Investiture and 170th Convocation

news 4Robert W. Hill III will be installed as The Williston Northampton School’s 19th head of school as part of the school’s annual Convocation Ceremony at 6:00 p.m., September 24, on the campus quadrangle in front of the Reed Campus Center.

Convocation, which marks the official opening of school, will begin with a procession of Williston faculty and special guests. Students, alumni, community members, and friends of the school will attend the event, which will also be webcast at www.williston.com/investiture.

Mr. Hill, whose appointment was announced at an all-school assembly and via webcast on November 21, 2009, began his duties as head of school on July 1, 2010. The investiture represents his official installation as head of school and will include the reading of the charge of office by Fred A. Allardyce ’59, president of Williston’s Board of Trustees, and the presentation of the chain of office, which has links representing every head of school in Williston’s history.

During the ceremony, the audience will hear remarks from Timi Onafowokan ’11, senior class president, and Jim Ralph, Dean of the Faculty and Rehnquist Professor of American History & Culture at Middlebury College. After the ceremony, everyone is invited to a reception in the Reed Campus Center where the school’s fine arts faculty will display artwork and perform musical pieces.

Mr. Hill comes to Williston from Carolina Day School, where he was the head of the upper school. Prior to Carolina Day, he worked at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, and Westminster School in Simsbury, CT. He has extensive boarding school experience in a variety of roles, including dorm parent, coach, English teacher, admissions officer, and college counseling director. He graduated cum laude with a BA in English from Middlebury College, and received an MA from Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School.

Mr. Hill will live on campus in the Head’s House with his wife, Kathryn, a math teacher, and their two children, Cameron ’15, who will be in the eighth grade at Williston, and Robbie, who will attend the Smith College Campus School.