By Sterling Johnston '03

"Imagine Deerfield Academy as the ideal place not only to nurture intellectual life, physical well-being, and social bonds, but also spiritual/ethical life," said Meera Viswanathan, member of the Deerfield faculty and professor of comparative literature at Brown University in her first handout to the Spirituality Committee. There have been a few rumors, but what exactly is the Spirituality Committee?

Ms. Viswanathan, first approached members of the community last spring, asking them if they wanted to be involved in a spirituality committee.

"The Spirituality Committee was formed to create awareness and interest in the spiritual life at Deerfield," said Tony Hack '03, a member of the committee. It is a committee including a full spectrum of people to accommodate many different points of view.

Heading the committee is Ms. Viswanathan. She is joined by math teacher Roland Young, history teacher Bernie Baker, and science teacher Odianosen Iyamabo from the faculty, Kimberly Kubic, Nancy Pond, parents Rev. Peter Heinrichs, Douglas Hornberbger, Albert and Roseanne Weinstein, as well as students Paul Cheriyan '03, Caitlin Dalton '02, Tiffany Franke '02, Tony Hack '03, Annalies Heinrichs '04, Gab Lepine '03, Mimi Murley '03, James Spiller '03 and Nick Stielau '02.

This group was chosen with the intention of representing several different parts of the country. By having such a wide array of religions present in the committee, the members are able to focus on spirituality rather than on any specific religious belief.

A recent discussion at one meeting involved guest speaker Rev. Dr. Jennifer Walters who has just been hired as the Dean of Religious Life at Smith College. Would Deerfield benefit from having such a position? If so, how would the dean fit into Deerfield as it is now? Would some sort of structure or a spirituality room prove to be helpful? These are some of the questions that the Spirituality Committee is currently discussing. They have also discussed the terrorist acts of September 11, raising questions as to what should be done to further aid the students in grappling with and understanding the events.

Currently Deerfield Academy's mission statement claims that Deerfield nurtures the spirituality of its students. With support groups like the Diversity Task Force and the Spirituality Committee there is no lack of spiritual support. However, the mission statement, rewritten every ten years for school accreditation, is currently being revised.

After all of the effort put into creating a more spiritually-sound environment here, members of the Spirituality Committee were appalled to find out that the "spiritual nurturing" discussed in the past mission statements was left out of the draft for the new mission statement.