Our home resembled less of a head of school’s house on Saturday evening and more of a teen center as the Hill family hosted our first open house of the year. It was a true pleasure welcoming students from 7:30 until 10:00 p.m. Whether they were stopping by for lemonade and cookies before heading to another venue, or sticking around to play one of the myriad board games, students seemed to enjoy this inaugural event.

At one point, a competitive game of “Sorry!” was taking place, with the 9-year-old boy who happens to live here having a particularly fun time of it with the big brothers and sisters who invited him to play. Williston students were their typical selves: outgoing, grateful, and inclusive. The following picture gives a fuller sense of the fun as some of the more musical in our midst joined talents at the piano. When the temperatures get even colder we will serve hot chocolate and enjoy fires in the twin fireplaces that distinguish the front room of this wonderful house.

Williston’s first visiting author of this year’s Writer’s Workshop Series was also the first dinner guest at our home when we hosted a meal in her honor with members of the English department. After dinner, Ms. Suzanne Strempek Shea regaled the capacity crowd in the Dodge Room with stories of how she came to be such a prolific and far-ranging author. For the budding writers in her midst, Ms. Shea had something for everyone, and her message was inspiring: out of the merest chance encounter or observation comes the kernel for a story.

Stories, as Daniel Pink notes in his often cited book, A Whole New Mind, allow us to “emotionalize and contextualize” the world of ready facts in which we live. Right-brained creativity, according to Pink, will differentiate our students in the 21st century marketplace, and Ms. Strempek Shea brought that idea to life by telling of her work as a newspaper reporter before turning to fiction.

Williston’s emphasis on writing, manifest not just in the work that our students undertake across the curriculum but also in our highly regarded Writing Center, goes a long way towards setting our students up for future success. We look forward to the second speaker in the series, Debra Monroe, on October 7th.

While attending a meeting of the National Business Officers Association in St. Louis with Chuck McCullagh, Williston’s chief financial officer, I had a chance to spend dedicated time with professionals from around the country and discuss fascinating topics in close quarters with folks like Professor James Honan of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Pat Bassett, president of National Association of Independent Schools.

The essential question of how our schools meet the needs of students as we prepare them for the future was the focus of dedicated discussion and brainstorming. Certainly, the fast-paced changes in technology have forced all of us to conceive of education differently than in the past, and the possibilities for hybrid classrooms and sharing of resources seem limitless. Too often, though, schools have tended to be in the “and” business, that is, adding programs and people as the latest fad washes over the educational landscape. We all recognize that the need to be in programmatic equilibrium means that as we introduce new initiatives we should also consider the totality of our offerings.

These decisions are not easily made, and it is invigorating that I see the Williston faculty devoting meetings to these important topics so that we continue to provide the best education for our students.

All of us attending the school’s 170th Convocation exercises knew we were in for a high flying talk when Professor Jim Ralph (dean of faculty and professor of history at Middlebury College) took the podium just as an F-16 screeched by on exercises from the nearby National Guard base in Chicopee. That airplane, with its telltale sound and unmistakable power (in what seemed like choreographed timing), ushered in Professor Ralph’s stirring endorsement of what a Williston education can accomplish. Institutions like Williston, he said, “Are remarkable vehicles for inspiration and creativity.” As a Harvard-educated professor who began his teaching career with a year-long internship at Williston, Jim has a perspective born of time and place.

As if Jim’s words were the script for what followed, we were all treated to the creative imagination of our Fine Arts department on exhibit and at work during the Reed Center reception that followed Convocation. Williston’s Fine Arts teachers are second to none, and guests who were able to spend some time in the galleries would affirm the truth of this statement. Professor Ralph issued a call to arms for all students to “conceive of themselves as citizens of the world and thus recognize how interconnected they are to other peoples across our planet.” All of us in education, and particularly here at Williston where the resources are in place to accomplish just about anything, know how attainable and noble a goal this is.

When Williston’s seniors and assorted faculty gathered for their annual dinner at the end of the first week of classes—courtesy of our alumni office—our students dressed for the occasion. The full spectrum of colors appeared that much brighter given everyone’s high energy and festive mood, and senior class president Timi Onafowokan hit the perfect note when he told his classmates that individual success lay in each of their hands this year and beyond. He urged his classmates to try new things and to reach out to make new friends—achieving a global experience right here in our community given that we have students from all over the world (I am thinking of recent arrivals from Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and the Czech Republic to name a few).

In the two times that I have heard Timi address large audiences, it is abundantly clear that we are fortunate to have this young man leading our student body. Although others who spoke that evening at the dinner emphasized that the Class of 2011 will, in a blink, become Williston’s alumni, we were living in the moment and enjoying the night. The entire crowd then migrated from Birch Dining Commons to the Hill’s house for still more dessert and conversations.