St. Paul's School (New Hampshire)
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St. Paul's School (also known as St. Paul's or SPS) is a college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire, affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The school's Template:Convert, or 3.125 square mile, campus serves 540 students, who come from 37 states and 28 countries.
Established in 1856 to educate boys from upper-class families, St. Paul's later became one of the first boys' boarding schools to admit girls and is now home to a diverse student body from all backgrounds. It is one of the only remaining boarding-only high schools in the United States. With a financial endowment of $759.3 million as of June 2024, St. Paul's is one of the wealthiest boarding schools in New England on a per capita basis. U.S.-based students with annual household incomes of $150,000 or below "generally qualify for full tuition support." Thirty-eight percent of students are on financial aid.
HistoryEdit
Early historyEdit
In 1856, Boston physician George Cheyne Shattuck, the future dean of Harvard Medical School,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> converted his summer home in Millville, New Hampshire (a satellite town of Concord) into a boarding school for boys.<ref name="AHecksher">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Inspired by the educational theories of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who believed that classroom learning should be balanced with the "direct experience of the senses," Shattuck wanted his two sons educated in the austere, bucolic countryside.<ref name=":13">Template:Cite magazine</ref> He hoped that eventually, the school would "educate the sons of [other] wealthy inhabitants of large cities."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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For the first fifty years of St. Paul's history, it was run by two brothers, Henry Augustus Coit (r. 1856-95) and Joseph Howland Coit (r. 1895-1906).<ref name=":4">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> An Anglophile, Henry Coit endeavored to make St. Paul's an American equivalent of an English public school, importing Anglicisms such as "forms," "removes," "evensong," and "matins."<ref name=":14">Template:Cite book</ref> The school's religious services were Anglo-Catholic,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and enrollment was initially limited to Episcopalians.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the 1890s, Coit also attempted to ban baseball in favor of cricket;<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp the SPS cricket team toured New England and Canada.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
SPS almost immediately attracted an upper-class clientele. Shattuck had attended Round Hill School,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> a short-lived experimental school that was "the most famous American school of its time."<ref name=":15">Template:Cite journal</ref> Founded in 1823, Round Hill was one of Harvard College's top feeder schools, and "offered an excellent but very expensive education" with "an elegant lifestyle," including "servants, stables, and tours of the estates of prominent Bostonians."<ref name=":15" /> Although it shut down in 1834, it left a strong impression on Shattuck, who believed that in the isolation of a boarding school, attentive teachers could better foster "physical and moral culture" in their students.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Roughly 70 percent of Round Hill families eventually sent children to St. Paul's.<ref name=":8">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp
The school started with just three students,<ref name="KhanShattuck">Khan, Shamus Rahman (2010-12-28). Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology) (p. 11). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. "Coit died in 1895, firmly at the helm until his final days. By the end of his forty-year tenure, St. Paul's had a faculty of 35 and a student body of 345."</ref> but grew quickly. By the mid-1860s, it was already filled to capacity, leading an SPS parent to establish St. Mark's School.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Enrollment reached 204 students by 1878<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp and 345 students by 1895.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Although the school (founded by Bostonians) was initially not associated with the New York upper class,<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp SPS gradually extended its reach to New York and the Philadelphia Main Line. By 1894, there were only six students from Boston.<ref name=":8" />Template:Rp In 1923, the school educated 199 students from New York and 26 from Massachusetts.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
College feederEdit
The Coits' immediate successor, Henry Ferguson (r. 1906-11), left after just five years.<ref name=":4" /> In 1910, Samuel Drury (r. 1911-38) assumed control of the school.<ref name=":4" /> He presided over what the school historian called its "Augustan age."<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp Drury stayed at St. Paul's for twenty-seven years. Along the way, he declined the rectorship of Manhattan's Trinity Church—at the time the nation's wealthiest congregation—and the bishopric of Pennsylvania.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Drury turned SPS into one of America's most reliable feeder schools to Ivy League universities. Like other leading New England prep schools of the period,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> SPS was not founded as a college-preparatory school: of the first 70 graduates, only five went directly to college.<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp However, times were changing. Ferguson had recognized that parents were increasingly interested in sending their sons to college, but was not able to implement his ideas.<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp Although Drury shared some of Henry Coit's skepticism about higher education—he once wrote in his annual report that a quarter of every St. Paul's class should be encouraged to forego college<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> —he significantly improved St. Paul's academic reputation. He hired better teachers, tightened academic standards, and reestablished student discipline.<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp Universities were attracted to the kind of well-schooled, upper-class young men that schools like St. Paul's produced in large quantities. In 1934, 95% of St. Paul's graduates matriculated at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In addition, in 1940 (shortly after Drury's death), 77 students applied to Harvard from the "St. Grottlesex" schools (of which St. Paul's was the largest member), and only one was rejected.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Drury also sought to democratize the student body and curtail snobbery among the richer students.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Although St. Paul's was heavily oversubscribed—in 1920 it received over 1,600 applications for just over 100 openings<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>—Drury set aside 10 slots a year for the winners of a competitive examination,<ref name=":14" /> dryly explaining that "we try to admit every son of an alumnus," but also "wish to admit every boy with high marks."<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp A capable fundraiser, Drury raised the school's financial endowment from $1.1 million in 1920 to $3.6 million in 1930, and conducted a $1.6 million fundraising campaign that primarily went towards student financial aid.<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp From 1920 to 1938, the share of SPS students on scholarship nearly tripled, from roughly 6% to 17%.<ref name=":14" /><ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp Starting in 1922, Drury and his successors froze tuition at $1,400 for 22 consecutive years.<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp
Turbulence and reformEdit
Norman Nash (r. 1939-47) guided the school through World War II before leaving to become the Bishop of Massachusetts.<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp He was succeeded by Henry Kittredge (r. 1947-54), the first SPS rector who was not an Episcopal minister.<ref name=":4" /> Although Kittredge questioned colleges' increasing reliance on standardized tests in college admissions,<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp he was generally able to sustain SPS' enviable college placement record. In 1953, SPS sent 78% of its students to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, second among New England boarding schools.<ref name=":16">Template:Cite journal</ref>
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Under Matthew Warren (r. 1954-70), the school underwent significant changes. Tuition was increased to $1,800; applications increased significantly despite rising tuition, aided by an improving economy; and the campus was substantially renovated.<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp As competition for spots at SPS increased, Warren conciliated the alumni, many of whom wanted to send their own sons to SPS. He announced that under his watch, SPS would not "use scholarship funds to entice the unusually able boy to our school."<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp It was an ill-timed concession, as colleges were receiving the same flood of applications as boarding schools and took the opportunity to tighten their own standards for admission. By 1967 the proportion of SPS graduates going on to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton had nearly halved from 1953.<ref name=":16" /> Warren personally visited Yale president Kingman Brewster to ask him to reverse course. Brewster replied that Yale would accept students from the top 40% of the SPS class, but was no longer interested in bottom-half SPS students.<ref>Karabel, p. 357.</ref>
The school gradually opened its doors to a broader cross-section of America. The school scrapped its Episcopalians-only rule, although not without some hiccups. In 1939, Rose Kennedy withdrew Robert F. Kennedy from the school after just one month because she believed its culture was still anti-Catholic; in the late 1950s the school allowed John Kerry '62 to attend Mass off campus as long as he also attended the school's Episcopal Sunday chapel services later that day; and by the end of the 1960s, Catholics were no longer required to attend Protestant services on campus.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp SPS' first black faculty member (John T. Walker) and student arrived in 1957 and 1959, respectively.<ref name=":11">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Warren's last major achievement was coeducation: in May 1970, shortly before he stepped down, the board of trustees agreed to begin admitting girls in 1971.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Nonetheless, the tail end of Warren's tenure marked the start of a turbulent period for St. Paul's. In 1968, students wrote an acerbic manifesto describing the school administration as an oppressive regime, and issued demands for change.<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp
St. Paul's rode out the storm under Warren's successor William Oates (r. 1970-82). According to Alex Shoumatoff '64, Oates applied "the prevailing educational and developmental thinking of the day, that schools should not be repressive and that adolescents should be free to experiment and try out different identities."<ref name=":13" /> He conciliated the students by offering them the opportunity to participate in disciplinary decisions.<ref name=":18">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp He also accepted several of the demands that the students had made in 1968. In the following years, seated meals were reduced from three times a day to four times a week, courses were shortened to be terms (rather than years) long, mandatory (non-Sunday) chapel attendance was reduced to four times a week, and the school's grading system was changed to ease student competition.<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Oates also expanded the arts program.<ref name=":11" />
An excellent fundraiser, Oates doubled the size of the school's endowment with an ambitious $30 million fundraising campaign,<ref name="AHecksher" />Template:Rp which left SPS the wealthiest boarding school in the United States (per capita) by a comfortable margin.<ref name=":19" />
Emergence into modern eraEdit
By the 1980s and 1990s, the board of trustees wanted the administration to exercise a firmer hand over the school. They confronted St. Paul's emerging image (warranted or not) as a "party school"—a poll found that 80% of the students were using drugs<ref name=":13" />—and sought to restore faculty discipline over the students.<ref name=":18" />Template:Rp In 1992, the board appointed David Hicks (r. 1992-96) as rector and ordered him to improve the school's academic reputation, as "[n]obody had gone to Harvard in five years, except for legacies."<ref name=":13" /> Hicks introduced an interdisciplinary humanities curriculum which the school still employs today.<ref name=":11" /> Although the faculty eventually forced him to resign,<ref name=":13" /> the school rebounded academically. In 2001, SPS ranked fifth among boarding schools and fifteenth in the nation in a study of which schools sent the most students to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The succeeding rectors ushered in a relative period of calm, and the trustees and rectors have continued to modernize the campus. The new Ohrstrom Library, designed by Robert A. M. Stern and Carroll Cline, opened in 1991.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A 95,000-square-foot athletic center opened in 2004.<ref name="privateschool.about.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="NYT112104" /> The Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science opened in fall 2011.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The former visual arts center, the Hargate Building, was renovated in 2017 to become the new Friedman Community Center.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> A replacement arts building was opened in 2017.<ref name=":20">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> However, the school has endured a series of controversies in the 21st century, primarily concerning sexual misconduct.
The modern-day St. Paul's serves a diverse body of students from all backgrounds while still educating students drawn from the highest levels of American society and international elites. According to sociologist Shamus Khan (an alumnus), the school's unparalleled financial resources allow it to cultivate "an intentional diversity that few communities share or can afford."<ref name="KhanDiversity">Khan, p. 13 ("Sitting next to a poor Hispanic boy from the Bronx— who forty years ago would never have been admitted— is a frighteningly self-possessed girl from one of the richest WASP families in the world. St. Paul's is still a place for the already elite. ... But it is more.").</ref> Financial aid students admitted to SPS receive, on average, an 87% discount on frontline tuition.<ref name=":12" />
In 2019, Kathleen Giles became the fourteenth rector of St. Paul's. She had previously served as the head of Middlesex School from 2003 to 2019. Before that, she was the dean of academic affairs at Groton School.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Under her administration, St. Paul's bills itself as "one of the nation's only 100% boarding high schools"; nearly all of its competitors enroll some day students.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
- New Upper School Building, Saint Paul's School (3678170469).jpg
The Upper School Template:Circa
- St. Paul's School (New Hampshire) in 1890 01.jpg
Students on the ice of Lower School Pond, 1890
- St. Paul's School (New Hampshire) in 1890 08.jpg
Students playing leap frog outside the Big Study, 1890
- St. Paul's School, Concord, The Lower School, by Kimball, W. G. C. (Willis G. C.), 1843-1916.png
"The Lower School"
- St. Paul's School, Concord, The Chapel, by Kimball, W. G. C. (Willis G. C.), 1843-1916.jpg
"The [Old] Chapel"
- St. Paul's School, Concord, Dining Room at the School, by Kimball, W. G. C. (Willis G. C.), 1843-1916.jpg
"Dining Room at the School"
FacilitiesEdit
The school's rural campus is familiarly known as "Millville," after a now-abandoned mill whose relic still stands in the woods near the Lower School Pond. When St. Paul's was founded, its campus covered 50 acres.<ref name="Khan">Khan, Shamus Rahman (2010-12-28). Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School: (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.</ref>Template:Rp Today, the campus stretches over 2,000 acres,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the overwhelming majority of which is undeveloped wildland and woodland. The campus itself includes four ponds and the upper third of the Turkey River.<ref name=":20" /> In 2018, Architectural Digest named St. Paul's the most beautiful private high school campus in New Hampshire.<ref name=":17">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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The centerpiece of the campus is the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul (informally the "New Chapel"), constructed between 1886 and 1888.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was designed by Henry Vaughan, and was one of the first American chapels to employ Perpendicular Gothic.<ref name=":21">Template:Cite journal</ref> Although Vaughan was the architect of Washington National Cathedral, an architecture critic at Princeton University called the New Chapel Vaughan's masterpiece, as Vaughan died before the cathedral was completed.<ref name=":21" /> SPS preserved the smaller Old Chapel, which dates back to 1858 and was the school's first building; it is now used for ceremonial events.<ref name=":20" /><ref name="KhanOldChapel">"The old chapel is one of the most beautiful spaces on campus: in the middle of the grounds, intimate, and too small to house the whole student body." Khan, Shamus Rahman (2010-12-28). Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School: (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology) (pp. 74-75). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.</ref>
Overlooking the Lower School Pond, the Ohrstrom Library was remodeled in 2016 and is now home to 75,000 print books and almost half a million e-books in its digital archive. According to the alumni magazine, this "put[s] the school archives on par with some of the country’s major universities."<ref name=":0" /> Lindsay Center, the science and math building, contains a greenhouse and an observatory.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The school is currently building a 16,000-square-foot admissions center, scheduled to open in early 2025.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
There are 19 dorms: nine boys', nine girls', and one all-gender. Each houses between 20 and 40 students, and every dorm has members of all four forms. The architecture of the dormitories varies from the Collegiate Gothic style of the "Quad" dorms (built in 1927) to the spare, modern style of the Kittredge building (built in the early 1970s).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
FinancesEdit
Tuition and financial aidEdit
In the 2024-25 school year, St. Paul's charged students $68,353 plus fees, of which financial aid covered, on average, $60,500.<ref name=":12">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
St. Paul's offers need-based financial aid, and commits to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need for every admitted student. The school states that U.S.-based families with annual household incomes of $150,000 or below "generally qualify for full tuition support." Thirty-eight percent of SPS students are on financial aid, and the school's financial aid budget is roughly $12.6 million.<ref name=":12" />
Although most financial aid at St. Paul's is administered strictly on the basis of financial need, the school offers a limited number of regional scholarships for students from Alabama, California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Montana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming, as well as Mexico.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Endowment and expensesEdit
As of June 30, 2024, St. Paul's disclosed in its 2023-24 Annual Report that its financial endowment stands at $759.3 million, equivalent to approximately $1.4 million per student.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In its Internal Revenue Service filings for the 2021-22 school year, SPS reported total assets of $953.8 million, net assets of $854.6 million, investment holdings of $724.4 million, and cash holdings of $14.9 million. SPS also reported $64.7 million in program service expenses and $10.9 million in grants (primarily student financial aid).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
St. Paul's has historically been one of the wealthiest boarding schools in the United States. In 1978, Time magazine reported that St. Paul's had an endowment per student of $92,555 ($440,524 in February 2024 dollars), nearly two-thirds more than second-placed Groton.<ref name=":19">Template:Cite magazine</ref> A 2009 study found that Exeter ($987,000) had passed St. Paul's ($827,000), and Andover ($722,000) and Hotchkiss ($716,000) were not far behind.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> However, in January 2019 St. Paul's was once again the wealthiest boarding school in New England, with an endowment per student of $1.19 million.<ref name=":9">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Admissions and student bodyEdit
AdmissionsEdit
In 2024, St. Paul's welcomed 141 new students and reported an admissions rate of 13%. The new students came from 24 states and 22 countries.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Based on 2023 data, 71.7% of accepted students chose to enroll at SPS.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
DiversityEdit
In the 2023-24 school year, St. Paul's reported that 48% of its students identified as people of color and 22% were international students. The student body represented 37 states and 28 countries.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In the 2021-22 school year, St. Paul's reported that 62.4% of its students were white, 15.1% were Asian, 7.9% were black, 7.7% were Hispanic, 0.2% were Native American/Alaska Native, and 6.6% were multiracial. The survey did not permit the school to identify one student in multiple categories.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> At the end of the 2021-22 school year, SPS announced that 47% of its 158 incoming students were non-Caucasian and 19% came from abroad.<ref name="Acceptance22">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
AthleticsEdit
Notable sportsEdit
George Shattuck supported outdoors education, and St. Paul's was "perhaps the first school in which the deed of gift accented physical development."<ref name=":14" />
St. Paul's has a long tradition of ice hockey. The school, and the city of Concord more broadly, were early cradles for ice hockey in America.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="NYT012511">Template:Cite news</ref>
- By some accounts, the first hockey game in the United States was played on the St. Paul's Lower School Pond on November 17, 1883,<ref name="NYT012511" /><ref name="nytimes.com" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> after SPS teacher James Potter Conover visited Montreal for Christmas and watched Canadian skaters play the game.<ref name=":2" />
- In 1885, America's first written hockey rules were drafted at St. Paul's by schoolboy Malcolm Gordon '87. Gordon would go on to coach hockey at SPS from 1888 to 1917. He is a member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
- Under Gordon and his successors, the school was a prominent force in early 20th-century American hockey, playing and beating collegiate teams, including Harvard<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Princeton.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> SPS alumni may have founded the hockey programs at Harvard and Yale.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
- American college hockey's award for the most outstanding male player is named after SPS alumnus Hobey Baker.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The first squash courts in the United States were built at St. Paul's in 1884.<ref name=":2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":5">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In addition to bringing hockey to the United States, Conover introduced an early variant of squash (squash tennis) to SPS.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The St. Paul's boys' and girls' crews have each won multiple titles in international competition. The boys' crew won the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in 1980, 1994, and 2004.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":7">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The girls' crew team won the Peabody Cup at the Henley Women's Regatta in 1996, 1998, 2001, and 2019.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Conference affiliationEdit
St. Paul's is a member of the Lakes Region League, an athletic conference of prep schools in New Hampshire and Vermont.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was previously a member of the Boston-centered Independent School League, but withdrew in 2017 due to league bylaws surrounding merit scholarships.<ref name=":6">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In addition, the athletic directors of St. Paul's and the other members of the Eight Schools Association comprise the Eight Schools Athletic Council, which organizes sports events and tournaments among ESA schools.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Daily lifeEdit
St. Paul's conducts its Humanities classes using the Harkness method, which encourages discussion between students and the teacher, and between students.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
SocializationEdit
Template:Update section According to Shamus Khan, author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School (2010) and a sociologist who is a St. Paul's alumnus, students are socialized to function as privileged holders of power and status in an open society. Privilege in meritocracy is acquired through talent, hard work, and a wide variety of cultural and social experiences.<ref name="Khan" />Template:Rp Economic inequality and social inequality are explained by the lack of talent, hard work, and limited cultural and social experience of the less privileged.Template:Outdated inline Thus high status is earned, not based on entitlement.<ref name="Khanhoipoloi">Page 16, Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School, Shamus Khan. "From this perspective, inequality is explained not by the practices of the elite but instead by the character of the disadvantaged."</ref> According to Khan, "Today what is distinct among the elite is not their exclusivity but their ease within and broad acceptance of a more open world."<ref name="KhanOpen">"Today what is distinct among the elite is not their exclusivity but their ease within and broad acceptance of a more open world." Khan, Shamus Rahman (2010-12-28). Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School: (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology) (p. 19). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.</ref>
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Hierarchy is embedded in the rituals and traditions of the school from the first day.Template:Citation needed According to Khan, the student advances up the ladder of the hierarchy embedded in the culture of the school.<ref name="KhanHierarchy">"Through their daily sitting in the Chapel and countless other formal and informal experiences at the school, students are taught that the world is a hierarchical place and that different people are placed in different spaces within this hierarchy." Khan, Shamus Rahman (2010-12-28). Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School: (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology) (p. 28). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.</ref>Template:Update inline
TraditionsEdit
The annual Inter-House Inter-Club Race, known among students as the "Dorm Run," but now officially named the "Charles B. Morgan Run", takes place late in the fall term, usually in early to mid-November. Students are invited to earn points for their dorm and club by running in a Template:Convert cross country race. The current student record is 9:48, set in 2006 by Peter Harrison '07.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In the spring term, St. Paul's holds a school-wide public speaking contest called the Hugh Camp Cup. The finalists' speeches are delivered before the entire school, and the student body votes on a winner, whose name is engraved on the prize. Alumnus John Kerry achieved this distinction during his sixth form year.<ref name="nytimes.com">Template:Cite news</ref>
St. Paul's students once had a close relationship with jam bands like the Grateful Dead. Some of the slang peculiar to St. Paul's originated as the "Pyramid Dialect" among St. Paul's students and alumni who followed the Grateful Dead's 1978 shows in Egypt.<ref>Shenk, D. and Silberman, S. Skeleton Key. Main Street Books, 1994</ref> Phish played in the Upper Dining Hall on May 19, 1990.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> electro house artist Steve Aoki performed in the school's Athletic & Fitness Center on April 9, 2015.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Advanced Studies ProgramEdit
St. Paul's School founded the summer Advanced Studies Program in 1957 to provide juniors from public and parochial New Hampshire high schools with challenging educational opportunities. The students live and study at the St. Paul's campus for five and a half weeks and are immersed in their subject of choice. Recent offerings have included astronomy and Shakespeare. In addition to the course load, students choose a daily extracurricular activity or sport to participate in four afternoons per week. The program had a 37% admission rate in 2010. In 2014, 267 students from 78 high schools participated in the Advanced Studies Program.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ControversiesEdit
1948-2009 sexual misconduct investigationEdit
In 2016, after the Boston Globe published an article implicating a former SPS teacher in sexual misconduct during his time at a different school, SPS issued a public invitation to its alumni to report incidents of sexual misconduct during their time on campus. It also retained the law firm of former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct an investigation. Harshbarger's team issued an initial report in May 2017.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It also published follow-up reports in September 2017 and August 2018 outlining additional allegations of sexual misconduct that SPS received after the publication of the May 2017 report.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The initial report was limited to the period between 1948 and 1988, and the follow-up reports addressed allegations of misconduct through 2009.
All together, the three reports substantiated allegations of misconduct against twenty former SPS employees (including future politician Gerry Studds), which included assaults, harassment, and rape. The investigators concluded that allegations against fifteen other SPS employees were unsubstantiated, and lacked sufficient information to reach an conclusion with respect to thirteen other SPS employees.
Per the terms of a settlement with the New Hampshire Attorney General (see below), SPS has retained an independent monitor to review any further reports of sexual misconduct by SPS employees.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2019, the school removed the names of two rectors from campus buildings, explaining that they had mishandled abuse claims during their respective tenures.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
1991 rape allegationEdit
In July 2020, alumna Lacy Crawford wrote that she had been raped by multiple SPS students when she was fifteen, and accused SPS of a cover-up.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The school issued a statement that it would "honor her desire that the school acknowledge its failings, accept responsibility, and work, not just promise, to do better."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Crawford later disclosed that the school had issued her a written apology and that she was pleased with its response.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Mid-2000s IRS audit and investigationEdit
Rector Craig B. Anderson (r. 1997-2005) retired under pressure in May 2005 after a campaign by parents and alumni that criticized his management of school finances and investments.<ref name="NYT112104">Template:Cite news</ref> As alleged, Anderson had severely cut back on school expenses while simultaneously being quite liberal with his own compensation and perks.<ref name="KhanBish39">"...as staff positions were cut to save money, Anderson enriched himself, raising his salary from around $180,000 to $530,000." Khan, Shamus Rahman (2010-12-28). Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School: (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology) (p. 39). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.</ref> The state attorney general investigated the issue, resulting in a settlement agreement and an Internal Revenue Service audit.<ref name="Pesta">"A Private-School Affair" feature article by Alex Shoumatoff in Vanity Fair (magazine) January 2006, accessed August 21, 2015</ref><ref name="NYT51415">Template:Cite news</ref>
2015 "Senior Salute" rape convictionEdit
The "Senior Salute", an alleged<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> tradition in which seniors would proposition younger classmates for sexual encounters before graduation, was publicly revealed in 2015, when a former student, Owen Labrie, was charged with the rape of 15-year-old freshman Chessy Prout.<ref name="NYT81815">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="NYT81915">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="NYT82015">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Boston Globe Jurors">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Concord Monitor ex-classmates">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Overcited Labrie was convicted on three counts of statutory rape, one count of endangering the welfare of a child, and one felony count of using a computer to lure a minor.<ref name="NYT82815">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Concord Monitor verdict">Template:Cite news</ref> The New Hampshire court system rejected Labrie's appeals and new trial requests in 2018 and 2019.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":23">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Labrie was released from prison in June 2019, having served eight months of his twelve-month sentence.<ref name=":23" /> He was also sentenced to five years of probation and was required to register as a sex offender.<ref name="NYT102915">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Rector's Award defined: http://www.sps.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=204&nid=791396&bl=back&rc=0 Template:Dead link</ref>
In 2018, SPS confidentially settled a civil suit filed by Prout's parents.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Later that year, Prout published her memoir of the incident, titled I Have the Right To: A High School Survivor's Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope.<ref name="Prout">Template:Cite book</ref>
2017 criminal investigationEdit
In July 2017, the New Hampshire Attorney General, with assistance from Concord police and the New Hampshire State Police, started a criminal investigation into the school to determine whether administrators engaged in conduct that endangered the welfare of students.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2018, the state AG reached a settlement agreement,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> which allowed the school to avoid criminal prosecution and required it to pay for an external compliance monitor.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2020, the monitor resigned, claiming that the school was obstructing his investigations and that an administrator had verbally abused him.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The school eventually agreed to hire a new monitor, to add funding for an assistant monitor, and to hire the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network to conduct a study of the school's anti-abuse policies.<ref name=":22">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The school was not required to re-hire the original monitor.<ref name=":22" /> A replacement monitor released a report in 2021, noting that the school had hired an on-campus advocate to provide support for sexual assault survivors on a confidential basis.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> RAINN issued a report and recommendations in September 2022, noting that "St. Paul's leadership has made a number of process improvements in recent years."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Notable alumniEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}
Notable facultyEdit
- James Milnor Coit, teacher
- George A. Gordon, United States Ambassador to Haiti and the Netherlands
- Richard Lederer, English teacher, author and compiler of humorous errors in the use of the English language
- Gerry Studds, who later served as U.S. congressman from Massachusetts
- John T. Walker, first African-American Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C.
- John Gilbert Winant, governor of New Hampshire; ambassador to Great Britain during World War II
See alsoEdit
Template:Portal Template:Sister project
- Boarding school
- College-preparatory school
- Saint Grottlesex, a colloquial expression for several of the area's prep schools
ReferencesEdit
FootnotesEdit
Further readingEdit
- Cookson, Peter W., Jr., and Caroline Hodges Persell. Preparing for Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools (Basic Books, 1985) online
- McLachlan, James. American Boarding Schools: A Historical Study (1970) online
External linksEdit
Template:Eight Schools Association Template:Ten Schools Admissions Organization Template:Lakes Region League Template:New England Preparatory School Athletic Council Template:Authority control