Life at Proctor: Beneath the Smiles is Tension Building?
by Quinn Broderick and The Proctor Press
Proctor Academy has long been known as a school with a community feel — a place where openness and frank discussion are modeled and encouraged. In marketing materials, revisit days, and on days when the sun shines, Proctor students can be a very carefree, happy bunch, free from any major issues or concerns. Walk down any pathway on campus and you will find students smiling at each other and saying, Hi.
Within the past year, however, a number of students have felt a growing sense of anxiety and unease on campus. After a few controversial decisions, such as the MLS Exam Day Bust, the Affinity Dance disruption, and the vandalism of a Field House bathroom sign, divisions in school culture seem more acute to some than usual. Though mostly unstated, there are genuine differences of opinion about the direction the school is going.
“The administration is taking the school in a direction that I feel is not a great direction to go,” points out three-year junior Peter Koumrian. “They’re tightening down where students can be and when. They’re tightening up the in-dorm time rules.” As Koumrian suggests, these and other incremental changes in school policy are beginning to add up to a noticeable change in Proctor’s student culture. According to four-year senior Ben Levisay, the “change in student culture has been noticed by many Proctor students, but the students who have noticed it the most are the three-year juniors and the four-year seniors.”
“I’ve seen Proctor go from much more of a college preparatory school in every meaning of the word,” says Jack Walker, a four-year senior, “to more of just a high school with stricter rules.”
Lauren Ho, a two-year Senior, agrees, “I think these rules are kind of necessary, but I think they are not helping us. High school is supposed to prepare us for college, and I think having such tight rules doesn’t really prepare us well for college, because the transition will be that much harder.”
After all of the controversial issues this year, next year’s Assistant School Leader, Hitch Graham, feels “like the school is treating many more students like bad apples.” At times, as a result of the actions of a few, the majority of students are treated with suspicion and mistrust that feels unwarranted to many.
In addition to rule changes and the overall tightening of school culture, students feel that the MLS bust was particularly painful for the student body and has definitely contributed to a change in the overall cohesiveness of the school this year. As most students know, at the beginning of exam week in February, the Dean of Students and other faculty members searched MLS dorm, leading to eleven students getting substance majors and one dismissal.
“The MLS bust was so painful because of timing, the number of kids that got caught, the school’s mentality behind it,” reflects four-year senior David Netburn. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my time at Proctor, especially searching every single room straight out of the blue.”
While supportive of the school’s decision to take action, some faculty members have also expressed concerns about the MLS bust. In particular, some faculty, like Math Department Chair, Sue Rochon, believe that the reason why the MLS situation has been so painful is that after nearly two terms of free reign, the dorm raid was particularly shocking. Rochon questions, “Did they let it go too long? There were hints that things had been going on at that dorm that should have been addressed earlier.”
In addition to the tightening of rules and the MLS bust, issues such as race and gender were highlighted in ways that caused divisions in student culture that seem more divisive than in year’s past. For example, many deemed the rollout of the affinity dance to be clumsy and felt this led to confusion even among students who were supportive of the dance itself.
“I feel like the dance was a good idea — to bring minorities together — but the way it was handled was poor,” says two-year junior Carlos Meyer, continuing, “The way it was described was off.”
Some students believe the explanation for the dance caused a backlash among some students, while others feel that the topic was so volatile that conflict was inevitable. “Perhaps if someone had given a more thorough explanation before the dance, it might have eased some tensions, Rochon speculates, “But, it was a hot button, and no matter what anyone said or did, it was going to be an issue.”
Rochon’s comments match those from a 2017 Salon.com editorial in which the writer Anis Shivani points out, “Identity politics always breeds its equal and opposite reaction.”
The combination of tightening of rules, the MLS bust, and the affinity dance controversy have led, according to some, to a decrease in school spirit. “I know my freshman year there was a lot of school spirit,” recalls Graham. “I remember being so excited to go to a basketball or hockey game because I knew that there was gonna be energy. Now, I am hesitant to go to games because of the change in school pride.”
The lack of school spirit was noted by more than a few student leader speeches a few weeks ago. For example, in her speech, three-year junior Sarah Hearns noticed that a common complaint among Proctor students “was a lack of school spirit that is more evident than in public schools.”
How do we resolve these issues, including the underlying lack of school spirit, and find our way back to that sense of community for which Proctor has been known? Perhaps the key to solving most of these issues involves airing them out, encouraging conversation, and simply allowing the space for students, faculty, and administration to express themselves in regards to this growing tension.
While time-consuming and messy, frank discussion and a willingness to listen and respond can often clarify the causes of conflicts that might otherwise fester and harden into anger or frustration by those who feel powerless and without a voice. In fact, open communication of this kind may be the only thing that ever leads to the kind of clarity that feeds a community and allows it to grow.
