WESTMINSTER
A L U M N I
| SPRING 2009
A N D
| BULLETIN
D E V E L O P M E N T
Alan Brooks ’55, P’89, ’91, ’96 Alan Brooks has been a part of the faculty at Westminster for 49 years. “I received a phone call in 1959 from Headmaster Pete Keyes asking me if I would be interested in becoming Westminster’s first director of admissions,” said Alan. “I had been close to Pete as a student and viewed the offer as one I could not refuse.” Today, Alan looks back at a career that has taken him from admissions director, to director of development to senior development director. Early in his career, he taught English, was a corridor supervisor and served as the school’s fire marshal, a responsibility he says required a lot more work than people realized since the town fire service was much slower than it is today. He also has coached track throughout his tenure. As a prospective student in 1951, Alan played almost no part in choosing Westminster. “The selection process was managed completely by my parents, which was common in those days,” he said. “I visited only
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Westminster, met with Headmaster Milliken and was admitted on the spot.” As a student, Alan was a school prefect and participated in football, basketball, track, the John Hay Society, the Dance Committee and the yearbook. He also was a member of the Gazelles, a song and dance group he says required its members to weigh more than 200 pounds, and the Harmonotones, a singing group made up of the worst voices in the school. “My first two years were not easy and some scary talk from Prof. Milliken near the end of my FourthForm year propelled me into what proved to be two highly fulfilling final years at Westminster,” he recalled. He says it was the collective influence of many faculty members who got him interested in his education and in eventually pursing secondary education as a career. “It was less what I learned from my teachers, as it was the strong sense I had of their abiding interest, care and concern for me,” he explained. Alan feels his student perspective has infused everything he has done as a faculty member and that it is impossible to separate the two experiences. “Working with kids and their parents in admissions, I had a deeper understanding of the experience they were considering, and in my development work, I am interacting for the most part with alumni with whom I went to school or I admitted
to Westminster,” he said. “We have common ground.” Although many things have changed about Westminster since Alan was a student, he says its soul has remained the same. “Westminster is and has always been a community that is cohesive, caring and challenges us to be the best people we can be,” he said. “Building character, as long as I have known the school, has been at the very core of what we do. Grit and grace is as familiar to the student in the 1940s as it is to students today.” Reflecting back on a lifelong involvement with Westminster, Alan says he has no regrets. “I began my faculty experience as an unsophisticated 23-year-old, uncertain about his future in education or at Westminster, and 49 years later, I can say categorically that I can’t imagine doing anything else that would have given me as much satisfaction or sense of fulfillment. Serving something bigger than myself has made all the difference to me. And that is what Westminster is all about.”