoming structure and its “madhouse” atmosphere drove away some potential applicants, she did not at first have high hopes for construction of a new center. Recognizing the competing priorities, she says, “I knew we needed new dormitories and we needed more faculty support. Even from an admissions viewpoint, I would rather raise more financial aid than a new building.” But then along came Campaign Andover, with a cadre of professional fund-raisers and volunteers determined to attract over $208 million in support for a range of important needs of the school. Early in the six-year campaign span, Charter Trustee Stanley S. Shuman ’52—who, as a member of both the school’s finance committee and its education committee, was well aware of the challenges Fried was facing—proffered a gift of $2.5 million toward what he picturesquely dubbed the academy’s new “welcome gate.” Other commitments, including monies from the family of Norman Cahners ’32, James Rabb ’62 and Robert Cahners ’60, soon completed funding for the $3.7 million project. It didn’t take long for the academy to settle on David Handlin, who had done an equally graceful renovation of an outmoded admission center at Smith College, as the architect for the new Shuman Admission Center, which was dedicated on Oct. 20, 2000. Handlin’s sensitive design involved razing all but the oldest portion of Hardy House, then seamlessly blending new construction with the original building to maintain New England coziness in a facility that meets contemporary needs and standards. Today, the original waiting area is a commodious conference room where faculty can comfortably read folders and where numerous meetings are held—not just by the admission staff, but by users from across campus. Nearby are three new reception areas where families can wait in comfort, watch videos, read PA literature or just find private corners to talk. A suite of offices allows people to work and interview in more discreet surroundings, file and financial aid areas are entirely private, and the facility is fully handicapped-accessible. There is even a separate area where the 150 student guides who lead some 250 tours a week in season can stash their backpacks and hang out. Even when not scheduled to work, Fried says, they often drop in at Hardy House for a cup of hot chocolate, and their easy interaction with each other, as well as with applicants and their families, puts a bright new face on the admissions visit experience. Though she knows many other improvements factor into the increase, Fried is convinced the new admission center—“warm and inviting and friendly”—is partly responsible for the jump in Andover’s yield of admitted students from 60 percent in 1991 to 72 percent in 2002. “As much as I try,” she says, “it becomes harder and harder to remember how we ever survived without this building.” —TP |
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| E-mail: Theresa Pease |