OUR MOMENT TH E C AM PAI G N FO R B RE WSTER
OUR MOMENT T H E C A M PA I G N FO R B R E W ST ER
The impact of Brewster’s student-centered, team-based education can be fully mapped only with the passing of time. The effect our work has on individual students, our shared academic community, the larger communities we’re a part of, and on the world of education itself is exponential. These widening spheres of influence represent transformation on three levels, each one reinforcing and giving shape to the next. No other boarding school in the country is so intentionally focused on the scaling of its influence. Our greatest asset is the time-tested Brewster Model: an extraordinary culture of teaching and learning for a cognitively diverse student population combined with a potent set of classroom practices. With a growing body of evidence behind us, we know it’s the way education should be. As Brewster approaches the remarkable milestone of its 200th anniversary, we have the mandate—and the will—to make a difference on a larger scale. We have reached an inflection point in our capacity to shape the world as it should be. This is truly a watershed moment. Our watershed moment.
CRAIG GEMMELL HEAD OF SCHOOL
O U R W AT E R S H E D M O M E N T. H E L P U S S E I Z E I T, T O G E T H E R . B E A PA RT O F M A P P I N G T H E F U T U R E .
MISSION
W E P R E PA R E DIVERSE THINKERS FOR LIVES OF PURPOSE.
VISION
A N A P P ROAC H TO LE A R N I N G T H AT H A S T H E E X P O N E N T I A L POWE R TO TR ANSFORM E D U C AT I O N , C O M M U N I T I E S , AN D TH E LIVES OF STU DE NTS IN OUR CARE.
E D U C AT I O N COMMUNITIES LIVES
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OUR WATERSHED MOMENT In support of Brewster’s mission and vision, on the threshold of our third century as an institution, we have launched a historic campaign to dramatically scale our influence. The impact of this campaign will be felt in ever-widening circles spreading from the work we do in our classrooms and on our campus to Wolfeboro and New Hampshire and the world beyond. And it will reverberate, returning dividends to Brewster that will strengthen and sustain our institutional health for decades to come.
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REIMAGINE ROGERS We will build a vibrant student center and creativity hub, with flexible, expanded space purposely designed for socializing, performing, and project-based learning.
DEVELOP SOUTH CAMPUS We are creating a distinct new dormitory environment for our lower school, initiating a ripple effect that will transform the flow and connections across our entire residential campus.
STRENGTHEN THE FUND FOR BREWSTER We will upgrade our existing facilities and campus byways and make strategic investments in our academic programs by raising at least $1 million each year for the Fund for Brewster.
ENDOW FINANCIAL AID We will increase scholarships for local students and those from farther afield who bring a valuable range of backgrounds, perspectives, experiences, and unique talents to our campus.
You can find who you are here. — SOPHIA
Brewster has been getting it right for a long time. The world of education has noticed.
E D U C AT I O N
E D U C AT I O N
TRA NS FO R M EDUCAT I O N
D E VE LO P SOUTH CAM PUS Investments in South Campus will ensure that Brewster’s residential life programs become yet more student centered, ensuring that no matter where they start or come from, all students become well-rounded individuals prepared for success in the 21st century.
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Optimal and enviable student to teacher ratios. Dedicated teams of faculty that subscribe to an ethos of unconditional positive regard and a shared responsibility for every student’s success. An environment where students develop a strong sense of self and a deepened commitment to others. Toad Hall, Brewster’s newest residence hall, is a physical embodiment of our values. The building opened in May 2018 and became home to 22 ninth-grade girls and four faculty families. On any given day, visitors entering the large, two-story common room can find a joy-filled, vibrant community hub that functions as an extension of the classroom.
All community life parents deliver a set curriculum through the year, customized for the age groups they are working with. “Dorm meetings,” says Dodge, “provide opportunities for students to connect, celebrate accomplishments, solve problems, plan activities—and for open discussions about ways to engage thoughtfully with each other.”
Michelle Dodge, science faculty member and community life parent, is living with her family in one of the homes attached to Toad Hall. “I have been so fortunate to have these faculty members become a part of the dorm community,” says Dodge. “I love that my home has an office space between the main living area and the dorm,” Dodge says. “This has been the perfect place to talk with students if they are having an issue and need privacy. I love that students are so easily able to access help and advice.”
While our 18 residence halls range in size and structure, the unmistakable benefits of the Brewster Model ensure that students have every opportunity to develop the qualities that matter in life: curiosity, character, collaboration, and confidence. Toad Hall is the first investment in South Campus, what will become a neighborhood for Brewster’s Lower School students in grades nine and ten.
During the day, the large windows and glass doors facing Lake Winnipesaukee draw students out of their rooms and connect them with the beauty of the outdoors. In the evenings, students, adults, and faculty families come together for scheduled meetings and impromptu gatherings.
As the south side of campus grows, these lower-school students will have more opportunities to interact with each other as they walk to classes each day and spend time outside enjoying the campus. And, notes Dodge, “The concept of a clear upper school and lower school will help differentiate the needs and privileges of students in these grade levels.” It’s an important step toward creating the way residential life should be.
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TRA NSFO R M EDUCATIO N
E N DOW FI NAN C IAL AI D John Brewster knew that access to high quality education was an investment in our watershed. By increasing support for local students, we will change lives and communities.
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B R E W ST E R’S N E W H A M P S H I R E ST U D E N T LEADERSHIP PROGRAM IS A NOVEL PRIVATE-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP—AND A POTENTIAL GAME CHANGER FOR THE ACADEMY’S HOME STATE.
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O U R WAT E R S H E D M O M E N T
T H E C A M PA I G N FO R B R E W S T E R
N E W H A M P S H I RE LE A D ERS H I P PROG R A M
The experiences my son had this past week will be things he will remember for the rest of his life. I cannot wait to see how he applies what he has learned in his upcoming school year. — PA R E N T O F S U M M E R 2018 PA RT I C I PA N T
At a luncheon in November of 2017, Brewster Head of School Craig Gemmell and Assistant Head of School for Advancement Kristy Kerin sat with other school administrators from around the state ruminating on a host of facts: Too few promising young leaders have the chance to stay in the opportunity pipeline in New Hampshire; Brewster, as a private institution with deep roots in the Lakes Region, has a responsibility to act as an agent of change in its own community; Too few public-private partnerships exist in New Hampshire in service to pressing needs; The Academy—like other boarding schools in the state—has under-exploited talents that could and should be employed in broader service. This talk turned out to be more than just talk. Inspired, Gemmell returned to campus and, in a remarkably short time, convened a group that outlined a novel initiative involving independent and public school communities designed to nurture and develop the leadership potential of students starting in middle school and continuing throughout their high school years. Candidates with strong leadership potential but limited
access to leadership development opportunities would be nominated by adult members of their communities. They would participate in the program at no cost. With a grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation to support the inaugural year, the new summer program, led by longtime Brewster faculty member Michelle Rafalowski, brought to Brewster 18 rising seventh graders from the Lakes Region for an expansive week of self-awareness and leadership-based training. The program took them from campus to the Brown Center at UNH to the White Mountains, where students explored their personal strengths and values and learned strategies for effective communication and problem-solving. Each participant left with a Brewster upper-school mentor who would work one-on-one with them throughout the coming school year on goals that were meaningful to their home or school communities. “I get deeply excited when I imagine the exponential influence of this program when it is scaled across all New Hampshire boarding schools,” says Gemmell. “The New Hampshire Leadership Program will change students’ lives, the school communities they enter, the communities in which they live—and, perhaps, change the future of our state.”
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There is always a new perspective here that will make you think twice. — SPENCER
Rare among private schools, Brewster has recognized the enormous opportunity to partner with our host town and the remarkable servant leaders who guide it. Our students learn to be engaged citizens within their watershed—and in watersheds around the world.
COMMUNITIES
COMMUNITIES
TRA NS FO R M COMMUN I T I ES
STRE N GTH E N TH E FU N D FO R B RE WSTE R Annual contributions to the Fund for Brewster support our academic and afternoon programs, including Brewster’s robust community service initiatives.
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LI V ES O F PU RP OS E PROG R A M
Service here is not a chore. It’s something the students have fun with — and it enriches people on both sides of the exchange. — M A R I A F O U N D, M AT H T E A C H E R A N D D I R E C T O R O F C O M M U N I T Y S E RV I C E
Found has been on the faculty at Brewster for a quarter-century and has been a driving force behind the school’s blossoming reputation for community service. She passionately believes that the experience of helping others makes people more empathetic and more caring human beings. “It changes who you are,” she says.
together and figuring out how to provide the service on their own. Over time, one club after another has formed to address different needs. A “Brewster Big Friends” group provides child care and creates activities for children of faculty and local families—and learns lessons of leadership, collaboration, and responsibility in the process. A “Best Buddies” group pairs Brewster students with intellectually and developmentally disabled athletes from area schools, organizing unified games, co-hosting a “Miss Amazing” pageant in partnership with the University of New Hampshire’s Autism Speaks organization, and volunteering at nearby King Pine Ski Area in an adaptive skiing program. National Honor Society members adapted an NHS idea into a “Cyber Seniors” program that helps residents of a nearby retirement home learn how to use iPhones, set up Facebook accounts, and stay in digital touch with their grandchildren. Students have become part of an international initiative called “Girls on the Run,” delivering a ten-week curriculum on campus for area girls based on nutrition, exercise, social awareness, and healthy decisionmaking. Brewster is developing a partnership with Hope House, a new transitional housing program in town, and will be offering reading and math programs for children living in the shelter. There are a dozen other examples.
At Brewster, Found discovered that planting the seed of community service in students’ minds would bear fruit if the service were fun, and if students were properly supported in coming
The work helps develop character and life skills. It deepens the relationship between Brewster Academy and the larger communities we are a part of.
When the Rotary Club of Wolfeboro needed help with its annual Christmas tree fundraiser, someone said, “Call Brewster.” Faculty member and community service director Maria Found got the call—and knew just what to do. T.J. Palmer, the coach of the rec ski team, had recently asked Found for ways his group might get more involved in local service projects. Forty of his skiers went out right away to help; they made short work of unloading and tagging hundreds of trees—and bonded over the experience of having helped out in a time of need. “Most of our community service isn’t based on providing some service and then moving on like that,” Found said later. “Most of what we do involves building relationships and providing ongoing service over time. But it’s a good example of how people in the area—and even across the state—have recognized what we do here and come to us.”
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T RANS FO RM CO M M U NIT IE S
RE I MAG I N E ROG E RS With a significant investment in the Rogers Building, we are focused on delivering the best education for the future. The reimagined Rogers will be a hub for innovation and exploration.
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REI M AG I N E ROG ERS
The planned renovation of the Rogers Gymnasium will transform how we deliver education at Brewster. It will become a center for community, creativity, and collaboration. In addition to providing outstanding visual arts and student gathering spaces, the center will boost Brewster’s robotics program and create a home for technology and the arts, a place where ideas can come to life. The life-changing moment for Brewster’s IT director, Peter Gilligan, came when he was in sixth grade. An indifferent student, Peter noticed a couple of old Apple IIe computers stuck in a corner of his social studies classroom, gathering dust. “What are those?” he asked his teacher. Mr. Goff said they were just old computers that didn’t work anymore, and they were going to be thrown out. “Can I try and fix them?” Peter asked.
at the time,” he says, “but those were my first experiences with project-based learning. They made all the difference.”
For three weeks, Mr. Goff ate his lunch in his classroom while Peter, energized and engaged, took apart and worked on the computers—and restored one of them to working order. “How did you know about computers?” Mr. Goff asked. Peter said he just tried and figured it out.
At Brewster, Gilligan plays a huge role in the lives of nonconventional students who are hands-on learners. He oversees the school’s nascent robotics program—an enterprise that rewards, among many things, perseverance, creativity, and teamwork. Last year he worked with students to create an “escape room,” which involved designing a maddeningly complex set of puzzles and logic problems that incorporated art and engineering, magnetic switches, wireless cameras, servos, light-sensitive sensors, and electrostatic glass.
In high school, feeling lost and disenfranchised in his conventional classes, Peter came alive again as part of a 20-student team tasked with building a 19th-century whaling boat using modern-day tools and technology. During the four-year project, Peter built a network and a file server from scratch and helped troubleshoot and solve scores of technical problems. “I didn’t know it
Gilligan lights up when talking about how much more experiential, project-based learning will be available at Brewster once the new maker and innovation spaces are completed in the Rogers Center. “3-D printing, water-jet cutting, the ability to fabricate parts with precision…,” he says. “There will be kids here who will be fired up about learning for the first time in their lives.”
This community will help you do anything. It’s like a family that way. — ZAC
Fine-tune the Brewster Model to meet evolving student needs. Broaden the boundaries that limit the learning. Succeed, and transform lives.
LIVES
LIVES
TRA NS FO R M LIV ES
E N DOW FI NAN C IAL AI D Since its founding as a town academy through its transition to a private, independent boarding/day school, Brewster’s doors have been open to students from our local region. As affordability becomes more challenging, Brewster is committed to raising funds to continue to invest in students from our watershed.
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Increase access for
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TH E CU RV E Y SC H O L A R PROG R A M
The Curvey Scholar Program is a remarkable model we seek to replicate in this campaign by building additional scholarships for talented students from our watershed who will go on to be agents of change in New Hampshire. —CRAIG GEMMELL
Jim Curvey was a Pennsylvania boy from coal country who never forgot his roots. His father had begun working in the coal mines while he was in grade school; his mother, widowed when Jim was just 12 years old, was a bookkeeper for a newspaper and a coal company. At Villanova University, Jim realized just how unprepared he was compared to the students around him—and the education changed his life. He turned his Villanova degree and his work ethic into a long career in the public and private sectors, eventually rising to the position of president and chief operating officer of Fidelity Investments. He and his wife, Shirley, created a scholarship in their family name at Villanova, to give the opportunity of education to kids from the region of Pennsylvania where they’d both grown up. In 2009, wanting to do something similar for students living in the Lakes Region near their summer residence in Alton, the Curveys created a similar scholarship at Brewster Academy. Since 2009, three area students each year have received four-year scholarships to Brewster, based on their families’ financial need. In 2017, they expanded the program to offer Curvey Fellowships that allow students to gain
valuable life experiences through traveling in North America. The “Curvey Scholars” are ambassadors of Brewster Academy and leaders among their peers in the community. Scholars and their families meet with members of the Curvey family during the academic year. Returning Curvey Scholars serve as mentors to new Scholars, supporting new students in their adjustment to life at Brewster. Current Curvey Scholar Aidan Rolfe ‘20 shares, “Once a year, the twelve of us get together for dessert with the Curvey family. It’s a special connection we share across the grades. We know how lucky we all are.” The Curvey Scholar Program exemplifies the power of supporting scholarship endowment. It reinforces key touchstones of a Brewster education: access, community engagement, global outlook, transformative experience. Says Ashley Rogers ’13, one of the initial Curvey Scholarships recipients in 2009, “Being a Curvey Scholar provided me with the opportunity to become the best version of myself as a high school student, and it opened my eyes to the possibility of what I could be and how essential it is to give back to others.”
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Increase scholarships for
BREWSTER IS COMMITTED TO ENROLLING STUDENTS FROM A RANGE OF BACKGROUNDS TO ENSURE THAT ALL STUDENTS ARE WELL-PREPARED TO LEAD GLOBAL CHANGE.
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G LO BA L SC H O L A RS
My experiences at Brewster have shaped who I am, but they haven’t changed me. I’m still part of my family, my community. I wanted to go back and share my story in my home. It was important to let the other girls in my village know that different lives are possible. — S I O N I AY U B U M O L L E L ’1 8
The daughter of a farmer and a school teacher, Sioni, for six years, had walked 90 minutes each way to attend the nearest grade school in the region she lived in Tanzania. She went to high school at the Orkeeswa School, a rare, tuitionfree school in a part of the country where less than one percent of girls go on to secondary education. At Orkeeswa, Sioni was one of two students asked to participate in the making of a documentary film exploring the tensions between education for girls and the cultural Maasai tradition of arranged marriages while girls are still adolescents. The school’s founder, Peter Luis, is a friend of Brewster’s Head of School, Craig Gemmell. Luis recognized Sioni’s leadership and intelligence and the limited opportunities she had ahead of her in Tanzania. With Gemmell’s help, a postgraduate year at Brewster was arranged.
Sioni’s year at Brewster was mind-expanding and life-changing for her—and her impact on the community went beyond the diverse perspective and life experience she brought to her classmates. Her year-end research project on girls’ empowerment in Tanzania helped earn her an invitation to speak on the subject of child marriages at a United Nations-sponsored panel in New York City. A second Orkeeswa student, Memusi Saibulu Mollel ’19, has since followed Sioni to Brewster. Recognizing the power of having diverse thinkers who expand the range of dialogue in class and across campus, the Campaign for Brewster aims to increase support for boarding students from across the United States and around the globe. Investing in Global Scholars is an extension of the Academy’s commitment to bring Brewster to the world — and bring the world to Brewster.
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OUR MOMENT T H E C A M PA I G N FO R B R E W ST ER
Brewster’s vision is bold: An approach to learning that has the exponential power to transform education, communities, and the lives of students in our care. Through the Campaign for Brewster and the shared belief of alumni, parents, and friends, we will realize that vision. Our world-class campus will be optimally suited to serve the needs of our program and individual learners. We will enjoy a growing reputation as an educational leader in the world of independent boarding schools. Students from all socioeconomic backgrounds will have increased access to Brewster regardless of their ability to pay. By significantly raising our endowment, we will fuel a virtuous cycle in which surplus funds are strategically reinvested into our campus, people, and programs. Our graduates—to a degree even more remarkable than at present—will grow into confident, compassionate adults capable of changing the underlying conditions of others and the world for the better. The impact of our investment will be exponential. We have the compass points, the will, and the mandate.
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