Miss Porter's School

Origins

Sarah Porter, the founder of Miss Porter's School

Miss Porter's School was established in 1843 by education reformer Sarah Porter, who recognized the importance of women's education. She was insistent that the school's curriculum include chemistry, physiology, botany, geology, and astronomy in addition to the more traditional Latin, French, German, spelling, reading, arithmetic, trigonometry, history, and geography. Also encouraged were such athletic opportunities as tennis, horseback riding, and in 1867 the school formed its own baseball team, the Tunxises.^[3] In 1884, Sarah Porter hired her former student, Mary Elizabeth Dunning Dow, with whom she began to share more of her duties as Head of School. From then until her death in 1900, Miss Porter gradually relinquished her control of the school to Mrs. Dow.

Sarah Porter's will named her nephew, Dr. Robert Porter Keep, as executor of her estate, of which the school was the most valuable asset. Mrs. Dow's compensation for her position as sole Head of School was also specified in the will. As executor, Dr. Keep began extensive repairs and renovations to the school. While Mrs. Dow continued to receive a salary as per Porter's will, she became convinced that Dr. Keep, in diverting the school's income to pay for construction, was enriching his inheritance with funds that were rightfully hers. The conflict escalated and culminated in Mrs. Dow's resignation in 1903. She moved to Briarcliff, New York, taking with her as many as 140 students and 16 faculty members, and began Mrs. Dow's School for Girls, which would come to be known as Briarcliff Junior College only to be absorbed by Pace University in 1977.^[4][5][6]

A banner hanging in a themed guest room in the Timothy Cowles House, at Miss Porter's School, gives insight into how Porter's girls lived during the mid 1900s

Dr. Keep announced in July 1903 that the school would reopen in October of that year with his wife, Elizabeth Vashti Hale Keep as Head of School, eleven teachers, and between five and sixteen students in attendance. After Dr. Keep succumbed to pneumonia and died on July 3, 1904, Mrs. Keep continued his legacy of renovation and construction. One of her many legacies was the establishment of a kindergarten for children of her employees.^[7] The kindergarten, on Garden Street, is now home to the Village Cooperative Nursery School, and is no longer connected with Miss Porter's School. When Mrs. Keep died of influenza on March 28, 1917, leadership of the school passed to her stepson, Robert Porter Keep, Jr., who moved to Farmington from Andover, Massachusetts where he had been teaching German at Phillips Academy. From 1917 until the school's Centennial, in 1943, he and his wife, RoseAnne Day Keep, remained Heads of School at Miss Porter's.^[4][8]

Mr. Keep appointed members to the first Board of Trustees including:

• Wilmarth S. Lewis, Yale's Horace Walpole scholar
• Annie Burr Auchincloss Lewis 1920 (Wilmarth Lewis's wife)
• The Rev. Palfrey Perkins, a senior minister at King's Chapel
• Lewis Perry, headmaster of Phillips Exeter Academy
• George H. Richards, a lawyer and Mr. Keep's classmate at Yale

The school was incorporated as a non-profit institution during the school's Centennial in 1943, with the primary purpose as a college preparatory school rather than its previous reputation as a finishing school for the social elite.^[4] Also in 1943, the school ended the tradition of choosing a successive Head of School from the Porter family tree, selecting as its Head Ward L. Johnson and his wife Katharine.^[4]

Tuition and financial aid

Miss Porter's offers need-based financial aid as well as a variety of merit scholarships. The school reports that, for the 2017-8 school year, roughly 34 percent of the student body receives some form of financial aid, with a total of over $3.3 million in aid awarded,^[12] although fewer than 2% of the student body receive a full scholarship. 37% of students in 2018 received some form of need-based financial aid.

Endowment

As of 2018, the school's endowment was estimated at $113 million.^[2] The school is undergoing a capital campaign in 2018 to support a more consolidated campus that harkens back to its original roots. The campus at one time incorporated more than 90 buildings, most of which were in historical districts in Farmington and/or on the National Registry of Historic Buildings. Consolidating the campus supports the school's mission of educating young women for the future, while incorporating its rich past as the school celebrated its 175-year anniversary.^[13]

Academic facilities

• The Main building, the front door of which is depicted on the school seal, was built in 1830 as the Union Hotel on Main Street. Originally intended to serve patrons of the nearby Farmington Canal, it was rented by Sarah Porter in 1848 until her purchase on April 19, 1866.^[14][15]
• The M. Burch Tracy Ford Library, one of the newer academic facilities on campus, is named for the school's eleventh Head of School and houses over 22,000 volumes, electronic books, magazines, journals, newspapers in addition to a collection of 1,308 academic and entertainment DVDs and videos. The building also houses a computer lab and eight study rooms.^[16]
• Hamilton, previously a dorm, is currently home to the English and History departments. It was named for the Hamilton sisters, primarily Alice and Edith.
• Jones Memorial, previously a pharmacy before the school's founding, is home to the language department, where students can enroll in Spanish, Latin, French, or Mandarin.
• Olin, the main building for mathematics, science, and arts. This building is home to the school seal, which only seniors are allowed to step on.

Athletic facilities

• The Student Recreation Center, designed by Tai Soo Kim^[17] and built in 1991, includes the Wean Student Center (a gift of the Raymond John Wean Foundation), Crisp Gymnasium with an elevated running track, a weight and exercise room, an athletic training room, and four previous squash courts which have since been converted into an Erg room, a free weight room, and a climbing wall.
• The Mellon Gymnasium, designed by Maxwell Moore and built in 1962 as part of the theater-gymnasium complex, was a gift of the Richard King Mellon Foundation. It is home to Varsity Badminton in the fall, JV and Thirds Basketball in the winter, and is the designated indoor practice space for Varsity and JV Softball in the spring. It is also the official home of the Minks, Possums, and Squirrels (now Minks and Possums), intercampus primarily sports rivalries that each New Girl is assigned to during one of the Fall Traditions. Outside of the Gymnasium, there is a statue for each of the previously three (now two) groups.
• The Gaines Dance Barn, built c. 1930 and remodeled in 1993, is the 3,500-square-foot (330 m²) facility that serves as both rehearsal and performance space for dance groups. In March 1998, the facility was acoustically treated following complications stemming from the 1993 remodel.^[18][19]
• The Pool & Squash Building was designed and built by Stanmar Inc. in 2007.^[20] As the newest athletic facility on campus, it contains an eight-lane, 25-yard (23 m) pool and eight international squash courts, and is nicknamed the "Cool House," as a combination of terms "Court" and "Pool House." It also contains multi-function rooms that are frequently used for receptions for Ancients, Trustees, and guests.
• The Farmington Boat House, a cold storage boathouse on the nearby Farmington River, is home to the Varsity and JV Crew teams of both Miss Porter's and Farmington High School, shared in a unique public-private relationship.^[21] The program is equipped with six Vespoli fours, a pair/double and three recreational singles.^[22]

Interscholastic sports

Opponents

Porter's competes in the Founders League with Choate Rosemary Hall, Hotchkiss, Kent, Kingswood-Oxford, Loomis Chaffee, Taft and Westminster schools. At the end of each season, Porter’s competes against the league’s most competitive teams in the New England Championships.^[23][24] Porter's traditional rival is The Ethel Walker School.

Championships

Residential life

Approximately 75% of Porter's girls live in dormitories, all but one of which are former Farmington private residences left to the school. Each dormitory has a house director who lives in a private suite or apartment in the dorm, often with his/her family. One of the school's distinguishing features is that house directors' primary responsibilities are within residential houses. Each dormitory, with the exception of the two senior dorms, has two Junior Advisors who serve as peer counselors and mediators.^[29]

All student residences are equipped with the TellEmotion Polar Bear Program, technology developed at Dartmouth College,^[30] in order to encourage conscientious energy consumption among students. Each display features an animated polar bear at various degrees of comfort or distress depending on the building's current energy consumption. Additionally, students can monitor their dorm's progress and even compare it to that of other dorms using the software's graphical analysis feature.

Student publications

• Salmagundy is the school's student-run monthly newspaper, founded October 27, 1945. Salmagundy is now both an online and paper publication.^[31]
• The school's journal for scholarly writing, Chautauqua, sharing its name with the US adult education movement, offers publication examples of student research across a variety of academic disciplines.
• The school's yearbook, Daeges Eage, literally translates from Old English to "eye of the day," from which the modern word "daisy" is derived.
• Haggis/Baggis, the school's magazine for literature and fine arts, features student poems, short stories, photographs, and artwork. Since it was first published in 1967,^[32] the magazine has received numerous awards and recognitions.^[33]
• The Language Literary Magazine is a yearly publication which showcases writings by foreign language students, including essays, poems, commentaries, and dialogues.

School seal

The school's traditional seal depicts the front door of Main, with the school's motto etched to each side. Historically, the front door of Main was considered something of a sacred portal, through which only guests of the Head of School were allowed to pass regularly. At the time, students were only permitted passage through the doorway upon their first arrival at the school and during graduation exercises. Upon receiving their diplomas, the recessional led the graduating class through Main and out into world. This tradition is reflected in the image of front door of Main on the school seal and the school motto etched to either side of the entrance way: Puellae venerunt. Abíerunt mulieres. (Latin for "They came as girls. They left as women.") Today, the door is used regularly by all members of the community and the motto is taken as reference to each girl's introduction to and graduation from the school.

Today, a new simpler logo graces most official school publications, strategically omitting the word "Miss" in a recent effort by communications officials to combat the school's common misperception as a finishing school. Over the years, the school has been referred to by various nicknames, which is frequently a discussion among the different classes at Reunion in the fall. Among the nicknames include "Porter's," "Farmington," "MPS," and "Miss Porter's."

School colors

School colors include green, white, and black. Old Girl colors are grey and yellow and New Girls are traditionally not allowed to wear the combination until after they have become Old Girls; that is, until after they have received their school rings. Each of the school's three intramural athletic rivalries ⎯ Minks, Possums, and Squirrels ⎯ is represented by one of the school's three official colors.