Rector's Letter-Fall 2018

From the Office of the Rector February 3, 2017 August 2018 Dear FriendsGreetings from Chatham HallI have always loved elephants. Majestic creatures, elephants are of fascination to me for their size, I hope this resilience, correspondence you well.

It’s demonstration the midpoint inofour school yearand andexpression what a glorious intelligence, femalefinds composed herds, compassion, of few months we have had.

Academic and athletic successes have been plentiful.

We’ve seen students emotion. While I am enamored by this incredible species, I cannot confess to comfort with perform well on room.” nationalSo, exams and in robotics competitions.

In fact, the Turtles Robotics “elephants in the in the spirit of transparency, I acknowledge theTutu awkwardness of the Team won their December meet and took home a special leadership award.

We have also seen news recently shared regarding my departure from Chatham Hall in June 2019. With this recognized, recognized by colleges with early decision of celebration admission. of While destinations of itstudents is my hope we can stampede like elephants, boldly offers into the the the multitude of our seniors be solidified until spring, we are offoftothat a terrific successes forwill the not school, and in sharing the excitement which start. is yet to come.

I continue to be in awe of the creative talents of our students. In the fall the community was treated We open this Fall with an enrollment of 167 students. This is the largest the school has been in 45 to incredible live performances. The October dance recital was eerily beautiful as audience members years. I extend gratitude to the Enrollment Team who has worked extensively to ensure the proceeded through a sophisticated haunted house of movement performance. Interestingly, our fall robustness of our school community. I also thank all of you. Our girls, faculty and staff, alumnae, play also evoked ghosts, but was far more humorous in nature. Blithe Spirit was a smashing success. friends and families are the best marketing tools we have. Your alacrity, your willingness to share the Aligned with spirit, the Christmas Season was filled with joyful traditions. In addition to the many positivity of all that is transpiring at Chatham Hall, makes an indelible impression. We are thrilled to activities on campus, St. Mary’s Choir members shared their beautiful voices on the courthouse welcome students from throughout the United States. While the majority of our girls come from the steps as part of the celebration of Christmas in the town.

East Coast, we are delighted to welcome everyone, including a number of West Coasters, and those from the Southwest. Our international student population (approximately 22% of our student body) We also see student strengths shared with the community at large. Being a good neighbor is not just also brings us great geographic and cultural diversity. We are the school home to girls from Europe, something that is nice to do, it is a responsibility. In empowering girls to better the world, we must Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Bermuda, and Asia. also empower them to make a difference locally. Each week we offer activities where students can support others. These have included visiting senior citizens, hosting a blood drive, working with With increased enrollment comes the need for additional beds. We are thrilled to re-open Yardley children, environmental clean up, preparing food boxes for crisis centers, and everything in-between. dormitory to serve this need. Completely renovated this summer (could you hear the hammers?), Recently Chatham Hall was named “Mentor of the Month” by the Chatham chapter of the Boys and this residence includes comfortable contemporary rooms for 20 girls, an attractive community Girls Club. bathroom, cozy common space for gathering, and a gorgeous faculty apartment. Having state of the art facilities is key to attracting and retaining mission appropriate students.

Making a difference was the theme of Leader in Residence Reshma Saujani’s keynote address to our community. Saujani, founder of the grassroots organization Girls Who Code, spoke to her I talk a lot about the characteristics of a mission appropriate Chatham Hall girl -- one who is eager experience of identifying a problem, the small number of women in the technology and programing to engage with others and ideas. If we wish to continue to enroll students with such qualities, we industries. She shared her process in solving this by establishing opportunities for girls to learn need to be mindful of affordability of and access to a Chatham Hall education. To this end, I coding and to teach their skills to others. Saujani’s message was one of salience for our students. She express sincere gratitude to the Class of 1958 for their continued philanthropic contributions to their reinforced the concept “you can’t be what you can’t see” advocating for the importance of scholarship fund established in 2008 in honor of their 50th Reunion. I am also appreciative of the cultivating role models. Saujani illustrated resilience and how opportunity emerges even in failure.

Class of 1993 who presented the school with a gift of a new scholarship in honor of their 25th Her message was exhilarating.

Reunion.

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Just as we ensure enrollment for future students, we are hard at work ensuring the long-term infrastructure of the school. Second only to our people, our campus and buildings are supreme assets. Preserving the sacred elements of our grounds is a priority. Not long ago, a generous alumna made a donation to the school which enabled us to commission a Tree Framework Plan. We worked with Wolf|Josey from Charlottesville, VA who produced for us a comprehensive guide for understanding our natural resources and for strategically planning for their future preservation and use. This level of thoughtfulness and stewardship is also reflected in the investment of the Class of 1968 in their establishment of a heritage endowment fund in service to our historic Curtis' Garden.

This special garden is one with deep historic roots, extending back to Julia Old Pruden, and one that Charles Gillette, esteemed landscape architect and prodigy of Frederick Law Olmsted, once sketched. We now continue our work with Wolf|Josey through campus master planning. With a lens of sensitivity for the splendor of our natural environment, Wolf|Josey will aid us in identifying opportunities for optimizing use, relevance, and aesthetics of our current and future physical plant.

You are cordially invited to join Chatham Hall in reflection of the human experience and our relationship with nature. This summer our students and faculty read Lab Girl. A memoir of geobiologist and geochemist Hope Jahren, the book explores Jahren’s study of the natural world and her insights into self. Another opportunity awaits you in the new year. On January 16th, 2019, we will be joined by Ann C. Phillips our Polly Wheeler Guth '44 Leader In Residence. Rear Admiral Phillips, United States Navy (retired) actively served in the armed forces for 31 years. According to the Center for Climate and Security, of which she is a board member, Rear Admiral Phillips is extremely accomplished having served “in every warfare group of the surface navy.” After her duties at sea, “from 2009-2012 she served on the Chief of Naval Operations’ Climate Change Task Force, and Energy Task Force, where she Co-Chaired the Surface Force Working Group – developing and implementing climate change adaptation and energy reduction strategies for the Navy. Now an independent consultant, she continues to work to address sea level rise and climate impact on national security at the regional, state, and national level, and speaks about climate security and adaptation strategies to a broad range of audiences.” Please join us for a special evening of conversation and climate consideration.

The abilities to thoughtfully consider different perspectives, to apply understanding through cogent written and verbal expression, and to ask questions of meaning are now more important than ever.

We see this reflected in the university and college acceptances of our girls. In similar fashion we see independence in the decision making of our students. In the cohort of 28 girls in the Class of 2018 (the last of our small classes) we sent girls to 23 different colleges. Matriculation includes exceptional schools like UVA, Carnegie Mellon, Brandeis, NYU, and Rice. We are proud to have girls pursue engineering programs, pre-med, international relations, business and economic studies, visual arts, liberal arts, and entrepreneurial initiatives. Our seniors were offered nearly $2.7 million in merit scholarships. Colleges want Chatham Hall girls and are willing to pay to get them.

I love to celebrate. One of the great joys of last year was the opportunity to bring together members of the Chatham Hall community both on campus and at events throughout the country. Our Georgia O'Keeffe gatherings were a smashing success. I am excited to share that the Georgia O’Keeffe Living Modern exhibition (inclusive of Chatham Hall archival materials) has been extended to four additional venues: the Cleveland Museum of Art (November 21, 2018 March 3, 2019), the Wichita Art Museum (March 29 - June 23, 2019), the New Orleans Museum of Art (July 19 - October 13, 2019), and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, FL (November 21, 2019 - February 9, 2020). The Dallas Museum of Art will present Ida O’Keeffe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow (November 18, 2018 - February 24, 2019) which features an illustration by Ida O’Keeffe in the 1907 Chatham Hall yearbook. The Advancement Office is exploring opportunities for Chatham Hall celebrations tied to these shows.

None of Chatham Hall’s success would be possible without your philanthropic partnership. I hope you enjoyed reading the latest issue of the CHAT and Bill Black's article, C.O. Pruden and Andrew Carnegie: Philanthropy and Difficulty Saving a School. You can see that from its earliest roots, our school has demonstrated its worthiness of significant philanthropic investment - and we have worked hard to earn it. I thank our 1,179 past parents, current families, friends, and alumnae who donated nearly $1.08 million to the 2017-2018 Annual Fund. Each year, the Annual Fund ensures that we are able to carry out our educational mission as an all-girls boarding school and to employ our teachers and support team, and to care for our assets such as our physical plant - buildings and grounds. As I write, our new year begins. I hope you will join us by joining in or renewing your support for the 2018-19 Annual Fund - our present and our future depend on it.

Perhaps what I value most about elephants are the qualities that I most appreciate in people - the ability to form meaningful relationships, and the capacity to demonstrate empathy. Here at Chatham Hall, these concepts are practiced thoughtfully and with open heart. I look forward to our continued relationship and to sharing with you all of the adventure and successes of an exhilarating school year.

Esto Perpetua,

Suzanne Walker Buck

Just as we ensure enrollment for future students, we are hard at work ensuring the long-term infrastructure of the school. Second only to our people, our campus and buildings are supreme assets. Preserving the sacred elements of our grounds is a priority. Not long ago, a generous alumna made a donation to the school which enabled us to commission a Tree Framework Plan. We worked with Wolf|Josey from Charlottesville, VA who produced for us a comprehensive guide for understanding our natural resources and for strategically planning for their future preservation and use. This level of thoughtfulness and stewardship is also reflected in the investment of the Class of 1968 in their establishment of a heritage endowment fund in service to our historic Curtis' Garden.

This special garden is one with deep historic roots, extending back to Julia Old Pruden, and one that Charles Gillette, esteemed landscape architect and prodigy of Frederick Law Olmsted, once sketched. We now continue our work with Wolf|Josey through campus master planning. With a lens of sensitivity for the splendor of our natural environment, Wolf|Josey will aid us in identifying opportunities for optimizing use, relevance, and aesthetics of our current and future physical plant.

You are cordially invited to join Chatham Hall in reflection of the human experience and our relationship with nature. This summer our students and faculty read Lab Girl. A memoir of geobiologist and geochemist Hope Jahren, the book explores Jahren’s study of the natural world and her insights into self. Another opportunity awaits you in the new year. On January 16th, 2019, we will be joined by Ann C. Phillips our Polly Wheeler Guth '44 Leader In Residence. Rear Admiral Phillips, United States Navy (retired) actively served in the armed forces for 31 years. According to the Center for Climate and Security, of which she is a board member, Rear Admiral Phillips is extremely accomplished having served “in every warfare group of the surface navy.” After her duties at sea, “from 2009-2012 she served on the Chief of Naval Operations’ Climate Change Task Force, and Energy Task Force, where she Co-Chaired the Surface Force Working Group – developing and implementing climate change adaptation and energy reduction strategies for the Navy. Now an independent consultant, she continues to work to address sea level rise and climate impact on national security at the regional, state, and national level, and speaks about climate security and adaptation strategies to a broad range of audiences.” Please join us for a special evening of conversation and climate consideration.

The abilities to thoughtfully consider different perspectives, to apply understanding through cogent written and verbal expression, and to ask questions of meaning are now more important than ever.

We see this reflected in the university and college acceptances of our girls. In similar fashion we see independence in the decision making of our students. In the cohort of 28 girls in the Class of 2018 (the last of our small classes) we sent girls to 23 different colleges. Matriculation includes exceptional schools like UVA, Carnegie Mellon, Brandeis, NYU, and Rice. We are proud to have girls pursue engineering programs, pre-med, international relations, business and economic studies, visual arts, liberal arts, and entrepreneurial initiatives. Our seniors were offered nearly $2.7 million in merit scholarships. Colleges want Chatham Hall girls and are willing to pay to get them.

I love to celebrate. One of the great joys of last year was the opportunity to bring together members of the Chatham Hall community both on campus and at events throughout the country. Our Georgia O'Keeffe gatherings were a smashing success. I am excited to share that the Georgia O’Keeffe Living Modern exhibition (inclusive of Chatham Hall archival materials) has been extended to four additional venues: the Cleveland Museum of Art (November 21, 2018 March 3, 2019), the Wichita Art Museum (March 29 - June 23, 2019), the New Orleans Museum of Art (July 19 - October 13, 2019), and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, FL (November 21, 2019 - February 9, 2020). The Dallas Museum of Art will present Ida O’Keeffe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow (November 18, 2018 - February 24, 2019) which features an illustration by Ida O’Keeffe in the 1907 Chatham Hall yearbook. The Advancement Office is exploring opportunities for Chatham Hall celebrations tied to these shows.

None of Chatham Hall’s success would be possible without your philanthropic partnership. I hope you enjoyed reading the latest issue of the CHAT and Bill Black's article, C.O. Pruden and Andrew Carnegie: Philanthropy and Difficulty Saving a School. You can see that from its earliest roots, our school has demonstrated its worthiness of significant philanthropic investment - and we have worked hard to earn it. I thank our 1,179 past parents, current families, friends, and alumnae who donated nearly $1.08 million to the 2017-2018 Annual Fund. Each year, the Annual Fund ensures that we are able to carry out our educational mission as an all-girls boarding school and to employ our teachers and support team, and to care for our assets such as our physical plant - buildings and grounds. As I write, our new year begins. I hope you will join us by joining in or renewing your support for the 2018-19 Annual Fund - our present and our future depend on it.

Perhaps what I value most about elephants are the qualities that I most appreciate in people - the ability to form meaningful relationships, and the capacity to demonstrate empathy. Here at Chatham Hall, these concepts are practiced thoughtfully and with open heart. I look forward to our continued relationship and to sharing with you all of the adventure and successes of an exhilarating school year.

Esto Perpetua,

Suzanne Walker Buck