Winter term starts on Tuesday; students return Monday evening. While we pause for the holiday, let's recycle a page written exactly one year ago that introduces Proctor to outsiders. We won't try to be complete: off-campus elective programs, sports and other basic topics deserve their own attention, and their own pages. Today, let's start by looking at who is here. This is a basic point: Proctor actively seeks an academically diverse population of students. The place is non-elitist. You can be admitted with high achievement scores, or low, if your attitude is in the right place.

Once here, students learn that outcomes (like your grades) are their own responsibilities, because a network of support systems provides a whole spectrum of extra help and academic structure. Two weeks ago, a visitor from another school observed, "The students don't seem to be competing against each other; they're pulling for each other." The notion that student performance should fall on some kind of bell curve is unpopular. If everyone deserves to do well, they get good grades.

Eighty-three teachers work with three hundred and thirty-four students. For thirty-five years, the faculty has been exploring teaching methods that maximize student activity and involvement in the learning process.

You take either five academic major subjects, or four. Honors sections and Advanced Placement courses are available in majors like biology, math and U.S. history, English, etc.

In addition to your academic major subjects, you elect non-academic courses that span the greater arts, woodshop, boatbuilding, photography, etc. This is studio art:

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