Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy (also known as
Andover, Phillips Andover, or simply
P.A.) is a coed
prep school for boarding and day students in grades 9-12. The school is located in
Andover,
Massachusetts, north of
Boston.
Phillips Academy is the oldest incorporated boarding school in the United States, established in 1778 by Samuel Phillips Jr. Phillips' uncle founded
Phillips Exeter Academy three years later, starting a rivalry that has continued through the centuries. Phillips Academy's endowment stood around $622.8 million on
June 5,
2005, the third-highest of any American secondary school. This is slightly less than the $706 million endowment of Exeter, but far behind the $6.8 billion of
Kamehameha Schools in
Hawaii. It is, nevertheless, nearly $600,000 per student, higher than the per-student endowments at nearly every American university.
The academy traditionally educated its students for Harvard and Yale, but students now matriculate to a wide range of colleges and universities. Andover has educated two American Presidents,
George H. W. Bush and
George W. Bush.
The Phillipian, the school's student-run newspaper, is the oldest secondary school newspaper in the US.
Phillips Academy was founded during the
American Revolution as an all-boys school in
1778 by
Samuel Phillips, Jr., a member of the important revolutionary war family, the Phillips. The great seal of the school was designed by
Paul Revere.
George Washington spoke at the school in its first year and was so impressed that he recommended that his nephews go there, which they did; one of
Gilbert Stuart's famous portraits of Washington hangs above the front desk.
John Hancock, the famous signer of the
United States Declaration of Independence, signed the school's articles of incorporation.
Phillips Academy's traditional rival is
Phillips Exeter Academy, established three years later in
Exeter, New Hampshire by Samuel Phillips' uncle,
Dr. John Phillips. The football teams have met nearly every year since
1878, making it one of the oldest high school rivalries in the country. Although the two are rivals, they share the same roots- to enrich children and open the children's worlds.
Andover's campus was laid out by
Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of
Central Park and himself a graduate of the school. It is dominated by neo-
Georgian architecture and centered around the several-
acre Great Lawn. Campus structures include the Memorial Bell Tower, which recently underwent a $5 million renovation, Samuel Phillips Hall, Bulfinch Hall, and Pearson Hall.
Paul Revere incorporated bees, a beehive, and the sun into his design of the school's seal. The school's primary motto,
Finis Origine Pendet, meaning "the end depends upon the beginning," is scrolled across the bottom of the seal. The school's second motto,
Non Sibi, located in the sun, means "not for self." Phillips Academy was chartered to educate "qualified youth from every quarter."
Phillips Academy offers a broad curriculum and extracurricular activities that include music ensembles, 30 competitive sports, a campus newspaper, a radio station, and a debate club. The academy raised $208 million through "Campaign Andover," which brought its endowment to around $550 million in 2004.
In 1973, Phillips Academy merged with neighboring
Abbot Academy, which was founded in
1829 as the first school for girls in
New England and named for Sarah Abbot.
Academic facilities
Bulfinch Hall was designed by architect
Charles Bulfinch and built in
1819. It is now the English Department building.
The
Gelb Science Center was paid for mainly by the wealthy alumnus
Richard Gelb and opened for classes in January
2004. The center contains twenty laboratories, classrooms, seminar rooms, instrument rooms, preparatory areas, study-session spaces, and a roof-top astronomical observatory, and is the newest building on campus.
1Graham House is used by both the school's Psychology Department and the school's psychological counselors.
Morse Hall is home to the Math Department, student publications, CAMD (Community and Multicultural Development), and WPAA -- a student run radio station. Morse Hall is named after
Samuel Morse, who invented the telegraph.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Library (OWHL) takes its namesake from the poet
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., an 1825 graduate of Phillips Academy. The library houses 120,000 books, the Phillips Academy Computer Center (PACC), a video library, and subscriptions to roughly 250 periodicals.
Samuel Phillips Hall (Sam Phil) was built in
1924 and named after the founder of the school. This building houses the World Languages Department and the History and Social Sciences Department, as well as the "Language Learning Center," a computer lab with video, audio, and programs designed to supplement classroom work in language classes.
Pearson Hall, one of the oldest structures on campus, is the classics building. The only subjects with classes that meet in Pearson are Latin, Greek, Greek literature, mythology, and etymology. It was named after the school's first headmaster, Eliphalet Pearson. The Board of Trustees recently announced that Pearson will be rennovated and recomissioned as a student center in 2007 despite protest from the student body.
Arts and student life facilities
The
Addison Gallery of American Art is an art museum given to the school by alumnus Thomas Cochran. It is widely considered one of the finest small museums in America and its last two directors have gone on to direct the
Yale Art Gallery and the
Whitney Museum of American Art. Its permanent collection includes
Winslow Homer's "Eight Bells," along with work by
John Singleton Copley,
Benjamin West,
Thomas Eakins,
James McNeill Whistler,
Frederic Remington,
George Bellows,
Edward Hopper,
Georgia O'Keeffe,
Jackson Pollock,
Frank Stella and
Andrew Wyeth. It was one of the first museums in America to seriously collect photography, and took an early and prescient interest in artists such as
Carleton Watkins and
Margaret Bourke-White, with the result that its photography collection is equal to some of the largest museums in America. Another strength is in decorative arts, with
Silver and
Furniture dating back to pre-colonial America, and a fine collection of colonial model ships. A rotating schedule of exhibitions, including current ones of
William Wegman and
Southworth and Hawes, is open to students and the public alike.
Cochran Chapel is a neo-Georgian church located on the north side of campus, and is the center of religious life on campus for students and faculty. It is also home to the Department of Religion and Philosophy, and to the Community Service Program. The Chapel hosts many concerts, lectures and gatherings throughout the year, and a weekly All School Meeting is held here on Wednesdays.
|
Winslow Homer's Eight Bells, part of the Addison Gallery's Permanent Collection |
Commons is the school's dining hall. It has four large dining rooms along with three smaller rooms, which may be utilized by classes or speakers for eating a more personal environment. It also houses the
Ryley Room, a grill-style student hang out, in the basement of Commons.
George Washington Hall (GW) was built in
1926. The building serves numerous functions, including an administration building (Head of School's office, among others), a post-office (the student's mail room), and the school's arts complex (with the Elson Arts Center, the Polk-Lillard Electronic Imaging and Audio-Visual Center, and both the Tang and Steinbach theaters).
Graves Hall is the music building, with classrooms, a concert hall, a record library, and practice studios.
The
Robert S. Peabody Museum was founded in
1901 and is now "one of the nation's major repositories of Native American archaeological collections." The collection includes materials from the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, Mexico and the Arctic, and range from Paleo Indian (10,000+ years ago) to the present day. Since the early 1990s, the museum has been forced to return artifacts in its collection under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It is currently only open by appointment due to the high cost of constant operation and low attendance.
Residential facilities
In addition to the above mentioned facilities, the school also includes a number of dormitories to serve the roughly 800 students that board. These buildings range in size from housing as few as 4 to as many as 40 students. Two notable dorms are
America House, where the
patriotic hymn America was penned
[Information about America and Stow House], and
Stowe House, where American writer
Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of
Uncle Tom's Cabin) lived while her husband taught at the
Andover Theological Seminary[Information about America and Stow House]. Stowe is also buried on campus in a cemetery behind Samuel Phillips Hall
[Find-A-Grave Entry on Harriet Beecher Stowe, buried on Phillips Academy Campus].
See
List of notable Phillips Academy alumni*
Julia Alvarez, author (graduated Abbot
1967)
*
Adelbert Ames, Jr., scientist
*
Carl Andre, minimalist artist (graduated
1953)
*
Willow Bay, CNN news anchor (graduated
1981)
*
Bill Belichick, coach of New England Patriots. (graduated
1971)
*
Michael Beschloss, historian (graduated
1973)
*
H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger, author of
Friday Night Lights and
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist (graduated
1972)
*
L. Paul Bremer, (graduated
1959)
*
Richard Brodhead, President of
Duke University (graduated
1964)
*
Edgar Rice Burroughs, author (graduated
1894)
*
George H. W. Bush, 41st U.S. President (graduated
1942)
*
George W. Bush, 43rd U.S. President (graduated
1964)
*
Jeb Bush, Governor of
Florida (graduated
1971)
*
Lincoln Chafee, Junior Senator of
Rhode Island (graduated
1971)
*
William Sloane Coffin, Reverend and Peace Activist (graduated
1942)
*
Joseph Cornell, sculptor (graduated
1921)
*
Otis Chandler, Former publisher, Los Angeles Times (graduated 1946)
*
Dana Delany, actress (graduated
1974)
*
Carroll Dunham, artist (graduated
1967)
*
Teddy Dunn, actor (graduated
1999)
*
Walker Evans, photographer (graduated
1922)
*
John Murray Forbes, railroad entrepreneur
*
A. Bartlett Giamatti, President of
Yale University and 7th MLB Commissioner (graduated
1956)
*
Peter Halley, artist (graduated
1971)
*
Brian Henson, President of Jim Henson Productions (graduated
1982)
*
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., author (graduated
1825)])
*
John F. Kennedy, Jr., publisher, son of former U.S. president
John F. Kennedy (graduated
1979)
*
Patrick J. Kennedy, U.S. Representative from
Rhode Island (graduated
1986)
*
Richard Kerry, father of
John Kerry*
Vanessa Kerry, daughter of
John Kerry (graduated
1995)
*
Tracy Kidder, author (graduated
1963)
*
Lawrence Kohlberg, psychologist (graduated
1945)
*
Jack Lemmon, actor (graduated
1943)
*
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former CoS and assistant for National Security Affairs to U.S. VP
Dick Cheney (graduated
1968)
*
Barry McCaffrey, General (Ret.), United States Army and former
Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy*
Thomas Mesereau, attorney (clients include
Robert Blake and
Michael Jackson) (graduated
1969)
*
Samuel Morse, inventor of telegraph and Morse Code (graduated
1805)
*
Paul Monette, author and activist (graduated
1963)
*
Joseph Hardy Neesima, founder of
Doshisha University in
Japan (graduated
1867)
*
Frederick Law Olmsted, architect and designer of
Central Park (graduated
1828)
*
Jane Pratt, publisher, founder of Jane magazine (graduated
1980)
*
Herbert Scoville, Nuclear physicist, Los Alamos; chief scientist in President Kennedy's U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (graduated 1933)
*
Peter Sellars, theatre director (graduated
1975)
*
Duncan Sheik, musician (graduated
1988)
*
James Spader, actor (
1978)
*
Lyman Spitzer. physicist (graduated
1931)
*
Benjamin Spock, pediatrician (graduated
1921)
*
Frank Stella, painter (graduated
1954)
*
Henry Stimson, Secretary of War under Presidents F. Roosevelt and Truman; member of five presidential administrations (graduated
1883)
*
William Davis Taylor, publisher and Chairman of the Board of the
Boston Globe (graduated
1927)
*
Joseph Teller, author (graduated
1924)
*
Ming Tsai, chef and restaurateur (graduated
1982)
*
Alexander B. Trowbridge, U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Lyndon Johnson; former president, National Association of Manufacturers (graduated 1947)
*
Bill Veeck, owner, Chicago White Sox (graduated
1932)
*
Dick Wolf, television producer (graduated
1964)
*
Philip Wrigley, manufacturer, Wrigley's Chewing Gum (graduated
1915)
*
Phillips Academy home page*
Phillips Academy alumni access page*
Boarding School Profile: Phillips Academy Andover*
Statistics*
A History of Andover - From andoverma.gov*
President George H. W. Bush's visit to the school in 2003*
Phillips Academy Andover sues KIPP: Phillips Academy Charter School over trademark*
Further Notable Alumni*
Peabody Museum Homepage*
Addison Gallery Homepage*
The Phillipian
