Occurring simultaneously with Andover/Exeter (A/E) weekend, the Board of Trustees gathered from November 8 to November 9 for the 2024 Fall Trustee weekend. The weekend’s agenda focused specifically on student wellness and the Trustees were also joined by the Andover Development Board (ADB), a group of alumni who stay closely connected to the school.
Amy Falls ’89, P ’19, ’21, President of the Board of Trustees, outlined the Trustees’ principal objectives over the weekend. She also described how student well-being, teaching and faculty, and financial sustainability are all evaluated to continue pursuing excellence for Andover.
Falls said, “Primary goals this Fall term were to review some of the larger long-term planning exercises that are happening on campus, maybe known as road-mapping exercises. It has been a comprehensive effort led by [Head of School] Dr. [Raynard] Kington to look at, broadly, how we sustain excellence. It has a lot to do with a particular focus on teaching and the faculty, on student well-being, and then on financial sustainability. Those are the three big buckets.”
As well as discussing and meeting amongst themselves, the Trustees and the ADB also met with multiple student groups on Saturday to discuss mental health on campus. According to Julia LaMarche ’25, Co-Head of Students in Medicine, students from health-related groups had one-on-one conversations with Trustees about student well-being.
“The [Trustees met with the] Student Wellness Collaborative, which is made up of the leaders of all the health clubs on campus: Students in Medicine, Self Care Bears, Yes+, Active Minds, along with the [Empathy, Balance, and Inclusion] Uppers and Seniors,” said LaMarche.
LaMarche continued, “This whole meeting was designed to talk about health at Andover. So each of the students was assigned a table in [Paresky] Commons with about ten or 12 board members, and they asked us questions about health, questions about our experience at Andover, and stuff like that.”
According to LaMarche, the Trustees were specifically curious about the Rebecca M. Sykes Wellness Center counseling resources, the cell phone task force, and nutrition. The conversations allowed students and board members to connect, however, LaMarche said she does not yet know of any changes that will be implemented as a result of this dialogue.
Additionally, the Trustees met with Nick Zufelt, Instructor in Computer Science, and multiple students to discuss the future of the computer science curriculum. Pragun Seth ’25 noted that the meeting focused on artificial intelligence (AI) usage in the classroom.
“For the computer science event, Dr. Zufelt invited students with varying levels of computer science experience at the school. For example, I was a new Upper but some of the students have been here since Freshman year and the only computer science class they took was in the fall of their Freshman year. I think that really showcases the breadth of the experience that the student body has,” said Seth.
Seth continued, “A recurring theme was the idea that technology is changing Andover. In the computer science meeting, they were all asking ‘How are we using AI?’ [and] ‘How is AI being used in the classroom?’”
In addition to hearing student voices, the Trustees discussed the Andover endowment. According to the Annual Report of Phillips Academy, Andover’s Fiscal Year report, the endowment is just over 1.4 billion dollars as of June 30, up almost 300 million dollars from June 2020. Falls explained how the Trustees approach managing the endowment.
“An analogy that I like to use is the endowment is like a lake, and you want the lake to be there for future generations. We don’t want to deplete the water in the lake, and inflation is like evaporation. Inflation reduces the purchasing power of the endowment, which is like evaporating the water. There’s new giving into the endowment, but that tends to be about half a percent to one percent a year. Then we take out about five percent. Market returns are like rainfall, you have to picture a dam at the bottom where we’re taking out five percent, and there’s a little stream at the top that’s putting in about one percent. The rest of it is the rain that comes from the markets. And that unfortunately is very sporadic, so we have monsoon years and dry years,” said Falls.
With only two Trustee weekends every school year, students rarely have the opportunity to connect with the board. Seth concluded that Trustees weekend is invaluable to students to connect with the Trustees and other Andover alums, and noted that more networking opportunities for students would only benefit students further.
Seth said, “My biggest takeaway was that it was great to speak to trustees and Andover alums. It’s something that we should be doing more of. Especially because one great thing about Andover is the network that comes with going here and being able to speak with alumni not just on Trustee weekend and not just on A/E weekend but being able to form bigger connections. That’s something that’s really important, especially as we graduate [from] Andover. It’s important to try to stay more connected to alums.”
