We want to call attention to the discrepancy between the administration’s professed plans and their concerning effects at ground level following a student’s death on campus. We acknowledge and thank the efforts made by the faculty and the administration to ensure student safety. We also understand that we are not entirely aware of administrative issues and logistics. This article only aims to expose the prevalent problems that we think plague Phillips Academy’s student body. We have compiled the arguments below by listening to numerous student anecdotes across campus, and we thank our peers who have shared their personal stories with us for their courage and vulnerability.
We would like to address the measures that have been taken to minimize student stress from various commitments. The administration announced measures to aid student life with varying efficacies—for organizational purposes, we will categorize such into three categories: systemic academic inflexibility, the lack of messaging, and schedules that force students to move on too fast.
The first category is the inflexibility in the academic policies for the past few weeks, namely, the 50 percent workload policy for the first week and the staggering of major assessments by department. Although the policies may have worked well for some students, others felt a loss of agency over our own journey with grief. Simultaneously, it expected us to advocate for ourselves for academic or mental health support. An email from Dr. Kington sent on April 3rd read “If you are struggling to reset academically please reach out to… the Dean of Studies Office. You will not be penalized for seeking help.” The people who need help the most, who likely feel desolate and unmotivated, are required to speak to a faculty member they may have never met in their lives about the deeply personal journey of grief. In these abnormal times, the academic and mental health support that the Academy has provided should have been mandated for everyone. Students should be able to opt into assignments, tests, and opt out of class if accompanied by an adult without question. The strategy to cope with productivity should be reserved for those who truly prefer this method, but this is not how we cope. The expectation on the students to find the courage for self-advocacy in some of the darkest times they have undergone in their lives is contradictory to the academy’s statement.
The second category is how the inflexibility of student schedules unfortunately renders mental health support resources inaccessible. Staffed with Riverside experts on trauma, Sykes provided a comforting presence on campus for struggling students. However, mental health support was provided often during the school day and occasionally extended to after school hours — it required us to either skip lunch or class. In our case, even the after-school hours conflict with our sports or music block, where there is little flexibility in that too. Many of us who needed that help chose to bear it through to not fall behind. Current available mental health resources do not consider actual student life, and the expectation to return to coursework without universally accessible mental health resources implicitly invalidates student struggles and complaints as ingratitude.
The third category relates to the Academy’s lack of transparency and explanation of its measures. One example is how we hosted revisit days one week after Lucas Lee’s death. The revisit day scheduled the same Friday as the week of Lucas’ death was canceled, but another took place the following week. We understand that revisit is an integral part of the admissions process at Andover, however, we are just kids. We simply cannot recover from a friend’s death so quickly to serve the school’s cause and give new students the authentic Andover experience. We acknowledge the need to meet the deadline for boarding school commitment, but these extraneous circumstances that affected the present student body should have overridden the custom of revisit day, an event meant to benefit the incoming student body. We understand that the administration has their own reasons for enacting specific actions, however, largely leaving the reasoning and intent in the dark from the student body has caused us more harm than necessary. For instance, let us broaden this concept of normalcy, a concept many members of the faculty and administration have cited to be a pushing force to help the community as a whole to recover from trauma. Does the normalcy the administration speaks of extend to how students learn in Gelb the following Monday? We did not learn until we heard from other students that the JED foundation recommended the Gendler memorial’s removal and the usage of Gelb, which was researched to be the best solution to remove negative connotations with the space. Without that knowledge, it is easy for us to interpret these measures as an insensitive attempt to force us to move on. We believe the student body deserves an explanation for these measures, particularly what qualifies as normal in the eyes of the administration, and that more transparent discourse will benefit the community. We believe that true normalcy needs deliberate, systemic action with clear explanations following any new events, choices, and policies so that we do not misinterpret the Academy’s efforts behind the scenes as insensitive gestures to force us into productivity.
We hope our perspective has been helpful in illuminating an aspect of the student experience following the series of tragic events on campus. We write not in reprehension, but in concern, for possible solutions and, most importantly, in appreciation for the administration’s dedication to creating an Andover experience that is both enriching and full of kindness.
