With October now in full swing, we have hit our stride at about the halfway point between the beginning of the school year and Thanksgiving vacation. By this stage, all of our students have been through a few rounds of tests and papers, and have settled into a routine in and out of the classroom. The first few weeks of running on adrenaline have passed, and turning leaves and gradually declining temperatures tell us that we have hit the heart of the fall. I am pleased to report that this year's student body and faculty have us on our way to a fantastic year.

 

I write as we are on the verge of our October meetings with the school's trustees, and I thought it would make sense to share some of what we will be covering during our time together. I have noted on a number of occasions in these letters the progress we have been making on The Campaign for Brooks, and I have often made specific reference to the school's need to address the substandard arts facilities that we have called home for a long, long time. We have been thrilled with the impact much of what we have already accomplished in this campaign has had on the student experience at our school. The Ashburn Chapel fits the entire faculty and student body and serves our needs in more ways than has ever been the case. In just one month's time, we have already heard a number of terrific talks and have been singing with incredible gusto! In my opinion, Anna K. Trustey Memorial Field continues to be the finest field of its kind anywhere in New England. As a number of you know, we just had a terrific Homecoming Weekend with a couple of games under the lights. We continue to make great community use of that space. Our Brooks Together effort has played a key role in helping deliver healthy Brooks Fund results through this stretch of time, and we are off to a great start this year. The road connecting the northern and southern ends of the campus behind the Chapel has virtually eliminated all through traffic on Main Street, which has turned that space into the pedestrian zone we envisioned it would become.

 

Yet, the arts facility has remained the centerpiece of this campaign, with a $28 million cost attached to this exciting project that will open up a wide range of possibilities for our arts program while transforming the center of our campus. It has taken us some time to arrive at our current and preferred concept, but we head into this weekend's meetings as confident as we have ever been about realizing this facility with a final push from our constituency. Our goal is to break ground at the end of the current school year, and we hope this weekend's meetings move us closer to making that a reality. We will stay in touch with progress reports as they materialize.

 

In addition to spending time on the arts facility, we will take a look at our exchange programs and the difference these programs have made in the experience for many of our students. John McLoughlin has done an extraordinary job stewarding and furthering this program in dynamic ways that have forged and fortified partnerships we enjoy with schools all over the world. We will also hear from the school's alumni board about its plans for the year. This group of about 25 alumni and alumnae includes graduates spanning more than 45 years of the school's history. They volunteer time and expertise in support of event planning and recruitment, career networking events, and what are certain to be some new ideas aimed at helping us better engage with our constituency-at-large.

 

We will also spend some time on our most recent outreach letter and our ongoing effort to continually improve our practices with regard to student safety, while also making ourselves as accessible as we can be to the alumni community. In sum, we have a full couple of days and are looking forward to the time we will have with this group.

 

In other areas, I do want to draw all of your attention to an especially exciting show opening this evening in the Robert Lehman Art Center. By virtue of jointly owning a number of Andy Warhol pieces with Williams College, we will be opening a display of six of these pieces along with a range of student work this evening at 6:30 p.m. The show will remain up through Parents Weekend, which we hope will allow all of you an opportunity to visit the space. The director of the Robert Lehman Art Center, Amy Graham, and our director of development, Gage Dobbins, have done an enormous amount to bring this show to fruition. We are excited to share it with all of you through the balance of the month.

 

Before closing, I want to thank so many of you who volunteered your time and Brooks School expertise at our open house at the beginning of the month. There is no question that the many prospective students and families who attended drew a great deal from opportunities to talk with you about the school. I also want to point out that we are closing in on first quarter grades being due one week from Saturday. While the final weekend in October is generally not our first choice for Parents Weekend, this relatively late date will allow us to think with you about your son's or daughter's first quarter of the year in a more complete way than would be the case earlier in the month. We are looking forward to that opportunity.

 

Finally, I will say that I have given away a decent number of $5 gift certificates to the school store to students who have asked me if I know their names and caught me off guard. I am still working at it, however, and hope to continue making progress on keeping all 380 students straight! Kim and I will host an open house in our home on Saturday night that should help move me in the right direction. We are all getting to know one another better, and staying this course through the month is great fun.

 

If you have any questions for me, please do let me know. See you in a few weeks.