Report from the Director
THE 2004–05 ACADEMIC YEAR
was a banner year in so many ways.
The school undertook the preliminary
steps in an intentional
and realistic strategic planning
process. Now that the school has
a degree of financial robustness,
as well as a stable and seasoned
faculty, we are in a position—
arguably for the first time in the
school’s history—to plan consciously
for the next decade. Sue
Cesare is our consultant charged
with shepherding the process.
She has already solicited ideas
from trustees, faculty and students
and the material that she
has gleaned will constitute the
starting point of research and
debate for five task forces. The
goal is to have a draft strategic
plan for the board to examine at
its February meeting.
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 Brian Morgan |
Also feeding into the strategic
planning process will be information
gathered from a series of
Putney Community Meetings
(PCMs) that we have begun convening
around the country.
Individual trustees have been, and
will continue to be actively
engaged in this process as facilitators
or scribes. The objective is to
glean from a variety of alumni
and Putney parents ideas for an
even stronger Putney in the
future. The final weeks of the
2004–05 school year saw PCMs
in Dummerston and Santa Fe
and others are scheduled over the
summer. It is exhilarating to be
part of a school community that
looks continually to the future.
This past year was also the first
full year of operation for the
Michael S. Currier Center. We
have discovered exciting, yet
unanticipated ways to use this
remarkable space and I am sure
that we’ll discover still more as
time passes. For example, we discovered
that moving the wall
panels in the art gallery to form a
funnel created a perfect space for
an intimate poetry reading. The
flexibility of the auditorium
proved invaluable during spring
Family Weekend when, for the
first performance evening, we
had the chairs facing the rear of
the hall for the jazz ensemble and
then the audience turned their
seats around to face the stage for
the dance concert.
The day before graduation
we dedicated the auditorium
“Calder Hall” to honor Mary
Calder Rower ’58 for her many
years of board service.We have
also moved the Calder mobile
from the KDU to a much more
visible and appropriate location
in Calder Hall.
Sandy ’81 and Holton ’80
Rower’s gift of a Calder stabile to
the school is the most recent of a
series of extremely generous gifts
to the school in recent years. Last
year we also received a remarkable gift to
endow the Putney farm from a member of the class of 1947 and his family, as well as
a generous grant to refurbish the
farm. Last year the school
received gifts totaling almost $8
million! This is no mean accomplishment.
In case the reader is
tempted to think that Putney is
betraying its principles by raising
this much money, let me say quite
simply that, in order to be a sustainable
institution in the future,
Putney will have to double or
even treble its current endowment
funds in the near future.
Putney exists for its students and
this year our students have done
Putney proud for the seventieth
year. In addition to stunning
musical, dance, and drama performances,
our students have
qualified for junior national
competition in Nordic skiing,
and most recently for junior
national competition in sculling.
Our students have organized for
the fourth consecutive year their
own Putney Youth Conference
on social justice and equity. Our
students have traveled abroad on
exchange programs in France, to
the rain forest in Costa Rica, and
to community service projects in
Ghana. Putney is indeed fortunate
to have the student body
that it has—they are remarkable
young people!
While each year we have to face
the bittersweet experience of a
graduation, we can, at least, steel
ourselves to what we know is an
annual event. While we celebrate
each graduating class, there is
always an element of sadness to
see them leave. It is even more
traumatic,however, to say farewell
to adults who “graduate.” This
year we wish well to: Math
Instructor Ian Nelson; ESL
Instructor Sydney Snyder;
Spanish Instructor and sabbatical
replacement Molly O’Brien;
Assistant Librarian Lisa Chase;
and from the development office,
Deni Bergne, Rennie Washburn,
and Bob Sheridan. All of these
individuals have done yeoman
service to Putney and they will
all be sorely missed. Especially
significant, however, is the
departure of Dean of Students
Dave Arnstein. After eighteen
years of distinguished service to
the school as dormhead, science
department chair and, most
recently, dean, words are less
than adequate to describe the
debt that Putney owes this rare
individual. We wish him and his
family well in his new career in
Washington, DC.
So, with another banner year
behind us, we move optimistically
into the eighth decade of
The Putney School. Every year
brings its unique challenges, but
I look forward to reporting at
this time next year on Putney’s
next banner year!
Brian Morgan
bmorgan@putneyschool.org
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