Acknowledging the complicated legacy of Peter Gunness
Peter Gunness was the headmaster of Browne & Nichols when it merged with the Buckingham School in 1974. To mark the 50th anniversary of the merger, The Bulletin, BB&N’s official magazine, printed an eight-page spread honoring the work of the former headmaster and discussing his legacy, describing it as “both accomplished and complicated.” Mr. Gunness had an “accomplished” 23-year tenure at the Upper School. However, his time at BB&N had a “complicated” ending: Mr. Gunness was charged with failure to report child abuse.
Edward Washburn, an English teacher who taught at the Middle School during Mr. Gunness’ time at the school, admitted to Gunness that he abused students at the school. Mr. Gunness failed to report the abuse, breaking Massachusetts’ mandatory reporting laws. Washburn later was convicted of raping his 13-year-old nephew, who was not a student at the school.
Despite this history of hidden abuse, one would have to carefully search the extensive spread in The Bulletin’s Spring 2024 issue to uncover the truth. To put the length of Mr. Gunness’ feature in context, his spread was one of the longest pieces in the entire issue, second only to the “Then-to-Now” timeline of BB&N since the merger.
The spread on the late headmaster raises a pertinent question: how do we honor those with complicated pasts? One cannot deny that Mr. Gunness played an instrumental role in merging the Buckingham and Browne & Nichols schools, and the numerous notes attesting to his accomplishments and character from his colleagues prove that he positively impacted the school community.
Still, it would be wrong to overlook the abuse that he allowed to persist in his school community. The Bulletin article did not completely avoid the topic but addressed Mr. Gunness’ crimes in only one paragraph out of the entire eight-page spread.
The singular paragraph dedicated to discussing his “complicated” legacy described the situation but used excessively confusing legal terminology, which seemed to bury what actually happened. The paragraph presented as more of a checked-box rather than a full attempt to explain the history of abuse in our school.
As a community, we claim to be a diverse and inclusive space. But what diverse, inclusive, and accountable community shies away from talking about a negative part of the past?
The section about this dark stain on BB&N’s past followed a paragraph explaining that Mr. Gunness was
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e Vanguard’s mission is to examine and engage the school community by providing news and information about events affecting it and by featuring the diverse range of people and perspectives that comprise it. We strive for fairness and accuracy in our content, and we strive to present that content with integrity and respect.
e Vanguard is the o cial student newspaper of the Buckingham Browne & Nichols Upper School, which has 524 students, 81 faculty members, and 59 sta members. A liated with the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the paper is a forum for di ering views and welcomes comments from its readers in the form of Letters to the Editor. No anonymous letters will be printed. e Vanguard reserves the right to edit all letters for length. e Vanguard publishes eight issues per annual volume and prints between 600 and 900 copies of each issue. About 200 of those are mailed out; the rest are distributed around campus.
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the one to write our school’s motto: Honor, Scholarship, and Kindness. The abrupt transition from accrediting Mr. Gunness with a motto we still follow today, to a discussion of his silence about abuse at the school is abrupt, to say the least.
To acknowledge the trauma that persists from the abuse in the school, the article states, “To this day, more than 30 years later, survivors of abuse at BB&N continue to experience considerable suffering. In addition, memories across the entire alumni community are complicated by what some remember as a ‘sink or swim’ attitude that characterized the school during that era.” This is the entirety of the article dedicated to addressing how the abuse of the school’s past still lingers to this day. It feels inadequate and incomplete to describe the immense trauma of the survivors as “considerable suffering,” and the culture of silence perpetuated at the school as having only “complicated” memories.
We are not saying that we cannot honor a man who did a lot of good in our community despite the bad, because we believe that exploring complicated legacies is important work. However, if we are going to honor his legacy, we must be able to talk candidly about our wrongdoings in the past in order to move forward and progress as a school community.
A comprehensive guide to AP season!
Dear juniors, some seniors, a growing number of sophomores, and I hope no freshmen,
Hello! I heard many students whispering about the prestigious AP tests, and I feel it is my responsibility to set the record straight.
The most important thing for you to know about these tests is that they are completely optional. You do not have to take any AP test if you don’t want to. A fair warning should be given that picking this path might result in stilted, back-handed compliments from your classmates applauding your decision to abstain from test taking before they recite the 30 standardized tests they have elected to participate in.
And even though signing up for the test may be optional, changing your mind is strictly discouraged. Oh, did no one tell you that you have to decide which APs you would like to participate in by early November? Don’t worry at all. You will definitely know which May exams you want to take when you are barely two months into school. And even if you don’t, there is only a $40 fee for deciding you no longer want to participate.
Will anyone tell you which ones you should take? No. But you’ll just know. People say it’s like falling in love. When you scroll through the list of offered tests and lock eyes with the AP English Literature and Composition Exam, it will feel like fate. Past students have described the decision to sign up for a test like a magnetic pull, completely uninfluenced by any parental or collegiate pressures.
If you are having trouble making a decision, ask an upperclassman who has already taken the exam. Hearing someone who has blocked out the stress and mental exhaustion from their mind tell you, “It was fine!” or “I got a five without studying!” is just the input you need to make an educated decision.
Once you make the plunge into the nearly $100 commitment, you have the pleasure of forgetting about AP tests for the next six months. Well, in all honesty, that depends on what class and teacher you have. Some might spend the entire school year drilling you with nothing but rhetorical devices and sample free-response questions, while others might never speak of the tests until the night before.
For those of you who are in an AP-designated class, the weight that the letters “AP” add to your transcript is enough, so don’t even worry about the test. Unless you are taking it, then you should probably worry. Oh, especially if you are in AP Physics because I heard that it’s the hardest AP test ever and, like, everyone fails. Or AP US History, because I heard that unless you read the 560-page course review, you are going to fail and embarrass yourself. But no pressure!
To all of those self-studiers out there, I’m here to provide you with a comprehensive list of tried and true study plans that will lead you to success:
1. Study hard for the exams—they will get you into college.
2. But don’t study too hard; they don’t actually matter and are useless.
3. All you need to do is sleep well the night before the test.
4. I’d also advise cramming until three a.m. since you haven’t learned half of the material yet. And to the teachers and administrators, please do not offer us any more guidance! We thoroughly love making these decisions blindly. And, most of all, make sure that every teacher prepares us for the tests completely differently. You always make sure to keep us on our toes.
I hope this proved helpful and cleared up all of the contradictory advice flooding our school about these tests. But, if you learned nothing from this, please remember the most important part of the entire process: It is imperative that immediately after taking the test, when asked how it went, you respond with,
bad
all.”