Loomis Chaffee School

Coordinates: 41°50′24.17″N 72°38′25.96″W / 41.8400472°N 72.6405444°W / 41.8400472; -72.6405444

The Loomis Chaffee School

Ne Cede Malis
Location
Windsor, Connecticut
United States
Information
Type Private, boarding, day
Religious affiliation(s) No religious affiliation
Established 1914
Head of school Sheila Culbert
Faculty 160
Enrollment 680
Average class size 11 students
Student to teacher ratio 5:1 (4:1 boarding student-to-residential faculty)
Campus 300 acres (1.2 km2)
Color(s) Maroon and gray
Mascot Pelican
Endowment $175 million
Website loomischaffee.org

The Loomis Chaffee School (LC or Loomis) is a college preparatory school for boarding and day students grades 9–12, including postgraduates, located in Windsor, Connecticut. Loomis is a member of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization.

History

The school was chartered in 1874 by five siblings who had lost all their children and determined to found a school as a gift to the children of others.

Loomis Homestead (1640), one of the oldest houses in the state, still remains on the campus of the Loomis Chaffee School (1910 postcard)

The roots of Loomis Chaffee run as far back as 1639, when Joseph Loomis and his family first settled at the confluence of the Farmington and Connecticut rivers. Several generations later, the inspiration for the school was born out of family tragedy, when, in the early 1870s, four Loomis brothers and their sister had outlived all their children.

As a memorial to their own offspring, and as a gift to future children, they pooled their considerable estates to found a secondary school called The Loomis Institute to educate young persons, "hoping and trusting that some good may come to posterity, from the harvest, poor though it be, of our lives."[1] The original 1640 Loomis Homestead was chosen as the site where their dream would become reality.

James Chaffee Loomis, Hezekiah Bradley Loomis, Osbert Burr Loomis, John Mason Loomis, and Abigail Sarah Loomis Hayden planned a school that would offer both vocational and college preparatory courses. (Vocational offerings were discontinued during the later development of the school.) The institution would have no religious or political admission criteria. Boys and girls would be given as free an education as the endowment would allow. The Loomis Institute opened its doors in 1914 to 39 boys and five girls. In 1926, their girls’ division broke off to focus more closely on girls’ educational issues and became The Chaffee School.

Both schools continued to expand. The Loomis Institute built several new facilities in 1967, and the two schools reunited in 1970, forming The Loomis Chaffee School. Six years later it began admitting girls as boarders. The reunification led to a major revision of the curriculum, which combined a demanding basic program with a broad range of electives in art, music, philosophy, religion and other subjects.

The Loomis Chaffee School has enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth since the 1970s. It strengthened its endowment to bolster financial aid and broadened the diversity of the student body. Recently, it opened new dormitories, an enclosed hockey and skating rink, a brand new athletics center, a visual arts center, a new history and social science facility, an expanded dining hall, and a new student center. In recent years, the Clark Center for Science and Mathematics was completely renovated, and Chaffee Hall was transformed and expanded to house the all-new Hubbard Music Center. In the summer of 2012, the first floor of the Katharine Brush Library was extensively renovated, increasing the usable space of the library by 17 percent, while Richmond Hall, an underclassmen girls dorm, was constructed in 2014.

Overview

Facts and figures

Grubbs Quadrangle looking toward the Dining Hall, The Loomis Chaffee School (circa the 1950s).

The school[2][3]

Finances, tuition and financial aid[4]

The students (2012–13)[5]

The faculty[6]

Cupola atop Founders Hall

Academics

Loomis Chaffee offers courses in Arabic, Chinese, psychology, writing workshop, videography, English, Latin, Spanish, French, art, dance, history and social science, mathematics, music, philosophy, religion, science and theater arts. Noncredit diploma requirements include library skills, and physical fitness and health. Advanced Placement courses are offered in 20 subjects.[7] The Norton Family Center for the Common Good and the Center for Global Studies work to engage the student body with the wider community and world by means of visiting speakers and international study opportunities.[8]

Athletics

All students participate in interscholastic, intramural or daytime athletic programs each trimester. Interscholastic varsity and junior varsity competition for boys and girls is offered on 55 teams in baseball, basketball, cross country, field hockey, football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, softball, squash, swimming/diving, tennis, track, volleyball, water polo and wrestling. There are an additional 19 intramural sports, including both team sports and "lifetime and leisure" sports like yoga and weight lifting. Freshman-level teams are offered in soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, boys basketball and boys tennis.

Facilities include a double gymnasium and two other gymnasia, supporting basketball and volleyball courts; a fitness center and a weight room, totaling 6,300 square feet (590 m2); a 25-meter, six-lane swimming pool; an enclosed hockey rink; a 400-meter, eight-lane, all-weather track; eight international squash courts; 17 tennis courts; a 3.1-mile (5.0 km) cross-country course; two baseball diamonds; two softball diamonds; 17 fields for football, soccer, lacrosse and field hockey; and a golf practice driving range, putting green and sand trap.

College guidance

Four full-time college counselors guide students through the college search and application process. Eighty-six percent of the members of the Class of 2010 were admitted to colleges and universities deemed most competitive or highly competitive by Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges, with sixty-six percent matriculating at the most competitive institutions.[9]

The Senior Path, Grubbs Quadrangle looking toward Founders Hall, The Loomis Chaffee School

The Loomis Chaffee Log

The Loomis Chaffee Log is a student-run, school-sponsored newspaper. Its readership includes students, faculty, parents, and alumni. Published monthly by a team of student editors, the Log is now in its 94th year. It recently launched an online edition to stay current with growing trends in today's media. Recently, a second paper, The Maroon & Grey has been published to provide students with satirical content about issues ranging from school topics to worldwide news.[10]

Traditions

Notable alumni

References

  1. ↑ "History & Origins of Loomis Chaffee". Loomischaffee.org. Retrieved February 26, 2011.
  2. ↑ "Facts & Figures". Loomischaffee.org. Retrieved February 26, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Key Facts 2011–12". Loomischaffee.org. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  4. ↑ "Key Facts 2011–12". Loomischaffee.org. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  5. ↑ "Key Facts 2012–13". Loomischaffee.org. Retrieved November 5, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Key Facts 2011–12". Loomischaffee.org. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  7. ↑ "Key Facts 2011–12". Loomischaffee.org. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  8. ↑ "Key Facts 2011–12". Loomischaffee.org. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  9. ↑ "College Guidance". Retrieved 18 June 2012.
  10. ↑ Loomis Chaffee Log, lclog.org; accessed August 30, 2015.
  11. ↑ "Loomis Chaffee Website". Retrieved November 8, 2012.
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