“I
t was great to have a week when we didn’t have to worry about cooking dinners,” Sarah says, noting that the other families on campus have added tremendously to her own family’s experience since they moved on campus. Lucy has a cohort of faculty family children to play with, not to mention a bevy of older “siblings” in the form of Webb students. Sarah enjoys the same easy access to fellow instructors as do Webb students, encouraging the exchange of ideas and teaching methods. Ray, a self-described golf nut, has found a kindred soul in mathematics instructor Chris Paragamian, their next-door neighbor.
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“Living on campus is very much how I imagined it,” says Sarah. At the same time, both she and Ray say they didn’t really know what to expect when they first moved on campus. Sarah, who originally came to Webb to work in the Development office, was offered a full-time teaching position, as well as on-campus housing and dorm head duties, when she returned from maternity leave with her daughter Lucy in 2010. “At first, I was a little apprehensive about living at Webb,” admits Ray. “But to think about Lucy growing up here on campus is awesome.” Now, he says, “I love it here; it’s quiet and beautiful.”
of student advisees, then Class of ’11 sophomores, now college students entering their second year. “We stay in close contact,” she says—but that’s not telling the whole story. “We were always together; we loved each other a lot,” recalls one of Lantz’s advisees, Elena Scott-Kakures ’11, now at Wellesley. Elena encouraged the group to request Sarah as their advisor. Elena had reason to think it would be a good match, having known Sarah since she was 5 years old and Sarah was a student at Scripps College, where Elena’s father is a professor. “Mrs. Lantz blended so perfectly with our advisee group,” Elena says. “We felt really open talking to her... She was really there to help us with anything we needed.”
That went beyond academics: Elena recalls one December when Sarah took her advisees to a local mall so an international student could meet Santa Claus. Elena also remembers the morning Sarah told them she was pregnant with her first daughter. “We’d been bugging her for months about having children,” she says. “It was so exciting to hear!”
The Lantz Family: Sarah, Lucy, Ray, and Annalise.
“Here, I know that if Lucy runs off onto Chandler Field, she’s safe,” Sarah adds. “And there is nowhere else in the United States where she could grow up next door to a dinosaur museum.” Lucy, Sarah says, “likes the freedom to be outside and to wander.” Conversely, Webb students enjoy opportunities to spend time with the Lantzes, chatting on the porch or saying hello to Lucy as she accompanies her mother on dorm checks. “It’s a family community,” Sarah says. “The students really like that.” That sense of community fosters strong bonds between students and teachers at Webb. Sarah recalls her first group
After Lucy was born and the Lantzes moved on campus, the advisee group met in Sarah’s kitchen each week, watching Lucy grow from baby to toddler while they discussed everything from academics to vacation plans. “What I really appreciated was the consistency” of Sarah’s mentorship, Elena says. “She was my support system at Webb. She was always there to help me out. Through the years, she became more of a friend to me, but also always a mentor. “She’s probably the thing I miss most about Webb.” Being part of a close-knit advisee group added a lot to her Webb experience, says Elena: although she attended as a day student, she always felt she was a member of Webb’s community. It’s a community that draws in faculty families as well as students. Webb is a small town, after all—a town with lots of teenagers—and there are plenty of opportunities for faculty family members to become involved, even beyond the involvement that comes with living on campus.