Tabor Academy will open its 141st year on September 1 for pre-season athletics and training of student leaders. The school expects about 300 students to return to campus early.
Classes will begin on September 7 with 18 new faculty and 150 new students hailing from around the globe. Increasing student diversity, Tabor has enrolled one of the strongest classes in history. A record fundraising year, securing $2.3 million through the generosity of parents and alumni through the Fund for Tabor, has helped to fund improvements to the program and facility to enhance students’ learning/living experience.
This year, new classes in mechanical and electrical engineering, digital music, and more have been added to the curriculum. Additionally, the school will be sending over 100 students to the Caribbean to live aboard the schooner Tabor Boy over nine week-long cruises this winter, continuing the school’s 15+ year research collaboration with the National Park Service that monitors the conditions that affect the coral populations around the U.S. Virgin Islands. Finally, Smart Board technology has been upgraded and installed in several math classrooms, along with new more flexible furniture in the history and English classrooms to allow for different team groupings and small group discussions.
In the student life area, three important areas have been enhanced to improve students’ health and wellness, increasing their capacity for success school-wide. First, the school’s health center will now be open 24/7 in order to care for students whenever they may require skilled care. Additionally, changing from a part-time to a full-time counselor allows for more student wellness programming. Finally, adjustment to the Senior Class Dean role has been made to allow for student leadership coaching, which will improve the leadership and management skills of student leaders so that they can be most effective in their relational work with other students on campus. These improvements directly impact students’ experience day to day.
Community wide, identity development will be a major theme for Tabor this year. “The school’s inclusion efforts, as well as a contentious political environment in our country, demand that students understand how their backgrounds affect their identity, and seek to understand the backgrounds and opinions of others,” explained Kerry Saltonstall, Director of Communications. The school will have student and faculty leaders host frequent discussions throughout the year. “Lunch and Learns,” along with evening “Cultural Conversations,” will engage students in civil discourse around a host of issues about world events, each other, and about the community they are building together in the 24/7 learning/living environment that is the opportunity of boarding school life. “The goal is to help students develop both conversational and cultural competence so that they can listen for understanding and gain a better sense of themselves and others, building a stronger, inclusive community,” said Saltonstall.
Townspeople will notice new pathways and parking lot improvements, including handicap parking, at the top of the playing fields as well as at Wickenden Chapel. Saltonstall added, “We hope these improvements signal an invitation to townspeople to join us for the many public events, lectures, concerts, and games we host on campus. Please check our website for events and games scheduled at www.taboracademy.org. We welcome you to join in the excitement of our learning community.”