Choate Tests Well for Name Recognition; Capital Projects On Track
By Kartrhik Kasaraneni ‘07
News Staff Reporter
April 6th and 7th, the Board of Trustees convened for its Spring meeting to discuss the direction the school will be taking for the next five to ten years.
“There are two very exciting times in the life of a school from the board perspective. One of them is when it’s searching for a new head of school...the second is when a school takes stock in itself and reaches out to its family and says, ‘This is where we want to go over the next five to ten years,” said Headmaster Ed Shanahan in an interview near the end of the conference.
A central focus of the general session of the Board was the analysis of a long report that summarized the work of an initiative to survey alumni, parents, and colleges to see how Choate is perceived in the marketplace and if and/or how we need to improve our image.
“We have a great deal of data,” said Mr. Shanahan, “most of it very positive.”
A bright spot was the result of a national survey of some 600 families above a certain income level with middle school and high school aged children. The survey showed that three prep schools with the most name recognition were Exeter, Andover, and Choate in that order, and by a wide margin.
“Those three were quite distant from all the others,” mused Mr. Herbert V. Kohler ’62, Chairman of the Board of Trustees who was also at the interview. The two board members cited Choate’s larger and more nationally diffused alumni base as two possible reasons for this positive result.
The Buildings and Grounds Committee of the Board discussed the future of three major capital projects. The two new dormitories topped the list. They are “moving along,” said Mr. Shanahan, and are on schedule. The total cost of the two dormitories is projected at $23 million.
“We don’t have to have all the money before we build, but we have to have pledges that are pretty close. If the pledge is there and it’s a solid pledge, it’s possible to do some interim financing, to borrow from the endowment and to borrow from public agencies and that sort of thing,” said Mr. Shanahan about funding the project.
The committee also discussed the three faculty houses being built on upper campus. The houses are on schedule and should be finished early on in the summer.
The third major topic of discussion for the committee was about athletic facilities. One part of the plan is to build two all-weather surfaces behind the athletic center. The other is the building of a new track and the reconstruction of the field it encircles.
“We could be starting construction on [the track] by the end of the summer. If we start in the fall, we could have that done by the end of the calendar year,” said Mr. Shanahan.
