From the Chair of the Board of Trustees

From the Chair

Dear Friends of Hebron,

As you read this, Hebron’s green campus is filled with students starting the new academic year. Our enrollment is strong, with students hailing from as close as Maine and as far as Japan. As trustees, we have learned a great deal in the last year and, primarily, the lesson underscored was the importance of partnership— both between the trustees and the administration, and between the Academy and its supportive alumni and friends. The latter partnership was a critical factor in our ability to maintain a balanced budget, and we are enormously grateful to our community for contributing a record $1,594,478 to the unrestricted annual fund, well above the goal of $850,000. Thank you. It made a difference.

The Board of Trustees is excited to initiate strategic planning that has been in the works for a while, but was postponed by the pandemic. Working collaboratively in small groups, the trustees will drill down to what has made Hebron successful in the recent past and what attributes the Academy needs to acquire to remain competitive. We know from competitive analysis that Hebron must update its aging dormitories and invest in a campus center that will allow students to gather as a body for artistic performances and presentations as well as informally interact in open student gathering spaces. We look forward to sharing our findings with the Hebron community.

I am pleased to share with you that we welcome two new trustees to the Board. Carolyn Adams ‘77 and Bill Percival ‘76 bring deep experience and commitment to Hebron’s Board of Trustees. I have known both of them for years, and Bill was, in fact, my roommate at Hebron back in the day. The ties that bind us to Hebron are robust and long-lasting! Look for both of their bios in this magazine.

As always, please reach out to me with any thoughts or contributions. It is the pleasure of the Board to serve the Hebron community and to work to secure the best future for Hebron Academy.

Best regards,

J. Matthew Lyness ‘76 Chairman of the Board of Trustees Hebron Academy

z Robert Ryan '77, Jenny Ridley '99, J. Matthew Lyness '76

“ “As trustees, we have learned a great deal in the last year and, primarily, the lesson underscored was the importance of partnership—both between the trustees and the administration, and between the Academy and its supportive alumni and friends.