Annual Dinner 2017: ‘Our Boys Always Our Top Priority'

Brunswick School welcomed nearly 850 parents and faculty, filling Burke Fieldhouse to capacity, for its Annual Dinner on Thursday, Sept. 14.

 

Headmaster Thomas W. Philip began his annual address with an honest admission: As the summer got underway and he considered the scope of his remarks slated for September, he had envisioned highlighting two new and exciting initiatives — the Brunswick Career Center and the Mountain Campus in Vermont.

 

First, the Career Center: An incredible service to older students and alumni, making wonderful use of the wealth of talent, resources, and opportunity that’s available in the Brunswick School larger community.

 

And then, the Mountain Campus: More than 600 acres of wilderness in Central Vermont, offering lodging, meeting rooms, a dining hall, and, most important, space — land, woods, streams, fields, nature in its abundance, stars shining bright in the pitch-black sky. In short, a place absent of iPhones and Snapchat, where Brunswick boys must truly interact directly with one another without distraction.

 

Both projects reflect literally years of study and planning on the part of faculty and trustees — and would have provided ample basis for Philip’s annual “State of the Union” address to the Brunswick community.  

 

But then, as Philip said, the phone rang — and the specter of a third and very substantial project suddenly presented itself.

As Philip reported to the community last summer, Paul Tudor Jones P ’15, long a tremendous supporter of Brunswick School, explained that his firm, Tudor Investment Corporation, was planning to move its Connecticut offices to ease movement of Tudor employees between Connecticut and the firm’s growing presence in Manhattan.

 

Given Brunswick’s contiguous location to the Tudor offices on King Street and the firm’s high regard for the School’s academic mission, the call was made to gauge potential interest by Brunswick in the acquisition of the Tudor property.

 

Philip knew that Brunswick was faced with one of the biggest decisions in its history — a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” that would not likely come this way again, he told the audience.

 

But rather than becoming bogged down — and kept awake at night — by all the challenge and unknown that the new property would bring, Philip harked back on Brunswick’s founding principles.  

 

“In thinking about it, to the extent that things are new at Brunswick — and they certainly are — they are so because our world and our circumstances are also new,” Philip said.

 

“The essential point is that no matter what new comes our way, at Brunswick, courage, honor, and truth always guide us — and they guided us this summer as well.”

 

And so, Brunswick moved forward and agreed to purchase the new property on King Street — all with only one focal point in mind: The boys.

 

“I will, this faculty will, never let anything distract us from that priority and obligation,” Philip said.

 

“That’s why we’re here, that’s what sets Brunswick apart. Innovative programs and improved facilities are important — but the boys are our priority.”

 

To conclude, Philip referred to Admiral William H. McCraven’s Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life and Maybe the World, this past summer’s all-school reading assignment for the Brunswick Trust.