NewsUpper SchoolStudent LifeFaculty/StaffAlumniAdvancementService
School year kicks off with new Orientation Weekend
Aug 31, 2003 8:00 AM
By Stefan Eady - Faculty
The start of another school year feels very familiar and yet full of excitement and anticipation. Students and faculty move somewhat reluctantly from a “lazy, hazy days of summer” mode into high gear. Prefects come back to school a week early to plan activities. Faculty members outfit classrooms. Students set up lockers. Athletes start training for the fall season.
Lower School and Middle School parents and students enjoy ice cream socials. Cross-Country Coach Rob Davis’ runners prove they can run yet again this year for 24 hours. Fall play auditions are held and another star or two is born. Students sport new hairdos for yearbook photos. International students enjoy Dinner & Dessert Night together. College meetings with Sam Moss start.
Before anyone feels ready, it is the weekend before classes start. The 2003-04 school year began with a renewed focus, “What you need to know” Orientation Weekend, Saturday, Aug. 16, designed to inform and involve parents from the very start.
After move-in on Saturday morning, Mini-School gave parents the opportunity to meet their children’s advisers. Saturday evening activities began with a parent and faculty reception at President Hicks’ Home-on-the-Hill, and ended with a formal dinner in the Johnson Field House and a musical performance and presidential address by the Concert Choir and Band in the Van Es Arena. On Sunday the “Y” Cabinet and the School’s new chaplain, Father John Merchant, offered a chapel service in the morning. Parents attended concurrent information sessions in the afternoon on a variety of topics related to the boarding and college preparatory experience. House Olympics was moved from the first Monday of the school year to Sunday evening to offer relief from the heat and give parents an opportunity to watch.
Eighteen international students and one United States student processed with their country’s flag into the chapel to start the Opening Assembly. Symbolic of this school year’s focus on honorable behavior as primary in the School’s motto, “Wisdom more than Knowledge, Service beyond Self, Honor above Everything,” Honor Council student leaders, Andrew Gay, president, and Laura Bennett, vice president, led the time-honored tradition of having new students and faculty sign the Honor Pledge book during Monday’s opening assembly. By Monday’s end, the stage had been set for another year at Darlington, just one year shy of the School’s centennial birthday.
Lower School and Middle School parents and students enjoy ice cream socials. Cross-Country Coach Rob Davis’ runners prove they can run yet again this year for 24 hours. Fall play auditions are held and another star or two is born. Students sport new hairdos for yearbook photos. International students enjoy Dinner & Dessert Night together. College meetings with Sam Moss start.
Before anyone feels ready, it is the weekend before classes start. The 2003-04 school year began with a renewed focus, “What you need to know” Orientation Weekend, Saturday, Aug. 16, designed to inform and involve parents from the very start.
After move-in on Saturday morning, Mini-School gave parents the opportunity to meet their children’s advisers. Saturday evening activities began with a parent and faculty reception at President Hicks’ Home-on-the-Hill, and ended with a formal dinner in the Johnson Field House and a musical performance and presidential address by the Concert Choir and Band in the Van Es Arena. On Sunday the “Y” Cabinet and the School’s new chaplain, Father John Merchant, offered a chapel service in the morning. Parents attended concurrent information sessions in the afternoon on a variety of topics related to the boarding and college preparatory experience. House Olympics was moved from the first Monday of the school year to Sunday evening to offer relief from the heat and give parents an opportunity to watch.
Eighteen international students and one United States student processed with their country’s flag into the chapel to start the Opening Assembly. Symbolic of this school year’s focus on honorable behavior as primary in the School’s motto, “Wisdom more than Knowledge, Service beyond Self, Honor above Everything,” Honor Council student leaders, Andrew Gay, president, and Laura Bennett, vice president, led the time-honored tradition of having new students and faculty sign the Honor Pledge book during Monday’s opening assembly. By Monday’s end, the stage had been set for another year at Darlington, just one year shy of the School’s centennial birthday.
