Every ten years, New England high schools and colleges undergo reacreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Two years ago, on November 8, 2011, James Mooney, Deputy Director of the NEASC's Commission on Independent Schools, addressed Proctor faculty on the scope and goals of the process.



The issue is not whether a school meets objective standards; it is whether we meet our own standards. This means that a school can make the process relatively easy by not investing lots of effort and energy into self-study, or it can capitalize on the process as an opprtunity to grow. 



Jim Mooney was here two years ago to encourage us to look hard at potential areas for advancement, and to welcome the experience as the opportunity that it is to grow. We took the challenge. 
Below, Brooks Bicknell addresses the community on opportuities to study in Costa Rica this winter and spring.



So, for the past sixteen months or so, faculty and staff have been working in sixteen committees, addressing sixteen "standards" or qualifying topics, surveying, analyzing, debating, and writing volumes of text. 



On that day, two years ago, Jim Mooney reminded us that a team of educators from peer schools would be spending three days on campus in October, 2013. How far away that date seemed! Today, we are in the middle of that nine-member evaluating team's visit to the school. They are school heads, department chairs, and academic deans comprising a very talented lot. The composition of the team is a compliment to Proctor.



They are delving into everything; speaking to whomever they wish; asking whatever they want. One committee member--reflecting on his former corporate career--asked me, what if businesses invited peers to come inside...to critique...assess...praise....How much better would our economy function?!


The visiting team attended Tuesday evening's faculty meeting, at which we discussed school size. Placing boarders into a dormitory at Elbow Pond was supposed to be a temporary stopgap measure! Below, the boys of Elbow posed with Lisa, their beloved dorm mother.





Sometime--months from now--Proctor will receive a document from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges proclaiming our acreditation for another ten years. It will contain both recommendations and commendations, and we will welcome both with gratitude, because a team of professions volunteered a lot of time, focus, energy and effort to match the work we did to optimize the outcome of this process.