"Our lives are conditioned by the seasons, and there is also a sense of season to our time together. Soon it will be my turn, the end of my season at Deerfield, nothing more than that. Deerfield will always be a work in progress, depending first and foremost on the nurturing leadership of its faculty."
Eric Widmer '57

Just before the beginning of the school year, as we were attending to all of the necessary preparations, I spoke to the faculty about those things that we had accomplished together during this time in DeerfIeld's history-just to give us all a common point of departure as we looked forward to our last year together. I reminded the faculty that when I announced, a year and a half ago, my intention to step down as headmaster of Deerfield in June of 2006 I had hoped to give the school plenty of time to attend to transition issues and make the process as seamless as possible. I did not, however, want to leave anyone with the impression that an orderly succession carried with it the sense that there was something ordinary about life at Deerfield. Certainly the year now underway has all of the eventfulness that we have come to take for granted: the women of Deerfield conference, celebrating the centenary of Mrs. Boyden's arrival in 1905; the finishing of the Koch Center, with plans for the dedication of the building this year; and an impressive roster of speakers on gender issues all year long.

I went on to tell the faculty that I thought that the task of planning more comprehensively for the future was a job that would be better left for the new head of school, but also that there would surely be an opportunity for the faculty to participate and to share all of their ideas and aspirations for Deerfield. And out of that process would come those new initiatives-whatever they may be-that will define Deerfield in the next chapter of its institutional history-just as surely as it happened with me almost a dozen years ago.

IDEAS AND INITIATIVES

I remember so well my early meetings with the faculty, especially with a group that called itself the Bicentennial Initiatives Committee, to lay out the agenda ahead of us. Often we would meet over dinner in the Manse, and simply talk about the possibilities for Deerfield, but out of those moments came much of what then proceeded to happen, the ideas and initiatives that would indeed give further shape to the school. (At this point in my talk to the faculty I said that I didn't think I needed to recount all of the things we had done, but that I would mention some of them, at least, because it was important for them to know that the ideas belonged to them much more than to me, and that it became my pleasant duty simply to listen, to plagiarize, to facilitate, and to implement.)

Right away we worked on residential life issues, leading to the plans for the two new dormitories, John Louis and Louis Marx. And right away we began to build up our capability in community service learning. We made an immediate priority the need to work hard on diversity issues, in all of the ways we define them at Deerfield. Certainly we carried forward the commitment to keep faculty compensation, including our ambitious budget for professional development, at the top or near the top in all of the comparative ranges among the schools with whom we share this data. At the same time we made an equally strong commitment to increase the budget for financial aid knowing what the result would be in the quality of our entering students. In what now seems like ancient history, we laid the first of our fiber optic cables.

CURRICULUM AND FACILITIES

After celebrating our bicentennial-a monumental event lasting a year and a half-we went directly into our "strength of heart" fund raising campaign. The story of this campaign has been told many times, so perhaps it will be enough simply to say that under the leadership of Bob Dewey, and then in the last year under Neal Garonzik when he became the new president of the board of trustees, we had raised 200 million dollars, 75 million dollars more than the original goal, and 140 million dollars more than the figure our consultants had initially advised. Included in that extraordinary achievement was the plan and funding for a new science, math and technology building at Deerfield.

Five years ago David Childs '59 and Roger Puffs agreed to be the architects for our new building, and shortly afterwards we received such a generous gift from David Koch '59 that with grateful hearts we insisted the building bear his name. Now, in the fall of 2005, the Koch Center for science, mathematics, and technology is almost finished, and one can sense the impatient excitement on campus as we watch the work being done.

Just as our new dormitories had materialized out of faculty thinking about the quality of our residential life and the ratio of students to faculty in residence, so also did the Koch Center begin with faculty interest in the possibility of teaching in new configurations, and in having the ability to adapt to change within disciplines that were more and more subject to change all the time. This has essentially been the story of our curriculum as a whole over the past 12 years. We have added two new languages, Chinese and Arabic, for example, because of our belief that it is important for students to have access to them in the world of today; and we have therefore added new histories and literatures as well. In mathematics we have added courses to allow our most advanced students to go as far as they can go in four years. Over the same period the curriculum in computer science has expanded from its very modest beginnings to a program that justifies separate departmental status. As for the question of technology more generally, one could of course write a multi-volume history of the last 12 years on this subject alone, leading up to our approval this year of a universal laptop program for our students.

Meanwhile we have witnessed the development of our curriculum in the fine and performing arts, under faculty leadership, with more ambitious and demanding exhibition and performance expectations than ever, and of course a new dance studio along the way. Every year our Wilson visiting fellows and our Lambert fellows are now routinely recommended to us by the faculty. Light years ago the Dean of the Faculty Rich Bonanno conceived of our teaching fellows program- thinking that Deerfield would be especially attractive as a place for young college graduates to apprentice for a career in teaching, simply because faculty at Deerfield continue to do everything; and that program, managed every year by Assistant Dean of the Faculty Wanda Henry, has achieved remarkable results. Elsewhere, under faculty leadership-specifically Mark Scandling's command-we have achieved a four-fold increase in our institutional giving to the United Way campaign in Franklin County. Two redoubtable members of the Deerfield faculty-Andrea and Robert Moorhead- founded the Deerfield Academy Press 12 years ago, proceeded to write and publish the Pictorial History of Deerfield Academy, and then to undertake a publication program, including the highlighting of student writing, that distinguishes the work of the academy for everyone to see.

CREATING GLOBAL CITIZENS

Because of our very strong belief that our students must be educated as global citizens in that future that they will be helping to shape, we have expanded the international reach of the school considerably. Nine years ago Deerfield became a founding member of the Global Connections organization, and then three years ago we became only the second school in the United States to join Round Square, an international organization of some 55 schools world wide. The increased opportunities that these organizations give our students, on top of all of the other ways that we try to provide broadening experiences within our curriculum, or in our exchange programs, or during vacation and summer time, have given Deerfield an international mindedness that complements very nicely our faithfulness to our own history, as a New England school coming out of the American revolution over 200 years ago.

Indeed, we have taken the opportunity during this time to reclaim our history, and to reassert our traditions, trying to burnish those structures of everyday life (as we call them) which give the school such a distinctive feel. After the bicentennial, we had great satisfaction in observing the centenary in 2002 of Mr. Boyden's arrival at Deerfield, and now this year of Mrs. Bovdens arrival 100 years ago. We have celebrated the faculty who worked with Mr. and Mrs. Boyden and watched with great pride as Peter Hindle, then Larry Boyle, and now Jay Morsman became the three longest serving faculty members in Deerfield's history after Mr. and Mrs. Boyden themselves.

COMMITMENT TO QUALITY

As I think about it, Deerfield has become an impressively pro-active academy, and one can see evidence of this everywhere: in our librarians, who so generously support the work of our students; in all of our doctors and nurses and deans and counselors; in our athletic administration; in our dining hall staff and all our grounds and physical plant workers, our secretaries and managers-across the entirety of the work force one now accepts that it is not just the faculty, but everyone who is thinking about how to uphold the quality of our operations. And if that is the case, it is a loyalty to the idea of Deerfield that is soon shared by our students as well. What we have received in return-in the development of student achievement and student leadership over the years-is all that our faculty would want in return for the work they do.

LOOKING AHEAD

What-one may ask-is the point of all of this? Well, I guess the point is that we are now one of the most highly selective boarding schools in the United States, and with one of the highest percentages of students on financial aid; and that we have one of the most highly selected faculties anywhere, with perhaps the least turnover among the schools with which we typically compare ourselves; and certainly the most mentally, and therefore one of the most highly motivated faculties. It is no wonder that our expectations of ourselves are so high or that 100 flowers are always abloom, or that the results are so impressive.

"It's the way you do your triple-threat jobs"- I told the faculty- "that makes the school feel so alive and so spirited, a feeling that transmits itself immediately to our new students and to anyone who ever walks on our campus. But now looking a year ahead at a Widmer-less Deerfield, please don't think that just because this chapter closes we have reached any other end point. Deerfield will always be a work in progress, always depending first and foremost on the nurturing leadership of its faculty.

"And finally: while we may submit to a heavy sigh as the summer ends and the new year begins, one of the great joys of being in this business is the renewal that happens ineluctably at this time of year. Our lives are conditioned by the seasons, and in a larger sense there is also a sense of season to our time together. It may interest you to know that well over half of the faculty at Deerfield has come to work here during Meera's and my years. So in that sense renewal is also occurring all the time. Soon it will be my turn, the end of my season at Deerfield, nothing more than that. All I wanted to do was to put myself, and all of you, and all of Deerfield, in the greater context of all the things we've accomplished together and all that there is still to look forward to-this year and beyond."

As published in the 2004-2005 Annual Report of Deerfield Academy, Fall 2005.