HOLDERNESS SCHOOL Holderness, New Hampshire HEAD
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HOLDERNESS SCHOOL Holderness, New Hampshire HEAD OF SCHOOL Start Date: July 2022 holderness.org Mission Holderness School fosters equally in each student the resources of the mind, body, and spirit in the creation of an empathetic community, inspiring all to work for the betterment of humankind and God’s creation. Vision Holderness School strives to develop people the world most needs. OVERVIEW Holderness is more than a school, it’s an elevated experience. Surrounded by New Hampshire’s lakes and White Mountains, Holderness School is an independent boarding and day school for grades 9-12 and postgraduate. Offering a rigorous college preparatory education and curriculum in a vibrant and supportive community, Holderness instills within each student an excellent academic foundation, strong leadership skills, and lifelong connections—ingredients for a happy and successful life. Holderness strives to create a balance in fostering the resources of the mind, body, and spirit: the mind through an intentionally challenging curriculum, the body through outdoor activities and required interscholastic athletics, and the spirit through school and community service, ongoing equity and inclusion work, and affiliation with the Episcopal Church. Holderness remains, by choice, a small school where students and faculty maintain close relationships. Every student at Holderness plays an important role in the life of the school. Through the Jobs Program, academics, athletics, and dorm life, students learn what it means to be engaged members of a strong and healthy community. They learn who they really are, and shape and expand their identity through a wide variety of challenges and experiences. Students graduate from Holderness with the skills and knowledge they need for success in college and a foundation for a lifetime of curiosity, inquiry, and learning. Current Head of School Phil Peck has announced his retirement from Holderness at the conclusion of the 2021-2022 school year. Mr. Peck came to Holderness in 1984 from the Olympic skiing circuit. First hired to teach history, Mr. Peck also coached several sports and served as dean of faculty before being named to the head of school position in 2001. The school is seeking a new head of school, effective July 2022. The next head will bring both vision and passion for college preparatory education, proven leadership and management skills, and a deep commitment to students and their families. Building a trusting, caring, and balanced community that prepares students to lead as responsible global citizens will be a core responsibility of the next head. CARNEYSANDOE.COM 2 Fast Facts Founded: 1879 Enrollment: 284 Students of color: 8% International students: 15% Teaching faculty: 50 Faculty of color: 12% Faculty with advanced degrees: 72% Student/teacher ratio: 5:1 Financial aid awarded: $4.47M Endowment: $62.5M SCHOOL HISTORY Holderness School was founded in 1879 by members of the Episcopal General Convention. The campus was originally part of the historic Livermore Estate, and still holds special services at Trinity Chapel, built in 1797. For the school’s first 75 years, enrollment generally ranged between 30 and 80 boarding and day students. From the beginning, Holderness School students hiked nearby mountains, camped in the woods, and boated or swam in the surrounding rivers and lakes. In the early 1930s, the school welcomed a trustee who had been a member of the 1928 American Olympic Winter Sports Team; not long afterward, the school began cutting and grooming its own ski trails. From this day forward, snow sports became integral to the school’s athletic program. Holderness has consistently turned challenges to its advantage. Two campus-razing fires became opportunities to design forward-thinking facilities, and two World Wars and the Great Depression led to the creation of the Job Program which required all students to participate in the upkeep of campus resources. In the 1970s the school explored alternatives to both its traditional curriculum and single- sex educational model. In the 1970s, the school took deliberate steps to develop alternatives to its traditional curriculum and shift to a co-educational school. Out of this period of intense change rose the now-iconic Special Programs, which make use of a ten- day period in March to focus members of each class on a different aspect of their personal growth. Today Holderness has a $62.5 million endowment, an outstanding faculty, and a program built around educating the whole student. In its history of over 140 years, Holderness School has upheld its core principles, even while embracing the opportunities afforded by change. CARNEYSANDOE.COM 3 THE SCHOOL Holderness School’s motto— “For God and Humankind”—along with its three core values—Community, Character, and Curiosity—drive the school’s programs and focus while helping to strengthen the minds, bodies, and spiritual lives of all students. The sum of these values is that Holderness has a very warm and connected community with a joyful spirit. Working at Holderness is a lifestyle. Faculty care deeply about the subjects they teach and make a point of connecting with the students they instruct. In addition to teaching, faculty are also dorm parents, coaches, extracurricular advisors, and leaders in the adult community. Most attend evening sit-down dinners, live on campus, and are frequently available for extra help sessions and life lessons. Students develop deep and lasting friendships while actively learning what it means to be a member of a community where they are respected, known, and challenged. They hail from 23 different states. Fifteen percent of students are international and join the Holderness community from places that include China, Canada, Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore, Thailand, Uganda, United Kingdom, and Vietnam. Holderness is committed to developing and strengthening the practices needed to build and sustain a respectful, safe, and diverse community. The Office of Equity and Inclusion supports inclusive education and heightened understanding of social justice and equity at the school through programming and policy. By integrating concepts of social justice, specifically notions of empathy and fairness, throughout the curricula, students develop an understanding of how to learn and lead in a complex, inter-connected world. CARNEYSANDOE.COM 4 Each year, Holderness sends students to a variety of conferences as a part of their individual cultural and identity development, including the Student Diversity Leadership Conference, The White Privilege Conference, AISNE High School Students of Color Conference, and Asian American Footstep Conference. Holderness also holds its own event annually, the Lakes Region Students of Color Conference, which recognizes the unique needs, experiences, and challenges of students of color in independent schools, particularly in the Lakes Region area. A yearly social justice theme and affinity and community groups are just two of the additional ways Holderness works to educate students toward a richer humanity. ACADEMICS The academic experience at Holderness develops a lifelong passion for learning. Students are known, nurtured, and encouraged. They feel safe enough to take the intellectual risks they need to grow. From graphic design to creative writing to laboratory sciences, faculty share their expertise and passions in their classrooms and bring out the best in their students. The Holderness classroom is an academically challenging environment. In small classes with no more than 16 students, teachers encourage questions and participation. Learning is very often experiential, with the lakes and mountains of New Hampshire providing further academic experiences. From biology field trips on Squam Lake for water quality testing to visits to the Human Performance Lab at Plymouth State University, the opportunities to experience real-life applications of classroom lessons are endless. CARNEYSANDOE.COM 5 College Matriculation A selection of colleges and universities matriculated to by the Classes of 2018-2020 include: American University Amherst College Bates College Boston College Boston University Brown University Carnegie Mellon University Colby College Colgate University College of Charleston Columbia University Cornell University Dartmouth College Davidson College Georgetown University Lafayette College New York University Northeastern University Oberlin College Pepperdine University The rigorous preparatory school curriculum is designed Regis College to provide students with the skills and knowledge they Skidmore College need for success in college. With levels ranging from Southern New Hampshire introductory to Advanced Placement, the curriculum is University rich with choices. Students complete courses in visual and St. Lawrence University performing arts, modern and classical languages, STEM, Stanford University literature, theology, history, and independent projects. Syracuse University Honors courses are offered in Chemistry, Physics, Algebra Trinity College 2, and Precalculus, and 18 AP courses are available. The Tufts University curriculum also supports students who need academic University of California, San Diego support. University of Denver University of Maine At Holderness, the college counseling process is more than University of New Hampshire just identifying a list of colleges. Counselors are dedicated University of North Carolina at to fully supporting students throughout their search by Chapel Hill helping them match