TRUSTEES VISIT CAMPUS Committees Briefed On Happenings
By The News Staff
The News Staff
On Thursday, April 10th, Choate trustees reunited on Choate campus for their annual Spring Term meeting.
Before the full board meeting, the trustees broke up and attended smaller committee meetings. There are seven committees, each covering one topic: Finance, Academic Affairs, Student Life, Buildings & Grounds, Audit, Trusteeship and Development. Most of these meetings are closed to the News but on this Thursday, we were allowed to sit in on the Student Life Committee.
Howard R. Greene is the Chair of this committee. He is the president and founder of Howard Greene & Associates, which is the nation’s leading educational consulting company. He is also a former Princeton University admissions officer and now a member of the Faculty Board of Advisors. A Choate father, he has been a trustee for ten years and since there is a cap at ten years, this year, will be his last. The new chair member for this committee will be determined by the other trustees during their short, one day meeting in June. However Mr. Greene informed The News that it has been a pleasure to serve, and that when a trustee leaves, “it is like leaving a family.”
On Thursday, April 10th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm the Student Life Committee met in the Rosenthal Digital Video Studio in Humanities. This was their third meeting of the year. In this committee students play an active role and are chosen by their dean to participate. This year the committee had one of its largest groups. Among the students present were Kate Goldmann ’08, Jin Ha ’08, Learah Lockhart ’08, Loren Olson ’08, Lauren Provini ’08, Katie DeFusco ’09, Sharon Delvecchio ’09, David Lam ’09, David Lim ’09, Billy Rivellini ’09 and Dan Fallahi ’09. Some of the adults present were Mrs. Davidson, Mr. Ford, Doc. Gardner, Ms. LiPuma, Mrs. Morch, Mrs. Grant, Reverend Trister and four other trustees.
Prior to the meeting, Mr. Greene had emailed the senior members with a list of questions that he liked for them to answer. The topic…college. He introduced the meeting by asking the seniors to “share with all of us, most importantly the trustees and your under classman [your] perspective, not how you did the college process.” He also asked for their “advice for under formers” and to use this as a “time to reflect.” After asking them these questions, he briefly added that the seniors should remember that their “acceptance [to college] is contingent upon keeping [their] grades up for the rest of the year.”
Lauren Provini was first to answer these questions. She said that the “most important advice that [I] can give to any under classman is to listen to their gut and to start visiting colleges early.” One of the methods that Lauren used to help her decision process was to keep a mental tally of which school she thought about the most. Lauren also stated that her advice to parents was that “it is important to go on college visit trips with your child.” Other members chimed in and agreed that visiting was one of the most important factors that weighed heavily when they were trying to make their choice. Learah Lockhart also added that sleeping over was important because the atmosphere during the school day is different than that of the evening. Among other comment, she said that “writing about things that you know, [because] when it’s coming from inside of your heart it’s easier to get it down on paper.” Loren Olson’s advice was to “treat yourself as a sick person.” She believes that the college process is stressful and getting away from it might be the healthiest thing a person can do.
The meeting went on and for the most part, the points that were emphasized by all of the seniors was to start early, actually like all the schools on your list, consider speaking with random students to get an honest answer of what the school is like, and be open to criticism while writing your college essays. But in the words of Jin Ha “college is a right of passage” and as Katie Goldmann said, “Things work out.”
