It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Trustees' decision to name David Fowler as Proctor's next Head of School in 1971. In his sixth year as a teacher here, David promised bold change at a school that was struggling for its soul at the height of Vietnam-era alienation and angst. So total was the revolution precipitated by this decision that the Board itself was transformed (as was the faculty). Sumner Rulon-Miller became Board Chair; teachers comfortable with traditional school management quit or retired. David's leadership empowered not the administration, but the faculty (and students), and change was swift. We stopped hasselling boys about the length of their hair; jeans and T-shirts became the dress of choice; girls were admitted. Despite David's restraint, his vision for a school that implemented experiential modes of education--and wilderness education in particular--was clear. In the fall of 1972, Proctor's first Wilderness Orientation took small groups of new students into the White Mountains for a week of camping, hiking, burned noodles, shared hardship and fun. Below, a group of girls enter the forest at Wonalancet last week:



Elective programs like Mountain Classroom, programs abroad, Ocean Classroom and Morocco would follow, but it was Orientation that gave David's Proctor a distinctive character. Here, in the woods, your environment is everything. Every member of the group is equal. You are responsible; decisions count.



Thirty years later, could these lessons have greater significance to the teenagers of the 21st Century? Below, boys explore the bed of the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River in search of a pool to swim.