We were fortunate, and it seemed fitting, to have a beautiful day when we gathered as a whole school to celebrate the start of the year! Students, faculty, and staff assembled in the Greenwood for our Opening-of-School Assembly. Head of School Chris Benbow kicked off the festivities, then our Student Body Presidents—seniors Zaria Johnson, Kien Dang, and Olivia Bley—led the crowd in cheers. Finally, Benbow led the traditional roll call of the classes to great fanfare. There was even a special appearance by the moose! Check out the photos here.
Sheryl Oring will be our next guest in the Shoemaker Visiting Lecturer series. She will do a performance of I Wish to Say on the Granolithic during the academic day for students and faculty; the lecture will be on April 8, 2024, at 7:30 p.m. in the Barton-Test Theater. This lecture is open to members of the whole Westtown community, but is not open to the public.
For I Wish to Say, artist Sheryl Oring sets up a makeshift public office—complete with a manual typewriter—and invites members of the public to dictate postcards to the U.S. President. Each card is typed verbatim; originals are sent to the White House and Oring keeps a carbon copy for her project archive. Oring has presented more than 100 performances at dozens of venues across the country.
Since launching the I Wish to Say project in 2004, artist Sheryl Oring has typed more than 4,000 postcards to U.S. Presidents from dozens of locations across the U.S. She is a Creative Capital grantee and her book, Activating Democracy: The I Wish to Say Project, was published by the University of Chicago Press. Oring is Dean of the School of Art at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
On Wednesday, October 11, Lenape Elder John Thomas of the Delaware Tribe of Indians visited Westtown School. This visit was a milestone in Westtown School’s work of healing and reconciliation with the Lenape. For thousands upon thousands of years, the Lenape people lived in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, as well as parts of New York and Delaware. While the Lenape to the North spoke a Lenape dialect called Munsee, the southern Lenape, including those who lived on what is now the school’s land, spoke Unami. The Lenape were driven off this land by European settlers in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds and experienced a series of eight forced removals between that time and the mid-1800s. As they became further removed from their homelands, other groups referred to the Lenape as the Delaware (in reference to their origins in the Delaware River Valley), and they eventually adopted Delaware nomenclature for themselves. While the Munsee-speaking Delaware ended up in Wisconsin and Ontario, the Unami-speakers settled in Oklahoma.
Today, a number of different groups of people claim Lenape heritage, from communities in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario to communities in New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. These communities have different types of recognition–some are recognized at the federal level, others at the state level, and still others are pushing for recognition as tribal entities. Following a process of discernment, Westtown School is primarily engaging with the federally recognized groups, beginning with the Delaware Tribe of Indians, which is based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The Delaware Tribe of Indians is one of five federally recognized Lenape nations, which also include Delaware Nation (Oklahoma), Stockbridge-Munsee Community (Wisconsin), and in Ontario, Delaware Nation of Moraviantown and Munsee Delaware Nation.
Elder John Thomas’ visit included assemblies for our fourth through eighth graders and our Upper School students. He spoke about the traditions and history of the Lenape people, including gender roles in a matrilineal society, Lenape emphasis on respecting the Earth, and Lenape customs around storytelling. He talked about his own upbringing, including the time he spent in a residential boarding school geared towards assimilating Indigenous children into mainstream U.S. society. With Upper School students, Elder John spoke passionately about some of his work with the American Indian Movement in the 1970s. He also discussed his current work on NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which focuses on the reburial of human remains that have been in the hands of museums, universities, and private collectors. He spoke, too, about current efforts in the Delaware Tribe to keep Lenape culture alive through teaching traditional language and crafts to Lenape youth.
Five Indigenous Middle and Upper School students and one Indigenous faculty member joined Elder John for lunch. Elder John also met with Head of School Chris Benbow for conversation and a walk to the lake. On the way, Elder John pointed at a few tulip poplars and remarked, “I see you have a few canoes growing here!” He graciously received several gifts from community members, a few of which included letters from some Upper School English classes that are studying Indigenous literature, and a beautiful book of cyanotypes of native flora, created by Middle Schoolers and Middle School art teacher Marta Willgoose Salo.
Elder John left campus emphasizing his delight and gratitude for the hospitality of the Westtown community. At Westtown, we are eager to continue building relationships with the descendants of the original inhabitants of the land. ~Louisa Egan Brad, Dean of Equity, Justice, and Belonging
On Wednesday, June 7, eighth grade families gathered in the theater for the Eighth Grade Closing Ceremony. After an essay reading by Jamila Burgos ’27 and words from Principal Will Addis, students were presented with their certificates. As they rose to receive their certificates, recordings of each students’ reflections on their time in Middle School were shared. Congratulations to our rising ninth graders! Enjoy the entire gallery of photos from the closing ceremony here.
On a lovely, sunny June 10, the Class of 2023 received their diplomas in the Greenwood. This class of 98 graduates has joined our vast global network of alums, and we wish them well as they embark upon their next adventures!
We have created a page on our website where you can watch individual videos of our student essayists – Tara Kumar, Tyler Greenberg, Chloe Costa Baker – and Milo Salvucci, who was selected by the class to deliver the valedictory address. We invite you to watch the full Commencement ceremony below!
Please enjoy the photo galleries from Commencement and you can learn about the college destinations of members of the Class of 2023 in the gallery of photos of College Shirt Day. Take a moment to check them out!
On Thursday, June 8, Lower School students, families, and faculty gathered in the Meeting House for the Fifth Grade Closing Meeting for Worship—the Meeting to celebrate their graduation from Lower School. From the facing benches, each fifth grader stood and spoke about their time in Lower School, as is tradition, and families and teachers spoke out of the shared silence in the worship time that followed. Visit our gallery to see more photos from this special day! Congratulations to all our rising sixth graders!
Commissioned by the Class of 1910 in memory of classmate William C. Engle, N. C. Wyeth’s The Giant was presented to Westtown on Alumni Day, June 2, 1923. The painting reflects Engle’s love of the sea, childhood imagination, and the friendship between artist and subject. The children in the scene are Wyeth’s five children, with Engle represented by the young man in the white hat.
An artist himself, Engle attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and later studied with N.C. Wyeth, living in Chadds Ford. He spent the summer of 1916 on a classmate’s family farm in West Branch, Iowa, in an attempt to recuperate from tuberculosis. That summer he painted three landscapes, which now hang in the Main Building. Unfortunately, Engle succumbed to tuberculosis later that year in November on his 25th birthday.
When William Engle came to Westtown in the fall of 1908, the only art class offered was freehand drawing. Engle always made time for his art, however. Westtown classmates later said that between classes he was always out with brush and palette, painting about the countryside. Fifteen years later, when The Giant arrived at Westtown in June 1923, George Whitney—student and friend of N. C. Wyeth—was completing his third year as the school’s director of fine arts and expanding the arts department. Bacon Cottage, which included new art studios with lots of natural light, was dedicated on the same day as The Giant.
Since The Giant came to live at Westtown 100 years ago, the fine arts program has greatly expanded. Today, Upper School students can choose from Intro to Studio Art: 2D and 3D; Drawing and Painting; Photography and Digital Art; Ceramics; Sculpture; Woodworking; and Studio Art Forum. The Giant arrived at Westtown during a time when fine arts were gaining greater appreciation, and that has continued. However, you don’t need to be a student in art class to appreciate The Giant—it still hangs in the Dining Room for all to enjoy, and was restored last year to preserve it for generations to come. ~Chrissie Perella Clement, Westtown School Archivist
At the Annual Meeting of the WAA Board, this film by Erik Freeland ’80 was screened. Please enjoy this lovely tribute piece to The Giant.
Westtown School has unveiled its plan to create a new dining space on campus. “After several years of thoughtful work and careful discernment, we have made the decision to create a new community dining space on campus. While construction is still a few years out, I’d like to describe in broad brushstrokes our needs, process, and ultimate decision to build a free-standing dining space,” writes Head of School Chris Benbow.” Below, you will see an early vision of the new space as conceptualized by the talented and thoughtful team at SHoP. While these are only conceptual renderings and do not necessarily reflect what will be the final design, we hope they will give you a preliminary sense of the project. This free-standing space, situated just across the Central circle on the north side of the Main Building, will enable the entire Upper School (both students and adults) to enjoy meals at the same time, both building community and removing constraints from the daily schedule. The space will provide our dining services team with the facility they require to accommodate the variety of dietary needs of our students, while aspiring to the highest standards of sustainable practices. Additionally, the location of the new Dining Room will provide much-needed and accessible space for gatherings, celebrations, and meetings all year round. Detailed plans for the newly imagined facility (kitchen, dining, and outdoor space) are in their early stages and will evolve thoughtfully to ensure that both current and future needs are met.” You can learn many more details and read the entirety of Benbow’s message here.
Below are renderings of the early vision of this community dining space as conceptualized by the team at SHoP.
Recently, our Lower School celebrated their annual One Story Week. The week was centered on author (and Westtown alum!) Kat Yeh ’82. After reading two of Kat’s books, The Friend Ship and The Magic Brush, students participated in mixed-grade activities around the themes of the two books: friendship and aspects of Chinese culture. Some of the special classes included collaborative collage of self-portraits for our Lower School Friend Ship (pictured here with Kat), creative writing and storytelling, painting wishes, paper folding, guest readers, and learning Chinese language and writing from special guests, community members, and Upper School students in Chinese classes. To wrap up the week, students were treated to a sneak peek of Kat’s soon-to-be published newest book, Just One Little Light, then she led students in creating an original story together. Please enjoy our One Story Week gallery here. Our thanks to Kat Yeh ’82 for making the week so special for our Lower Schoolers!
Kelly Yiadom, Westtown’s Lower and Middle School Director of Equity, Justice, and Belonging (EJB), was hosted on Lead at Any Level Amy C. Waninger’s #IncludingYou Podcast. In this episode, Kelly describes her work, that of the EJB team, and articulates why and how Westtown School integrates EJB priorities into curriculum and community life. We encourage you to have a listen to this excellent episode!
