A Positive time at Choate...

"This past Saturday I found myself in an interesting, if ironic, place: sitting on a stage in the Paul Mellon Arts Center at our arch-rival Choate,  where I had been asked by Choate's Head of School, Alex Curtis, to help walk their community through the aftermath of the release of a report confirming that more than 20 former Choate students had been molested and/or sexually harassed by faculty and staff at the school over a period of decades. The report’s release and subsequent response to it had generated intense coverage in The Times and The Globe for much of the previous month and this was an opportunity for their alumni community to reflect and to heal. I was honored to be asked to participate.

As you can imagine, there was an obligatory Deerfield joke/reference at the outset as the panel’s moderator, a Choate grad, said “our next panelist, Whit Sheppard, is the founder of Abacus Advisory, a member of the NAIS/TABS task force on educator sexual misconduct and a graduate of … ” before faux-stammering “Deer … Deerfield Academy …” which elicited whoops and laughter from the 300-350 Choate alums present, a humorous start to a difficult communal conversation that lasted roughly 75 minutes. I can’t tell you what a satisfying feeling I got from crossing the Deerfield-Choate “electric fence” that had previously governed so much of my limited interaction and knee-jerk reactions and thoughts over the years about our rival to the south. It turns out that there are really good people there, and they treated me with the utmost kindness and respect during my 24 hours on campus. All in all, a wonderful healing experience for me—and I hope for their extended school community, which has taken a lot of hits recently.

My participation in the Choate panel discussion has its roots in the work I’ve been doing with other schools, including at St. George’s, which our classmate Eric Peterson has led for more than a dozen years, that have been seeking to reconcile the less savory elements of their institutional pasts with the otherwise fine and important work they do on an ongoing basis. I have learned so much doing this work and it has yielded fresh perspective on the four challenging and life-altering years I spent in the Pocumtuck Valley with many of you.

I hope this finds my former classmates well and hope that there will be opportunity in the future to break bread with at least some of you and to hear your stories of life post-Deerfield, your kids, your families etc. I’d really like that."

Best,

Whit Sheppard