Does the Tree Still Stand?
by Stephanie Davis and The Proctor Press
“When I think of Proctor,” says two-year junior Grant Green, “I think of the Proctor Tree logo.”
With 2500 acres of mountains, rivers, and ponds to explore and programs that reach into far-flung corners of the world, over the years the school has made a substantial commitment to encouraging kids to adventure and go outside. As a school, many of our oldest traditions involve the outdoors. As early as the 1930s, Proctor celebrated Mountain Day, when the whole school climbed Mount Kearsarge together. For decades, students in the Cabin Club helped stock and maintain the Proctor Cabin or would hit the woods as part of the Rod and Gun Club. Many teachers and alumni associate Proctor student culture with the outdoors. As Learning Skills teacher and Native American Connection Coordinator, Lori Patriacca ’01, recalls when she was a student, “There was definitely a contingent of people on campus who went camping.”
Not only are the outdoors associated with student culture here at Proctor, but they play a prominent role in the way we market ourselves. Open up Proctor’s home page and you will find big, banner-sized pictures of students canoeing along the Mississippi River Bayou, Carr Field and the Proctor Ski Hill in fresh snow, a drone’s-eye view of the campus in its autumn glory with Ragged Mountain beyond, and Ocean Classroom students huddled together in class on The Roseway out at sea. The connection between Proctor and the outdoors is long and deep. Indeed, the first thing we do as students at Proctor is to head into the White Mountains for a five-day Wilderness Orientation backpacking trip. It may even be said that the connection to the land, to an environmental ethic, and the embrace of an Outward Bound philosophy in the early 1970s is what gives the school its unique identity — what differentiates Proctor from all the other Lakes Region Schools. But, even as construction gets underway on a $4 million dollar Outdoor Center, the question must be asked: Do students still go hiking and camping? Are these big banner images of students outside paying superficial lip service to a school that once was? And, has Proctor — a school that once taught forestry, astronomy, and orienteering — lost its connection to the land?”
At the beginning of May, not a single group of Proctor students had gone camping during the 2018–2019 school year.
Proctor’s Environmental Coordinator, Alan McIntyre, points to the slow creep of outside influences to account for the lack of student interest in the outdoors this year: “There have been a lot of changes over time that have lead to this disconnection or lack of quality time outdoors.” McIntyre continues, “Wilderness Orientation used to be ten days long. Imagine that for a second. [Students] used to hitch-hike, and stuff like that, too.”
Speculating on the declining rates of camping among students, Pete Southworth, who started teaching at Proctor in 1985 as a Mountain Classroom instructor, remarks, “It’s tricky, may be complicated… But, it seems to be related to technology.” McIntyre concurs, “There are a lot of distractions that are indoors.”
Like most faculty members that I talked to, Southworth and McIntyre believe that students really do enjoy being in nature, with just themselves, their friends, and nothing else to distract them. Southworth and McIntyre and many other faculty members would love to see more students using the Proctor woodlands.
“I definitely think there is value in students spending time outside,” says, Wilderness Orientation Director and Learning Skills teacher, Kayden Will. “I would love to see students using the woodlands resources more regularly.”
According to Will, “I think we kick it off well with Wilderness Orientation in the woods. I am not sure if we support going outdoors as well as we could, however, through the whole four years.”
The lack of institutional commitment for the outdoor programs is noticeable when considering the school’s monetary commitments to the Proctor Ski Area, which, according to many Alpine skiers and Eastern skiers, gets occasional use in the offseason for fitness, but other than that is not touched besides during the winter, or the increase in staffing and focus on wellness, which has included the hiring of additional therapists and instituting the sophomore seminar. In contrast, over the years, Proctor has seen a decline in outdoor activities. By the early 1970s, the Cabin Club disbanded. It’s been decades since Proctor celebrated Mountain Day. The senior canoe trip? Gone. Proctor archery? Gone. The Field and Stream activity? Gone. Winter ice climbing trips? Brown Dining Commons chef and Proctor alumnus Ty Morris ’06 even recalls a winter outdoor activity called Proctor Mountain Goats?
“We could definitely do way more to encourage the outdoor programs,” says Proctor alumnus and current studio art and industrial design teacher, Corby Leith ’92. Proctor alumnus and Off-Campus Coordinator Brooks Bicknell ’80 agrees, “It disappoints me to see that Proctor students are not using the woodlands.” Bicknell continues, “I hate to say it, but I hope students feel like they are encouraged to go out and use the woods to see the beauty of nature that we have here. If we are not encouraging students to go outdoors, we should encourage it more because it is an amazing resource we have.”
Bicknell, who has been teaching at Proctor for thirty years now, recalls, “I got into teaching because I used to be a climbing guy. When I first got to Proctor, one of the things I loved to do with students was go mountaineering. Just about every other weekend in the winter I would teach kids to ice climb and rock climb. We also took lots of hikes up Mt. Washington and different peaks around the area.” Bicknell says that he and others have tried to get some faculty to fill these roles, but without any contract or institutional support, most faculty will not do it.
Besides the lack of organized outdoor activities, the faster pace of the Proctor schedule has led to fewer moments for students to spend class time and free time outside.
In the past five or six years or so Proctor has added a seventh block and eliminated 90-minute blocks from the schedule, added additional Saturday classes, added sophomore and junior seminars as well as technology and art graduation requirements, and generally increased its class sizes. These changes have lead to teachers offering fewer field trips and using few experiential teaching activities in their classes. Tom Morgan, for example, stopped taking his environmental literature class to write by the Blackwater River on Fridays in the fall. McIntyre has also changed his classes to reflect the faster pace of the school day. “Due to time constraints,” he explains, “I certainly don’t do as many field trips as I used to.”
But, the question still remains, even if Proctor students still had the time, would they go outside? Or, has the student culture turned away from the outdoors?
“Freshmen are no longer exposed to an outdoor-loving Proctor, which is very different from when the seniors were in their shoes,” says four-year senior Tom McLaughry. McLaughry continues, “The Cole Mozners and Noah Drummonds of the woods are gone, and along with them so go the skills and passion that took years for them to develop.”
This loss of interest in outdoor activities has also been felt by two-year junior Katie Sullivan, who says, “I would go camping, but none of my friends here would go with me, they just are not into it.”
Sullivan wishes that the Proctor’s students’ interest in the outdoors and sense of adventure were more closely aligned to the image of Proctor found in the View Book: “As students who are accepted here, we should bring our sense of nature and adventure into fruition. We should show how the Proctor Tree defines us as a community.”
Other students feel like the fear of getting stereotyped is real for kids who venture into the woods. Three-year junior Peter Koumrian, for example, had his fishing tackle box randomly searched while fishing down by the Swinging Bridge. “It is almost as if they are always trying to catch us,” concurs three-year junior Ryan Hayes, “which is why people are not going outside.”
McLaughry believes that “With the decline of ‘crunchy’ kids among the community and the inability of students to venture the outdoors without being suspected of intent to commit dubious deeds,” this year’s senior class may be the last one to call Proctor an outdoorsy school.
“Proctor’s wooded aspect,” McLaughry says, “has fizzled out of the community.”
As nearly all the teachers and alumni I’ve talked to agree, over the past five years or so Proctor has changed. But why should a school so closely identified with the outdoors so quietly lose its connection with the land? The outdoors is part of what defines Proctor as a community; to be more specific, the freedom to go camping on campus with just a couple friends is symbolic of the relaxed environment that so many of us students came to Proctor to find.
“Proctor was a pretty outdoorsy school when I went there, says alumnae Vanessa Emery ’06, who happened to be strolling along a Nantucket beach when I talked to her. “We spent time in the woods playing around, especially on the weekends.” Emery continues, “I definitely camped in Proctor’s woodlands area on more than one occasion. If we had free time, we were always out checking things out.”
So, where has our connection with nature gone? And why hasn’t this question been seriously considered until now? Maybe, it’s that we have simply taken a love of the outdoors for granted. Like fresh water or clean air: it’s unnoticeable when we have it, but when it’s not there, it affects everything we do. When I told comparative religion teacher, Melanie Maness, that up until May of this year, no one had gone camping, she was visibly shocked.
This relaxed environment and a love of the outdoors does not show up on any records, grades, or Proctor transcripts. It isn’t something that will get you into a good college. It won’t win you any awards. But, there is something different about the people who carry it and places in which it is part of the collective atmosphere. Unfortunately, at Proctor, it has flatlined. Like most students, I do not think Proctor will ever go back to the laid back, crunchy past, but let’s just hope it doesn’t turn its back on the outdoors and simply become another stuffy academy with uniforms and an even earlier in-dorm time.
