Golf Course Scratched Wetlands Cause Shift in Agenda
By Chip Lebovitz ’10
News Staff Reporter
As An Opportunity to Lead: The Campaign for Choate Rosemary Hall enters its second full year, the campaign remains on track to exceed its $200 million goal in four years, almost one year ahead of schedule. However, there has been a dramatic change in the plans for a highly publicized and controversial gift to build a golf course on campus. According to Headmaster Ed Shanahan, plans for the golf course have been scuttled in favor of a new more environmentally friendly idea. Choate is in the process of considering the formation of a new and far-reaching ecology department.
Choate has two hundred acres of land in the northwestern part of campus. At the moment, Shanahan notes that this land is a passive resource for the school since the land generates little income and is rarely used. The only income comes from a farmer who pays the school for hay that is grown on the land and a few biology classes spend time there for research. Shanahan notes that Board Chair Herbert Kohler ‘57 was looking into ways to transform that land into an active resource for the school.
Kohler’s first idea was to build a “destination” golf course on the land. Kohler had previously proposed donating $10 million for the golf course project. However, that idea led to conflict among students, faculty, and trustees. There was concern expressed about the impact that the golf course would have on the environment as well as the loss of certain faculty housing. Finally, in December after about a year of deliberation, the school decided to drop the plan for the golf course.
Kohler’s next idea was based on Choate’s efforts to bring a global perspective to education.. “Clearly in all of our minds, one of these [global] issues is our environment,” remarks Shanahan. In fact, Shanahan believes that the environment may be “the single greatest issue” confronting the present generation. Accordingly, Kohler wanted to donate something that would benefit and highlight the serious issues facing the environment.
“The more we looked at that piece of land; we all became excited about that land as a way to teach more actively,” notes Shanahan. “And the best way to teach more actively is through ecology, the study of the environment,” he added.
According to Shanahan, “Kohler is prepared to receive proposals to help us build an ecology program.” However, most of the details have not been ironed out nor has the focus of the ecology program been determined. One possibility is that the program could be like Millbrook’s animal husbandry program, where a group of students is assigned care of an animal for their whole career at the school. Yet, Shanahan hopes that the ecology program will be unique. One important detail that has been decided is that the ecology program will be similar to other extracurricular projects at Choate, like the Capstone or arts concentration programs, in the manner in which it will be offered. A Board of Trustees meeting in late January will be looking into more details.
“Let’s dream a little bit about how we can first of all do something that is worthwhile for society and the school but also something to distinguish ourselves as a school, “ said Shanahan when asked about details of the project.
In other campaign news, Choate has raised $12 million since October 20 bringing the capitol campaign total to $132 million. The campaign is also on track to raise the $157 million by June 30, 2008. The Annual Fund has set new records from July 1- December. This is important because one of the challenges Choate faces is trying to get donors not only to donate annually to the annual fund, but also to donate larger gifts to the capital campaign. The new record that the capital campaign set proves that Choate is being successful.
In other news, Choate has officially signed off on the building of a new turf field near the athletic center and marked St. John’s Hall as a priority in the campus restoration part of the campaign.
