I attended boarding school as a high schooler. Went to Suffield Academy, which is just north of Hartford, Connecticut. I loved my boarding school experience…So, when I thought about what I wanted to do with my life…I always thought maybe if I could work in admissions at a boarding school…to help students understand and families understand that there’s this really interesting educational opportunity that is not your local public school…Through a friend of a friend I saw the job posting for Andover in the admission office…[Actually], one of my most beloved faculty members at Suffield, the guy who taught me math and was my house counselor. They left after my 11th grade year from Suffield to come work at Andover…[Also], the woman who was the acting dean of admission and who I interviewed for my job had worked at Suffield when I had been a student…So, it just kind of felt like a perfect storm of just all the good juju in the air bringing me here.
At its heart, at its core, it’s very much the same, like the same values. Yet, I think things like technology have caused various changes over time…I just think technology has changed the way, and the pandemic certainly, but it’s changed the way we engage with each other…Kids [used to have] to sort of sit with their emotions a little longer. Kids had to sort of sit with problem solving a little longer. There wasn’t this instant gratification, “I need to fix it, let me just call home and they’re going to fix it for me…” Even when I think about my time in boarding school and then sort of over time, students didn’t talk to their parents that often because it was hard to talk to your parents.
I like to try to reframe the college process as one of self-discovery, self-reflection, sort of a treasure hunt or sorts, of how can I think of my Andover experience in a way as sort of a collection of how I’ve explored my curiosity whether that’s in an academic field, or an extracurricular field, in a way. Right now it feels like everyone’s on a treadmill, and someone’s making it faster and faster and everyone’s like “and then I need to put something else on” and it loses its authenticity and it totally I think loses in terms of one’s mental health and one’s sense of self…Zero in on the things that feel important to you, and then be 110%. Do that in the best way possible.
I have relationships that I have maintained for decades, from my first year as a faculty member. I was a complement in Smith House dorm and the girls are now in their 40-50s, and I have been to their weddings, baby showers, and you know, still keep in touch with them, to girls that were in my dorm, and were my kids’ first babysitters to some of my faculty colleagues were my former students. Actually just today, one of my advisees who graduated last year had reached out, and was like “I miss you, can we talk? I have all kinds of things that are going on with my life and I just want to talk!” and so we spent half an hour, fourty minutes chatting on the phone today.
I don’t think you have to find a specific thing that nobody else does, and to kind of take yourself out of that because that’s just impossible, like everybody does everything. There’s probably never one nichey thing that nobody else does. There is no formula to get into college…That’s the problem with some of my 11th graders starting college counseling right now – some of them have a clear sense of their academic focus and others are like “I like a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.” They feel a little bad that they haven’t figured it out. You’re 16 or 17 years old, you don’t have to have it figured out, you don’t have to have your life figured out. That’s actually what college is for. It’s to continue to explore all these different areas of inquiry.
Skiing for me, on my side of my family, was always a family activity, it was something I did with my parents. Then my kids grew older, and my mom stopped skiing early on. So my dad and us, it was like a generational activity that we could do together, and share that experience together. For me skiing is that sort of shared family, the only thing that we all do together, across generations and with my younger sister, and her family. I think just being out in nature, doing something active. I’ve just grown up skiing, so it’s sort of a happy place for me.
Since they took down so many trees in the knoll, I’m not sure. But it used to be in the autumn, walking from the Knoll, like up from [Stuart House], to Gelb. The autumn there were beautiful trees which were so colorful and gorgeous…But there were [also] beautiful, probably 6 to 10, cherry blossom trees along Phillips street. Which I think they took down because they had to build the [music center]. Being part Japanese, I just have an affinity for cherry blossoms, and so on May fifth, the fifth day of the fifth month, is called Boys’ Day. It’s technically translated as Childrens’ Day, but it’s Boys’ Day in Japan. So I always take my boys out there and take some photos. So I did love that too, in the Springtime. Just in general, sitting on the steps of Sam Phil at sunset, and looking down across the vista is also awfully pretty.
My Japanese grandmother was certainly an inspiration to me. As a woman in Asia, she had a pretty unique life. Her focus on education was always sort of what inspired me to be an educator myself. I think she was the one that encouraged my parents to think about boarding school for me. She was the one that felt Western education for my dad and my uncle who lived in Japan. So important that she helped establish an international school in Japan. We’re going to celebrate its 75th anniversary this next year. She knew she wanted to send her sons to the US for college. So I think she was always an inspiration as a pretty strong-willed woman, and someone who just knew and felt so strongly about education. Education opportunities open doors in really important ways.
Just believing in yourself…I can’t imagine being a young person and growing up with all of those images and everyone’s life is perfect and curated and you’re kind of like “my life kinda feels sucky right now…” but everyone keeps up a brave face. Everyone’s like the duck on the water metaphor. On the surface everyone’s smooth and enjoying themselves, but everyone’s like furiously paddling underneath to just stay afloat. Nobody wants to admit to anyone else that they’re really homesick or that their bio class is really hard…Everyone thinks everyone else is doing so well, and if people were willing to be uncomfortable and be vulnerable, which is sort of the opposite of what anyone wants to feel in high school and adolescence…you can make connections with others.
I love The Pointer Sisters’ ”We are Family” because I like the meaning of it. I love Pat Benetar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” because it feels like very women empowerment. I am a big Bon Jovi fan, so “Dead or Alive” is another song. I mean I think they’re just kind of, in general I am a child of the 80s so I am sort of stuck in that place. But then I love some great classic rock too. Led Zeppelin, can’t go wrong with Led Zeppelin. My younger son, he’s at Berklee College of music and he’s electric guitar principal, and so I like hearing anything that he will play. But his band right now is deathcore metal, it’s not totally my jam, but if he’s playing, I will listen and watch.
