|
|
Headmaster |
Eric Widmer |
School type |
Private |
Religious affiliation |
None |
Founded |
1797 |
Location |
Deerfield , MA , USA |
Enrollment |
600 |
| Faculty |
110 |
Campus surroundings |
Rural |
Mascot |
Green Door |
School colors |
Green and White |
is a
Prep School located in
Deerfield, Massachusetts . It is a four year
Boarding school with a student body of approximately 600 students and employing about 100 faculty, all of whom live on or near campus.
Deerfield is part of an organization known as
The Ten Schools Admissions Organization . This organization was founded more than forty years ago on the basis of a number of common goals and traditions. Member schools include Deerfield,
Choate Rosemary Hall , The
Lawrenceville School ,
The Taft School ,
The Hill School ,
The Hotchkiss School ,
St. Paul's ,
Loomis Chaffee ,
Phillips Exeter Academy , and
Phillips Academy Andover .
In 2005, Deerfield's endowment was valued at $305 million, or roughly $500,000 per student.
Deerfield Academy was founded in
1797 when
Massachusetts Governor
Samuel Adams granted a charter to start a school in the historic town of Deerfield. The academy quickly established itself as one of the finest schools in the newly formed United States and drew students, both male and female, from prominent families across New England. In the second half of the 19th century, however, its prosperity declined, culminating in a merger with the local public school.
While unlike many other American prep schools Deerfield Academy was not formally religiously affiliated, it was founded as a state institution at a time when the state of
Massachusetts required all citizens to belong to a church. Attendance at
Congregationalist Church services was required by boarding students until the
1970s and school meetings included the singing of Christian hymns.
In the early twentieth century, Deerfield's fortune sharply rebounded with the appointment of
Frank Boyden as
Headmaster . The prestige enjoyed by the school today is a direct result of the foundations he laid, including having trained scores of men as teachers and headmasters in their own right. Boyden's long career and legacy at Deerfield has been immortalized in the
1966 book ''
The Headmaster '', by Deerfield alumnus and writer
John McPhee . His success would not have been possible without the support and assistance of his wife,
Helen Childs Boyden . After 66 years of serving Deerfield, Frank Boyden retired in
1968 .
The current headmaster
Eric Widmer '57 was appointed in
1994 and has announced his retirement, effective at the end of the 2005-2006 school year. He will be replaced by
Margarita O'Byrne Curtis . In
1989 , the Academy reestablished co-education, which Boyden had discontinued during the 1940's.
Notable
Alumn i of Deerfield Academy include:
- George Grennell, Jr. (1786-1877), U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts
- Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864), president of Amherst College 1845-1854, state geologist of Massachusetts
- Rufus Saxton (1824-1908), Union Army Brigadier-General awarded Medal Of Honor
- William Lincoln Higgins (1867-1957), U.S. Congressman from Connecticut
- Paul Langdon Ward (1911-2005), president of Sarah Lawrence College 1960-1965
- Frederick Carlos Ferry, Jr. (1913-2004), president of Pine Manor College 1956–1974
- Budd Schulberg (born 1914), screenwriter and novelist
- Hastings Keith (1915-2005), U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts
- Lyman Kirkpatrick (1916-1995), Inspector General and Executive Director of the CIA
- John Edward Sawyer (1917-1995), president of Williams College 1961-1973
- Robert Morgenthau (b. 1919), Manhattan District Attorney
- James Colgate Cleveland (1920-1995), U.S. Congressman from New Hampshire
- Talcott Williams Seelye (b. 1922), U.S. Ambassador to Syria and Lybia
- John Chafee (1922-1999), U.S. Senator from and Governor of Rhode Island ; Secretary Of The Navy under President Nixon
- Arthur Nims (b. 1923), Chief Judge of United States Tax Court
- Ogden R. Reid (b. 1925), U.S. Congressman from New York , U.S. Ambassador to Israel
- Henry W. Kendall (1926-1999), physicist, 1990 Nobel Prize
- John Ashbery (b. 1926), poet
- James Wadsworth Symington (b. 1927), U.S. Congressman from Missouri
- Allen McIntyre Stack (b. 1927), Gold Medalist U.S. Swimmer at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London
- Gilbert M. Grosvenor (b. 1931), President of the National Geographic Society , 2004 Presidential Medal Of Freedom
- John McPhee (b. 1931), writer
- Richard Mellon Scaife (b. 1932), media mogul and philanthropist, "The Republican George Soros "
- Robert Hazard Edwards (b.1934), president of Carleton College 1977-1986; president of Bowdoin College 1990-2001
- Thomas C. Reed (b. 1934), 11th secretary of the United States Air Force
- Warren Zimmermann (1935-2004), the final U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia
- Joseph Verner Reed (b. 1937), Chief Of Protocol under President George H.W. Bush , U.S. Ambassador to Morocco
- Eric Widmer (b. 1939), Deerfield Headmaster 1994 - 2006
- David Koch (b. 1940), billionaire, Libertarian Vice-Presidential Candidate in 1984
- David Childs (b. 1941), architect
- Bruce Faulkner Caputo (b. 1943), U.S. Congressman from New York
- Pete Varney (b. 1949), Major League Baseball player
- Steven Brill (b. 1950), journalist and publisher
- Stephen Hannock (b. 1951), painter
- Howie Carr (b. 1952), radio host
- Buddy Teevens (b.1956), Head Football Coach at Dartmouth College , formerly head coach at Stanford University and Tulane University
- Ken Bentsen , Jr. (b. 1959), U.S. Congressman from Texas
- Haun Saussy (b. 1960), Comparative Literature professor at Yale University
- King Abdullah II al-Hussein of Jordan (b. 1962)
- Matthew Fox (b. 1966), actor
- Mike Trombley (b. 1967), Major League Baseball player
- Nestor Carbonell (b. 1967), actor
- Chris Waddell (b. 1968), Gold Medalist Paralympic Skier ; named one of People Magazine 's 50 Most Beautiful People of 1998
- Chris Klug (b. 1972), Bronze Medalist U.S. Snowboarder at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City
- Randal Williams (b. 1978), National Football League player
- Jamie Hagerman (b. 1981), Bronze Medalist U.S. Women's Hockey player at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin
- Several members of the Bush Family
- Several members of the Crowninshield Family
- Several members of the Rockefeller families
