Three students attended the first in a series of lunches in Paresky Commons with Head of School Raynard Kington. With eight lunches in total spanning from April 7 to May 20, each lunch can include up to five students, according to an email Kington sent to the student body. In Fall 2022, Kington also opened up a similar opportunity.
Reflecting their experiences, Maya Tomlinson ’28 shared her impressions of the lunch. Tomlinson noted how she enjoyed the opportunity to converse with Kington on a personal level.
“I didn’t know how many people there were going to be, so I thought he was just going to talk to us as a group. When I went, there were only two other people, so it was actually pretty one-on-one. Having such a personal conversation with someone so distant from the rest of the student body is just such a fun experience, and I would definitely recommend it,” said Tomlinson.
During the conversation, students discussed pertinent topics ranging from Andover’s finance to its political involvement. Anoushka Pandey ’28, another attendee, asked Kington a question about the admissions process. She appreciated the transparency of his answer, emphasizing how it expanded her understanding of admissions.
“I asked [Kington] how the admissions process worked because that’s just something I’d always found pretty interesting because there’s so many factors that play into it. Suddenly, he was talking about how the admissions target rural areas. I’m not from a rural area, so I can’t relate, but I just felt that was a cool, interesting idea,” said Pandey.
Pandey recognized the significance of these lunches in strengthening relationships between Kington and the student body. She mentioned how the conversation altered her perception of Kington’s role on campus.
“[The purpose is] to connect with the students and have a better understanding of how the school feels at this moment in time, just getting a sense of how everyone is doing in general and their thoughts on everything… The title [of] Head of School just sounds scary. Having those lunches makes it less formal in a way. If I see him I’ll wave now because now I’ve met him and interacted [with him], so I know that Head of School is not just a scary title,” said Pandey.
Tomlinson noted the program’s potential to make lesser known aspects of campus more clear to students. Expressing her appreciation for Kington’s insights, she encouraged students to attend a lunch to learn more about the school from an internal perspective.
“It should definitely be continued. It gave me a lot of insights into how the school functions and how things are that we can’t see or how most people can’t see. It’s good to shine a different perspective and show the students how things actually occur around campus and what goes into it. A lot of people view the school negatively in some areas but in an unjustified way, as in all they see is what is presented to them. This is good to uncover that and to provide more perspective,” said Tomlinson.
