Retiring Faculty
Thomas Bisbee Milton Academy Faculty, 1958–61, 1964–72, 1980–2001
Hugh envisions his role at Milton as a “teaching leader, an intellectual and academic, a reader and writer.” His “highest aim,” he said, “is nurturing teachers’ curiosity about and commitment to their disciplines and the craft of teaching. Teachers grow or wither, and schools grow or wither with them.” His colleagues at Putney cite his ability to counsel, support and inspire teachers – both experienced teachers and teachers who have just begun. At the same time, Hugh has been applauded by the Putney faculty for helping the school move successfully through a period of significant change, recentering Putney on its traditional values and high standards. “I am very excited about joining the Milton Academy community,” Hugh says. “It is a diverse and exciting group of people and a school with a rich and interesting history. In particular, I look forward to working closely with Milton’s fine faculty on developing and preserving the school’s traditional academic and intellectual strengths, and innovating where it is possible and appropriate, based on new thinking about teaching and learning and on new teaching technologies. I am thrilled and honored to be joining such a strong group of faculty and students, and I am excited for the challenge of working with so many confident and independent thinkers.” Hugh’s appointment was the recommendation of the Principal Search Committee. After articulating Milton’s challenges and opportunities as a guide in helping to evaluate candidates, the Committee hosted three finalists on campus, then solicited and carefully considered over 100 written faculty and student responses to the finalists. Head of School Robin Robertson accepted the Committee’s recommendation, and ultimately announced to the School, with great pleasure, that Mr. Silbaugh would be the new Upper School Principal.
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hen Tom Bisbee packs up his briefcase this June, walks out of Warren Hall, and heads to Vermont, he will end a long and multifaceted career at Milton Academy that began in 1958. Through all the changes in mathematics and technology during those years, not to mention all the changes at Milton Academy, Tom has remained constant in his desire to connect with his students and his colleagues. With students in his classes, Tom has accomplished that through countless hours of extra-help sessions, as well as the special problems and projects which he prepares and grades. Both the quantity and quality of these are awe-inspiring to his colleagues in the mathematics department. Tom has also connected with students through his work in the dormitory (he was head of Forbes House for several years) and in athletics. He has been an outstanding member of the athletic program in team sports, coaching football and baseball, and in individual sports, pursuing the elusive squash ball. Tom’s many interests have included physics, computing and statistics. In each of those areas, and in other arenas, such as the teacher-support groups of recent years, he has forged connections with colleagues and built community, while being willing to ask tough questions in difficult situations. Tom hangs in there with his colleagues on controversial issues in a very tenacious, yet caring way. Tom has been, through the years, deeply involved in several nonacademic areas. Two of these were his involvement with the student/faculty work program in Warren Hall in the late ’60s and early ’70s (the money saved through these efforts was directed toward a scholarship to Milton), and his early and strong advocacy for diversity at Milton. To everything he has done, Tom has always brought high standards and commitment.
Tom Bisbee
Tom has been a champion of the independence and individualism of teachers in their own classrooms. He has been a masterful teacher, while shunning teaching prizes on principle, and he remains a life-long learner having recently undertaken learning how to play the piano. We in the mathematics department will miss Tom’s reappearance on campus every September, sporting a mustache. Those of us who dined with him in Forbes will remember his affection for grilled cheese sandwiches. Most of all though, we will miss his love of mathematics and selfless promotion of that discipline among his students and colleagues. Tom has left Milton for other possibilities on two occasions in his career here, having been chair of the mathematics departments at Charles Wright Academy and at Moses Brown School, but he has always gravitated back. We hope that he will continue to return to Milton frequently and give us the pleasure of his companionship and the benefit of his wisdom in the years to come. Keith Hilles-Pillant Mathematics Department
41 Milton Magazine