The three panelists spoke about their experiences during the merger.
Three members of the Class of 1974 reflected on the 50th anniversary of the merger of Phillips Academy and Abbot Academy during the All-School Meeting (ASM) this past Friday. The panel recounted their experiences with the merger, sharing stories from 50 years ago, and described their hopes for Andover moving forward.
Serving as the moderator of the panel, Jack Gray ’75 expressed his sentiments on the merger and its place within the school’s history and legacy. Gray commented on how while 1973 marked the official period of co-education, various forms of partnership between Andover and Abbot — referred to as “co-coordination” — took place in the years leading up to the official merger.
“There was what was called co-coordination… I can tell you from my personal experiences. I, for example, took French at Abbot in the Fall of the 1971 to 1972 school year as a Lower, so they were already in the Fall of ’71 synchronizing their schedules, at least in some, but certainly not all academic departments of Phillips Academy and Abbot Academy,” said Gray.
Gray continued by adding how some programs were co-educational from the beginning, such as Outdoor Pursuits, then referred to as “Search and Rescue.”
“I remember [Outdoor Pursuits] being co-ed before the merger, but in my Senior year, we did winter Search and Rescue which was outdoor camping, which in New England is not something to be taken lightly. I feel that doing so with girls and young women showed that these young women had the same kind of endurance and ability to confront difficult challenges,” said Gray in a call with The Phillipian.
The panel also featured former Abbot students such as Laura Richards ’74, who experienced first-hand the merging between Andover and Abbot. Echoing the sentiments of Gray, Richard explained that while students were quick to adapt socially to the merger, certain faculty were slower to adapt to the change and usher in the new co-educational learning environment.
“The thing that was interesting was that the students really came together very, very quickly, and there were still faculty who were not in favor of co-education, and we felt that. So it was sort of chaotic between students and faculty members [before] we figured it out,” said Richards.
Another panelist, Gary Lee ’74, was heavily involved in campus clubs including The Phillipian and WPAA, Phillips Academy’s broadcasting station. Lee spoke on the involvement of female students in clubs and student activities at Andover following the merger.
“We were very conscientious of trying to create some experience in which the new female students can be a part of it, and I think that we were lucky that the women, the girls were quite good at what they did. It was all really based on merit. It’s not like we had some kind of affirmative action thing to make some special program to involve girls, they were really quite talented in what they did,” said Lee.
McKenzie Williams ’24 described how the panel was an interesting exploration into the history of the Academy. Williams commented on the transparency of the panelists when discussing their student lives during the merger.
“I thought it was one of the most engaging All-School Meetings that I have seen at the Academy. I didn’t know the history, and I was glad to have seen people who actually lived through it talk about it and engage the student body. They did not shy away from the fact that Andover had gone wrong at many points, that there was hazing, that there was bullying, and that there was a lot of misogyny present in Andover, and I think it’s good that they addressed that [in] the ASM,” said Williams.
Sebastian Lemberger ’25, who asked a question to the panel regarding power dynamics between students and administration during the merger, explained how this ASM was different from others of a similar format. Lemberger described how the panelists focused on a significant part of Andover’s history rather than solely detailing the Academy’s impact on their lives.
“When I heard that we were doing an alumni ASM, I really thought it would be just Andover tooting its own horn for one hour. I was pleasantly surprised and thought that it was an interesting bit of school history. One thing [from the panel] that I felt was very interesting was that one of the alumni said that the reason why there wasn’t more resistance for the merger was because it was socially required for that time period, and I think that’s an interesting thing to consider in that the only way to get a government body to accept change is to make it so that the status quo forces them to do so,” said Lemberger.
