Wednesday is Cluster Day at Phillips Academy. We sit in All-School Meetings by cluster, or else we attend cluster meetings. And in the evenings, for one hour out of the week, we mingle with friends and chow down on junk food at cluster munches. But what about the other six days of the week? Once upon a time, clusters determined their own set of rules for work duty and disciplinary systems. In years since, the school has standardized these policies across the clusters. In many ways, these changes have been beneficial. However, with this homogenization, we’ve also lost the individuality of each of Andover’s sub-communities – the shared sense of identity that comes from kicking the Abbot wall on the way back to a dorm, the respect and fear of the Washburn clan’s authority in West Quad South or the smug feeling of superiority that comes from walking to Commons in pajamas as a resident of Flagstaff. Administrators and admissions officers boast of the closeness and family-like nature of Phillips Academy, but many opportunities we once had to foster such cluster pride – such as cluster sports and the selection of Blue Key Heads by cluster – have been abolished by those very people who claim to support it. If Blue Key Heads are meant to represent the spirit of the entire school, wearing rainbow T-shirts and cheering for Andover, not a single cluster – then why are two assigned to each cluster to begin with? If Blue Key Heads are going to represent a cluster, they should represent their own. Otherwise, the entire system is insincere. Freshmen who cheer because they’re told cluster pride is a hallmark of life at Phillips Academy will soon discover that, as it stands now, there is little difference between living in Pine Knoll or West Quad North. Over four years at PA, many students move from cluster to cluster with few regrets. In order to give them a reason to cheer and to stay, clusters should reclaim their identities as distinct entities within the school. Bring back cluster sports and design cluster apparel students will want to buy. Organize events, such as community service opportunities or movie nights, which would provide a reason for students to interact socially by cluster, but schedule them on weekends, when students are more relaxed and day students are more likely to be on campus. Such cluster-specific events would help make them seem more like neighborhoods, and less like bureaucratic sub-divisions, contrived to make the distribution of information more convenient. The administration should also consider instituting a cluster points system, in which an individual student’s academic, athletic, or extracurricular accomplishments could contribute to his or her cluster’s total point tally. Healthy competition between clusters would increase students’ affection for Andover as a whole. Bring back cluster pride, so that returning students cheer at Orientation and mean it, rather than rolling their eyes. Bring back cluster pride, so that when the school talks about communities, it’s more than a line in an admissions brochure. Bring back cluster pride, and its accompanying camaraderie and rivalry, and overall school pride will only increase in its fervor and authenticity. Anabel Bacon and Cora Lewis are both editors of The Phillipian. The views represented in this column are their own and not necessarily those of The Phillipian.
