David Fowler became Head of Proctor in 1971. He assumed leadership of a school that was struggling, and assembled a talented, young faculty inspired by his vision of experiential education and human community. When he announced his intention to move on, we felt understandable anxiety. By 1994, Proctor was relatively prosperous. We had an endowment. Applications for admission had skyrocketed, enabling the school to grow while attracting more consistently appropriate students.

Ten years have passed, and Steve Wilkins has announced his intention to move on after this year. How have we fared? The legacy of Steve’s tenure is one of investment in people….of acting on our beliefs. We believe, for example, that the quality of teachers makes a difference, so we have invested in teachers. In a comparison of nine local boarding schools, the average total instructional salaries per school is $2,333,000. Proctor ranks second (behind a much larger school) at $3,324,000.

We believe in low faculty/student ratios, and have invested here, with 4.79 students per teacher. The average instructional salary per student at nine area schools is $7,444. Acting on our beliefs, Proctor ranks #1 in this category with $9,778 expended per student. Acting on our beliefs, Proctor also ranks #1 among these schools with an investment of $13,637 per student for instructional expenditures.

While making these expensive investments in people, Proctor has—during Steve’s tenure—nearly tripled its endowment while investing more than $27,000,000 in campus improvements. As we enter Steve’s final year at Proctor and begin the search for his successor, we can take comfort in the remarkable, intangible assets that guarantee our future. In June, a Proctor student told his mother, “…at my other school I felt I had to work for my teachers…. At Proctor, the teachers all work for me… Mom, this has been the best spring term of my life.”