by John Quirk, Head of School
The 2015-2016 school year will soon be underway. With it brings the perennial cycle of “starting again,” heralding Tabor’s deep commitment to the process of renewal that is so central to meaningful education and to transformational growth.
Over 150 new students and an eager cohort of new faculty will be joining our learning community, taking first steps along wanderings and pathways that many of us have come to know so well and to love in our own Tabor journeys. For the new group, it’s easy and exciting to see this in action, and dynamic in feeling. Yet in more hidden and equally exciting ways, truly all of us start the year new again.
We do so freshly and with something of what author John Hay called a “beginners faith in things not yet seen.” The Class of 2016, on whom so much attention will be focused during a year of launching them successfully and wholly into the world, has not held the leadership sway the way it will. Last year’s new students are now part of the “Welcome to Tabor!” crowd. Eleventh graders, the sophomoric lot that they were, will be showing more of their wisdom, more of their responsibility, more command of their school lives than they did as tenth graders. The faculty returns more evolved in its craft, buoyed by the reflective time of the summer, hopeful in its addition of that one little tweak here or there to a syllabus, or perhaps in the major development of an entire unit or course, in that wrinkle in a practice, that chapel talk, that fun time with a dorm. It’s the same for me, after nearly thirty years in teaching and entering my fourth at Tabor’s helm – there is pure inspiration in the start of the school year and in what that start means.
Orbiting it all, in widening concentric circles, are the families of the students in the center, the alums and past faculty that have come before, the institution and history of Tabor Academy itself. It is harder to discern what renewal means to these, but that there is exploration, growth and evolution is abundantly clear here on campus and, I daresay, “out there” to those watching and measuring us.
On campus, it is felt acutely in the spirit of generosity that has fostered and fueled projects big and small, and which sees us enhancing, enriching and broadening our approaches. In admissions, it is seen in the growing interest of applicants, in the broader reach of our message of excellence and in the exceptional pool of students our enhanced financial aid initiatives are yielding. At our alumni and parent events, it is heard in the chatter of bigger groups, in the noisy excitement of people gathered in the cause of our great school. And always, always, it is perceived in the hum of a school a-buzz with the daily strivings, the joyous accomplishments, the resilience of challenges-faced among our students and their faculty.
As each of us moves locally and personally into the newness of the year, the renewal of our commitment, please know how well this is being reflected at the school on the whole. Tabor Academy is on the move more than ever – and I am feeling ever more confident in the companionship and guidance so many of you are providing. Thanks as always for the part you play in making and keeping Tabor great, and for the leadership you are supplying -- that faith in things perhaps not yet fully seen -- in pushing us to our greatest heights.
