Message from the Head of School

Featured articles

Transitions & Cultural Anchors: What Makes Us, Us (pg.4) Proctor Off-Campus: Different Look, Same Impact (pg.22) Catching Up with Former Faculty and Staff: Chuck and Sarah Will, Jon Seigel (pg.28)

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EDITOR AND WRITER Scott Allenby

CONTRIBUTORS Chris Bartlett ’86, P’25 Jennifer Fleming, P’11,’12 Ryan Graumann Ben Rulli Brian Thomas Travis Warren ’91, P’18,’19,’22

DESIGN Becky Cassidy

PHOTOGRAPHY Lindsey Allenby SECTIONS 02 Message from the Head of School

08 Thanking Those Who Kept Us Running

10 Celebrating the Class of 2021

32 Alumni Stories

42 Together while Apart: Alumni Together Series Highlights

46 The Proctor Fund and Campaign for Proctor Updates

56 Alumni Updates

Our Motto “Live to Learn. Learn to Live.”

Our Mission Taking inspiration from our motto, Proctor Academy creates a diverse learning and living community: one that values the individual and recognizes the potential of each member to stretch beyond what had been thought possible.

Balancing academic rigor, structure, and support with the freedom for students to explore, create and define themselves, Proctor encourages students to achieve their optimal growth. A deep commitment to a learning skills program and a strong emphasis on experiential learning is interwoven throughout Proctor’s academic, athletic, artistic, and environmentally conscious programs both on and off campus.

Proctor students graduate understanding the values of honesty, compassion, respect, and responsibility, proceeding with confidence and with strategies to become life-long learners and thoughtful contributors to their communities.

For more information about the school, please visit our website at www.proctoracademy.org.

Proctor’s magazine is published by Proctor Academy. Letters and comments are welcomed and can be sent to Scott Allenby, Director of Communications & Strategic Initiatives, Proctor Academy, P.O. Box 500, Andover, NH 03216; (603)735-6715; communications@proctoracademy.org.

To get to know Proctor deeply and well, it is important to leaf through these pages, as well as other pieces we publish, to understand how we see the world - through images, pictures, stories, words, and people. Our strength as a community comes not just from a sure-footed way of educating generations of students in our care, but from allowing ourselves - adults and students - to practice diving into the muck of learning. We live by our motto “Live to Learn. Learn to Live,” reminding ourselves that we are all on the same journey of “being” and “discerning” and “becoming”, all within the context of the relationships we cultivate with each other and with the world around us.

Like 120 of our students, I am new to Proctor. My time in Andover begins during the school’s 173rd year. As we prepare to write this next chapter of Proctor’s narrative, the stories we tell ourselves today decidedly determine what the school’s future will resemble in another 173 years and all of the years in between. More than the stories and names, the resonance for making sense and meaning of our world while adding value and serving others remains our key motivation for our work together. As I have come to appreciate so deeply during my few short months as Head of School, Proctor is so much more than a school seeking to educate adolescents. We are a powerful experiment in the building and sustaining of community, a community that allows each of us to feel connected, loved, and seen within an incredibly complex world.

Last year was one of the most challenging on record for schools around the country. The COVID-19 pandemic, threats to environmental sustainability, and the push for racial justice put into sharp relief the pressure points and disparities that we can no longer turn our heads to avoid. We no longer possess the ability to opt out of hard conversations. Instead, our work at Proctor is to look in a clear-eyed way at the challenges around us and pursue solutions. We are builders, doers, makers, and shapers. It is within communities like Proctor’s that the next generation of young people will learn to lead through kindness, compassion, and integrity.

This publication is meant to be more than just a remnant to place in a time capsule. The stories within these pages provide a roadmap for our students, for each of us, to learn to lean into, not away from, the challenges of our time. May you be challenged by, find comfort in, and connect to your Proctor family through the words and images in this publication.

Brian Thomas, Head of School

What Makes Us, Us& Transitions Cultural Anchors

When major transitions in leadership take place within an organization, sometimes a quiet worry that the school’s mission, or perhaps more precisely, its soul, will change percolates within a community. These unspoken fears that we will evolve away from the “old” Proctor in the rush to build something new are entirely normal and to be expected. New Head of School Brian Thomas and new Chair of the Board of Trustees Travis Warren ‘91, P’18, ‘19, ‘22 share a deep appreciation for Proctor’s history and current strengths, while also believing in who Proctor could be.

This institutional ability to hold both truths at the same time (honoring our past while envisioning our future) is only possible when a community’s cultural anchors extend well beyond its leadership to all members of the organization. This collective stewardship of the Proctor community through a most difficult year is the very foundation on which we will build the Proctor of tomorrow. When each individual understands and embraces their role as stewards of Proctor - some in the classroom, some on the athletic fields, others in the studio, in the dorms, or on the Maintenance, Dining Services, Housekeeping, Health Center teams, or Business Office - our community thrives.

Over the past eighteen months, the Proctor community not only underwent a leadership transition, but also navigated a global pandemic alongside a national reckoning around race and privilege that simultaneously challenged and inspired the school to do its best work. In the midst of the occasional chaos, of that feeling that maybe it would be easier if it all just came undone, we found ourselves doing the exact opposite and drawing closer. Supporting each other. Stepping up and giving just a little bit more to others so they could be sure to have something left in their tank to give to others. This ripple effect of teamwork permeates a workplace. It is felt by the students and parents who enroll here, and it is then perpetuated by new generations of employees who see its fruit blossom each year.

Proctor will continue to evolve in the years to come under Brian Thomas’ leadership, just as our students grow during their time with us, but fundamentally, at its core, Proctor will remain steadfastly anchored by those who believe deeply in the impact this school can have on adolescents and are willing to actively steward Proctor into the future.

By Proctor’s new Chair of the Board of Trustees, Travis Warren ’91, P’18,’19,’22

After seven years of leadership as the Chair of Proctor’s Board of Trustees, Tom Healey’s, P’16,’17,’19,’21 term as Board Chair expired. Throughout his time as Chair, Tom was masterful at creating culture within Proctor’s Board. He always stressed the importance of good governance and the Board knowing it’s role within the overall operation of the school. He constantly reminded us that it isn’t about us, individually, but always about Proctor and Proctor’s future. He listened, led by example, and gave an incredible amount of time and energy into his leadership of Proctor. The school is incredibly lucky to have a consistency of leadership at the Board level that mirrors that of the rest of its leadership team.

The next two years will see significant evolution in the composition of our Board as nine individuals rotate off the Board of Trustees, three of whom are currently chairing committees for us. With more women than men on our Board (60% of the Board identify as female), and fourteen Proctor alumni serving on the Board, we are proud of the progress we have made diversifying the voices represented on our Board and engaging alumni in the governance of the school moving forward. We hope to add five new Trustees this fall, and another five the following September as we continue to welcome new voices, new perspectives, and new energy to this critical team.

As I reflect on stepping into this role, I am very fortunate during my 14 years on the Board to watch Tom, Steve Theroux, and Mark Loehr operate as previous Board Chairs. They each possessed a unique style, and I am honored to now have a chance to apply that which I have learned from them in my new role.