As we celebrate the Winter Solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year, a new beginning is upon us. Daylight will increase each day and the longest and darkest nights are behind us. While it has been a challenging year for all of us, it has also brought us together in creative and inspiring ways. Omibus Lucet — or "The Light Shines for All" (our school motto) — could not be a more apt description of the feeling at Lawrence Academy this year. Through these trying days, LA's light shown ever so brightly as we travelled virtually to celebrate the holiday season with alumni and offer a message of kindness, community and the simple joy of laughter and fun.

Alumni also shined brightly, as Courtney Cox Harrison ’83 — via our Alumni Speaker Series — shared her thoughts on The Future of Work; extremely prescient as we all navigate a new vision for the workplace, rife with opportunity and excitement.

Raquel Majeski, assistant head of school for equity and community life, launched our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Book Group with Don’t Label Me by Irshad Manji on December 8. We are grateful for the work that Raquel is fostering on behalf of LA, work that promotes a deeper understanding of thought, knowledge, and action around diversity issues throughout our community. 

Meanwhile, alumni trustees launched The Alumni Trustee New Donor Challenge on December 1 and invited alumni to JUMP BACK IN! The challenge is bold, but we believe LA is up to the task...

As we look to the New Year, we are pleased to share that Chris Dickson ’08, will be joining us for our Alumni Speaker Series on January 21^st. As a back country ski guide and avalanche expert, Chris’s comments will likely inspire us all toward new winter activities.

Finally, this January, Lawrence Academy will host Meaningful Meandering, a memorial photography exhibit to honor the life of Luke Rogers ’09 who passed away in December 2019 of natural causes. While the work will be displayed in Conant Gallery for students and staff to enjoy, a virtual opening will take place on January 26th and the work will remain online indefinitely. We all miss Luke very much and we hope you will join us.

With warm wishes to you and your family for a happy and healthy holiday season and New Year. I am grateful to all of you for your love of Lawrence Academy and for the many ways you have all kept the light shining for all throughout the decades.

Jo-Ann Lovejoy P ’06, ’08, ’10

P.S. As always, I look forward to hearing from you with your thoughts, ideas, and ways you wish to connect with Lawrence Academy. Be in touch! jlovejoy@lacademy.edu

On Wednesday, December 9^th, Courtney Cox Harrison '83, the Chief Human Resources Officer at OneLogin, Founder of the Medius Advisory Group and former Human Resources Executive at Assurion, The US Olympic Committee and American Express engaged a number of alumni in a discussion on the Future of Work.

Moderated by Chris Davey, the Assistant Head for Institutional Strategy and Advancement, Courtney covered topics ranging from the disruptive impact that the 4^th Industrial Revolution will have on global organizations, to the short and long-term changes in both how and where people will work as a result of the pandemic. She also addressed how the shift to more remote work as a result of the pandemic will likely affect collaboration and innovation and she outlined ways that organizations can mitigate the negative impacts of a remote workforce.

Finally, she addressed the urgency of addressing diversity, equity and inclusivity in the workplace and how and why most companies struggle to make any meaningful impact in this area. The audience thoroughly enjoyed the moderated Q&A as well as the opportunity to ask her additional free-form questions for about 45 minutes at the end of her session. We all truly appreciated her time and her wisdom and we look forward to having her participate in other forums on this topic and others.

Challenge: To secure and advance the future of Lawrence Academy and to expand the base of alumni support, the LA Alumni Trustees have pledged to make a one-time challenge gift of $25,000 (or more) to support LA Financial Aid if they are joined by 520 new alumni donors by the end of this fiscal year.

Last year, 520 alumni chose to support Lawrence Academy resulting in a participation rate of 10%. The Alumni Trustee New-Donor Challenge boldly inspires us to double our donors and double our participation – LA–2X!

Learn more about the challenge here and consider the role that you can play with your own participation to help unlock $25,000 to support financial aid. Minimum gift is $17.93. Thanks so much for your consideration.

Mountaineering / Rock Climbing / Backcountry Skiing Course Leader

Chris Dickson '08 grew up in Bolton, MA where he built ski jumps in the woods and discovered his love for the outdoors. While at Lawrence Academy, he fostered these passions through a Winterim called “Rock and Ice”, which engaged Chris in two weeks of climbing and solidified his love for the vertical world. This love took him West to Colorado College and a life in the Rocky Mountains.

After college, Chris worked for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), where he often spent up to a month in the backcountry at a time, teaching his students how to lead others in challenging outdoor environments. Chris now lives in Telluride, Colorado where he works as a Mountain Guide and Avalanche Educator.

In his free time, you might find him deep in a southern Utah slot canyon, skiing into a steep snowy couloir, or climbing up a rocky summit. However, we know where to find him on Thursday, January 21st. Please join us! Invitation and registration to follow.

As a result of the fun we all had this month, and inspired by the regularity of Zoom activity we are learning about with many of the 70’s classes and the class of ’83 in particular, we will be launching an Alumni Decades inspired Zoom Series to gather for some fun and help to get us all through the winter! If you would like to help me co-host, or have ideas about, a decades Zoom call for your class(es), please be in touch with me directly at jlovejoy@lacademy.edu.

For more information about any of these events, contact

Program Manager for Alumni Advancement Pru Glover.

On Tuesday evening, December 8, 2020, we held our kickoff discussion in a series of five scheduled meetings to discuss Don’t Label Me by Irshad Manji, who was a J. William Mees Visiting Scholar at Lawrence Academy in 2018. The virtual event invited LA faculty, staff, alumni, and current parents to participate in a discussion on Chapters 1 – 25. After a group mindfulness practice, participants joined break-out rooms to share quotes, passages, and/or themes that resonated with them. Time was also dedicated to discussing the author’s descriptions of ‘factory-style diversity’ and ‘honest diversity.’ Members of LA’s DEI Task Force facilitated the discussions.

The next DEI Community Read and Discussion is scheduled for Tuesday, January 26, 2020 from 6:30 – 7:30 PM with the discussion focusing on Chapters 26 – 40.

This fall the Conant Gallery welcomed the work of photographer Maundy Mitchell. The exhibition called “Life’s Work” is a homage to the work of Irving Penn, done 70 years earlier. Photographed in Paris, London and New Hampshire, Mitchell’s home, her subjects have been placed against a white background, giving special attention to facial expression.

Because of its spaciousness, the gallery has been used as a teaching space during Covid-19. English teacher Allie Goodrich, has used the black and white photographs as writing prompts for her students.

We are looking forward to Maundy’s Protest Portraits installation comprising of six large triangular pieces, which will be installed outside on campus next spring. This installation was previously on view at the State House in NH.

Presidential Scholar and Ted Talk presenter, Bayeté Ross Smith joined the Honors Digital Photography class this fall as he discussed his project, "Our Kind of People." All the photo classes have participated in this project.

“Our Kind of People examines perception based on appearance and deconstructs how clothing, race, gender, and class signifiers affect our daily interactions and social systems.”explained Bayeté Ross Smith. Bayete viewed the students’ work, which will be shared on social media. Yuki Sun '22 is featured below.

To Learn more about Luke Rogers '09 and his work, visit our website.

Planning for Reunion continues and we are pleased to share that we are planning to host a Double Reunion on June 11-12, 2021. LA looks forward to bringing all of the 2020 and 2021 Reunion Classes together (due, of course, to postponement of 2020 LA Reunion Weekend this past June) in a joint celebration. Read More...

We’d love to publish your latest news, photos and achievements for the spring Academy Journal. Thank you all who have written to us previously. Your notes and fun photos will appear in the fall Academy Journal, which is due to arrive any day in your (snail) mailboxes. Going forward, please share with us what you have been up to and what inspires you most as we continue to move into the new year. You may submit your news directly to pglover@lacademy.edu by February 15th, 2021.

The Elm Tree Gazette | Volume VIII | December 2020