NMH Magazine : Fall 2003

It’s All About Our Students

By Head of the School Richard W. Mueller ’62

One-hundred and twenty-five years ago, Dwight L. Moody started a school for young women. Board and tuition cost $100 for the year, and the 16 young ladies in the entering class lived in the second floor of Dwight and Betsy Moody’s home. How much has changed!

Just look at NMH’s history: first, Northfield’s founding in 1879, then Mount Hermon in 1881. Over the decades the schools have grown in truly remarkable ways, and the academic and residential curriculum expanded to encompass 20th-century subjects and issues. In 1971 Northfield and Mount Hermon merged into one school on two campuses—not without some clamor and controversy, but guided by the leaders who saw the possibilities of betterment and change. Just five years ago, NMH replaced the traditional nine-period, 43-minute academic schedule still used at most schools with an extended-period schedule that created an interdisciplinary and in-depth curriculum focused on the world of the 21st century. Woven into this new schedule were important themes of technology, global citizenship, and care for the natural world.

Today, the school is once again, and appropriately, in a period of self-evaluation and change. The board of trustees, in the course of this academic year, are addressing strategic issues for NMH’s future.

In times of change—both prospective and in NMH’s past—let me emphasize one irrefutable point: NMH, throughout its distinguished history, has stayed true to its mission of providing a first-rate secondary education for young people regardless of race, religion, or economic circumstances. We remain as committed today as our founder Dwight L. Moody was in 1879 to educating the head, the hand, and the heart. Our core educational mission remains the school’s driving force.

With the school’s mission in mind, a group of 31 teachers, administrators, and staff engaged in a study this past summer. Their charge: to review NMH’s current situation and determine how the school can best serve students’ educational needs in the future. What could be a vision of NMH in 2010: 

Stated most simply, NMH aspires to be a first-rate boarding school with an excellent and rigorous academic program that allows a diverse audience of students to matriculate in appropriate top-tier colleges and have successful and fulfilling lives. It will have a strong residential program that focuses on close, harmonious relationships and promotes character, education, independence, and preparation for good citizenship. As a leader in international education, it will develop understanding of and respect for other cultures within the community so that NMH graduates will become responsible global citizens.

The summer-study group also encountered a number of impediments to achieving it. These included the size of the student body, campus configuration, financial resources, and facilities. 

Financial realities and a deep love and admiration for NMH have led the summer group to embrace the idea that many of the above educational objectives are likely to be realized in a much smaller school, on a single campus, with a revised schedule, and a program that has less faculty specialization. In this way, D. L. Moody’s vision can more appropriately be realized and remain a beacon for education for decades to come.

Findings that emerged from the summer-study group represent a thoughtful review 
by a cross-section of people whose work lies at the heart of the school. The NMH Board of Trustees, as they chart the school’s future course, will consider the summer-study group’s findings, including that of a smaller school on one campus while being good stewards of remaining facilities, as well as those of other studies, including an updated master facilities plan and campus facilities audit, an analysis of enrollment patterns and financial policies, an alumni opinion survey, and a review of the school’s financial plan. 

They are expected to analyze all of the complex information this fall and deliberate over a number of options, including making the school smaller. We will keep you apprised of any changes they decide on.

With our focus on what is best for students, the winds of change are again in our sails, but with our north star—our educational mission—fixed in the firmament.