Five years ago, the US News and World Report featured Choate Rosemary Hall as one of the seven oldest and most prestigious schools in New England. Along with Phillips Academy Andover, Deerfield Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy, the Hotchkiss School, Lawrence-ville School, and St. Paul’s School, Choate was lauded for changing the roll of a boarding school from the “old Establishment”, a school catering to the rich white male, to a school for young people who achieve in all fields “through merit, not birth.” The article praised the schools as teaching life lessons to children from dawn to dusk, and described in the great experience that is going to a boarding school.
10 Years Ago
Ten years ago, then Dean of Academic Affairs Rodney LaBrecque proposed the schedule which affects the lives of students even today. The rotating schedule was proposed, along with built-in meeting and assembly slots. LaBrecque proposed a six-period class day, which involved eight blocks revolving over six days, with half days on Wednesday and Saturday. The four full days were to have six classes, and the two half days each had four classes. In addition, classes were to be extended from the original thirty-minute classes (with eight periods of classes) to the current fifty-minute classes. Students were still to have a six-class requirement, which would eventually be reduced to five. Although our current system is distinctly different from LaBrecque’s proposal, we do see many of its features in our current schedule, including the rotating schedule and half days on Wednesday. Thus this week in Choate Rosemary Hall history was more than just the week of alums and the language building moving from Brownell to Steele Hall.
25 Years Ago
Alumni gathered this week in Choate Rosemary Hall history from the old Choate School, Rosemary Hall, and CRH, to celebrate their past and present, as well as the conversion of the two old schools into a full coeducational school. Despite the rain that also plagued the Alumni weekend twenty-five years ago, 735 graduates attended, from classes of 1916 to 1981, reminiscing about their pasts in their respective schools. Many told stories upon stories, and all met longtime friends, teachers, and current students in one of the most emotional weekends on record.
50 Years Ago
Fifty years ago, boys from the Choate School, after taking six tests in two and a half hours, sprinted in their semi-annual tradition to the Wallingford train station. Boys would run down to “the train” and entertain dates from Rosemary Hall, shouldering their trunks, and coming back to the campus within two and a half hours. A dance would then be held, with entertainment lasting until the early hours of the morning. Guests left that night, just as the five-o’clock study hours began the night after.
