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Pomfret Magazine | Fall 2022
Only Connect
STORY BY Garry Dow
PHOTOS BY Allegro Photography and Corrine Szarkowicz
For Greg Melville ’68, the first eight-figure donor in Pomfret history, it all comes down to just two words.
"I really love this campus,” Greg Melville ’68 tells me. We are standing in the vestibule of Clark Memorial Chapel with his wife Susan Fox. It’s mid-August. The temperature is pushing one hundred degrees — hot and unbearably humid for Connecticut. But inside, the Chapel’s stone walls and marbled floor are cool to the touch.
Just overhead, a wooden sign carved by late faculty member Chris Atwood catches my eye. Inscribed is a quote from the 19th-century Swiss moral philosopher and poet Henri Frédéric Amiel. It is how Director of Spiritual Life Bobby Fisher concludes every chapel service. “Dear Friends,” he says. “Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.”
Built in 1907, the Norman-style church, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is modeled after a church in Pontefract, England. The construction of the Chapel was made possible by a single $135,000 donation given in memory of George Newhall Clark (1904) by his parents Edward and Lydia after George passed away during his sophomore year at Harvard.
The stone used to build the Chapel was donated by a local farmer, Lewis Averil, who dismantled the stately walls of his beloved Wolf Den Farm and hauled his bounty by oxcart to the top of Pomfret Hill.
On this hazy summer day, aside from us, no one is here. Solitude suits the Chapel. It seems to suit Greg as well. “This is where you come to contemplate the things that matter most.”
Greg grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut. From an early age, his family instilled in him a deep sense of social responsibility. “I learned it first from my grandparents. They donated the land to build the State University of New York at Stony Brook. I remember visiting once and finding a picture of my grandfather breaking ground with Governor Nelson Rockefeller and other dignitaries. It certainly made an impression on me. If you had the resources, it was important to help others with your money.”
Greg’s parents also nurtured his philanthropic impulse. The centerpiece of their giving was the Melville Charitable Trust, a fund they created to help end homelessness in Connecticut. “They believed in using their financial resources to effect real and lasting change.”
Greg’s dad was Pomfret Class of 1940 and would go on to serve as a trustee. “My three brothers and I attended Reunions with our parents several times,” he remembers. “I vividly recall both seeing the beautiful buildings and watching my first crew races. Early on, I fell in love with the School and the idea of attending Pomfret.”
When Greg arrived at Pomfret in the fall of 1965 as a wide-eyed fourth former, the School already had a reputation for being one of the more progressive boarding schools in New England, if not the country.
The old vestiges of 1950s conformity had given way to something new. In 1965, John Irick became the first Black student to graduate from Pomfret, and in 1969, Naomi VegaNieves became the first female to graduate. “The School was changing for the better,” Greg says.
Greg’s roommate sophomore year was a guy named Gary Seacrest ’68 — a “Cornhusker” from Lincoln, Nebraska. Greg says it was “a real eye-opener” to live with someone from the Midwest. He also remembers Vicente Vento Torres ’68, an American Field Service (AFS) student from Valencia, Spain, with whom he roomed as a senior, in 1967-1968.
“Vicente, his parents, grandparents, and his siblings had lived in Franco’s fascist Spain, and he’d never heard students or adults openly express political opinions. He became a good friend and returned to Pomfret for our 50th Reunion in 2018. I keep in touch with him and his children to this day.”
In the fall of his senior year, Greg enrolled in an urban studies class. That spring, the school chaplain arranged for a half-dozen students, including Greg, to volunteer at Episcopal parishes in poor inner cities up and down the East Coast.
For a month, Greg worked in Camden, New Jersey, and eventually found himself spending the night at a tent city in Washington, DC. “For the first time, I glimpsed the faces of those who lived in profound poverty. I walked about in a sea of mud and felt for a short time what it was to be part of a community of persons protesting for a better life.”
Just a few short weeks ago, in New York’s Central Park Boathouse, Greg took to the podium before a crowd of two hundred Pomfret supporters to officially launch Amplify: The Campaign for Pomfret School. The campaign is the most ambitious in Pomfret’s history. The goal is to raise $80 million — nearly double the School’s previous record. So far, thousands of donors have contributed more than $60 million in gifts, commitments, and pledges.
At the launch event, Head of School Tim Richards announced Greg as Pomfret’s campaign chair and first eightfigure donor, surpassing Edward du Pont ’52 as the most generous benefactor in Pomfret history.
“Greg’s commitment and support mark a truly transformative and watershed moment for Pomfret School. He is signaling a new era in philanthropy at Pomfret, demonstrating that we are a school with a mission and vision worthy of transformational giving at the highest levels.”
How did I not know? That was the common refrain as the announcement reverberated across the room. How had this unassuming, quiet guy from Hadlyme, Connecticut, whose name appears on no building, manage to give away more than ten million dollars without most people noticing?
When I put the question to Greg after the event, he seems almost as surprised as everyone else. “It adds up, I guess.” And then after a short pause — “It helps to have a partner.”
That partner is Susan Fox, a powerhouse in her own right. Greg met Susan in Cheshire, Connecticut. “We were involved in Senator Chris Murphy’s first congressional campaign. I had a son from a previous marriage, Susan had two daughters, and they were about the same age. We found that we were compatible in both our family life and political thinking.”
These days, Greg and Susan are fully invested in education across the age spectrum. In particular, they are involved in supporting high-quality, early-childhood education through the Friends Center for Children in New Haven, Connecticut, which serves children from three months to five years old. “It is very powerful. Resources at that age can provide a profound and lasting start for a young child,” says Greg.
At Pomfret, Greg and Susan are most interested in growing scholarship aid for students, improving faculty compensation, and providing professional development opportunities. But they have also given generously to capital projects, most notably
Pomfret’s Health and Wellness Center, which opened its doors in the fall of 2018. This $4 million state-licensed facility features four single bedrooms with private baths, a multi-bed observation room, intake and consultation rooms, and three soundproofed counseling rooms.
Greg Melville and Susan Fox outside of the School Building during a recent visit to Pomfret.
Back at Pomfret, I ask Greg: Why step out of the shadows now? “This is a really important inflection point in the life of the School,” he says. “With curiosity, the spirit to explore, and the will to learn and work, I wager we’ll never learn the limits of a Pomfret education.”
This is Greg and Susan’s story, but as I watched them climb back into their car and head for home, I couldn’t help but think, it is also Edward and Lydia Clark’s story. It’s Edward du Pont’s story. Michael and Eric Schwartz’s story. Peter and Laurie Grauer’s story. And so many others.
Imagine, for a moment, our School without them. In the snap of your fingers, our most iconic buildings would crumble to the ground, our most cherished programs would vanish, and the bulk of our endowment would evaporate. If a school still existed when the dust settled, it would bear scant resemblance to the Pomfret we know and love. In a fiscal climate where flexible, dependable income is hard to come by, people like Greg Melville and Susan Fox prove that Pomfret’s tradition of giving is still alive and well.
“For me, it all comes down to something I read in English class here at Pomfret more than fifty years ago,” Greg says. “A phrase from the epigraph of E.M. Forster’s “Howards End” that has guided me ever since. The two most powerful words in the English language: “Only connect.”
