- Lawrenceville School
Infobox School
name = The Lawrenceville School
motto = "Virtus Semper Viridis
"Virtue Always Green"
established = 1810
type = Private, Boarding
religion = None
headmaster = Elizabeth A. Duffy
city = Lawrenceville
state = NJ
country = U.S.
campus = convert|700|acre|km2
enrollment = 804 total
549 boarding 255 day
faculty = 142
class = 12
ratio = 6:1
year = 2006
SAT = 650 verbal
680 math 670 writing
athletics = 21 Interscholastic Sports
colors = Red/Black
mascot = Big Red
conferences = Mid Atlantic Prep League, New Jersey Independent Schools Athletic Association homepage = [http://www.lawrenceville.org/ www.lawrenceville.org]
The Lawrenceville School is acoeducation al, independent preparatoryboarding school for grades 9-12 located on convert|700|acre|km2 in the historic community of Lawrenceville, in Lawrence Township,New Jersey , U.S. five miles (8 km) southwest of Princeton. Today, the School enrolls 800 boarding and day students, who come from 37 states and 29 countries. As of June 30, 2006, its endowment was roughly $229 million, or nearly $290,000 per student. [ [http://tfcny.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/210/210634503/210634503_200606_990.pdf] , Trustees of The Lawrenceville School, IRS Filing 990, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2006. Page 37.] As of 2008, its endowment was tied for twelfth in a ranking of 235 boarding schools. [ [http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/largest_endowments/sort/1 Largest Endowments] , Boarding School Review. Accessed September 20, 2007. This ranking listed the endowment at $200 million.] Lawrenceville received 1,643 formal applications for entrance in fall 2006, of which only 348 — or 21% — were accepted. Lawrenceville is a member of theG20 Schools group, in addition to theTen Schools Admissions Organization .History
One of the oldest prep schools in the U.S., Lawrenceville was founded in 1810 as the Maidenhead Academy. As early as 1828, the school attracted students from
Cuba andEngland , as well as from theChoctaw Nations. It went by several subsequent names, including the Lawrenceville Classical and Commercial High School, the Lawrenceville Academy, and the Lawrenceville Classical Academy, before the school's current name, "The Lawrenceville School," was set during its refounding in 1883. An 18 acre area of the campus built then, including numerous buildings, has been designated a U.S.National Historic Landmark District , known asLawrenceville School National Historic Landmark . A newer portion of the campus, not intruding into that district, was built in the 1920s.In 1951, a group of educators from three of America's elite prep schools (Lawrenceville,
Phillips Academy , andPhillips Exeter Academy ) and three of the country's most prestigious colleges (Harvard University ,Princeton University , andYale University ) convened to examine the best use of the final two years of high school and the first two years of college. This committee published a final report, "General Education in School and College," throughHarvard University Press in 1952, which subsequently led to the establishment of theAdvanced Placement Program (the AP Exams).Lawrenceville was featured in a number of novels by
Owen Johnson , class of 1895, notably "The Prodigious Hickey," "The Tennessee Shad," and "The Varmint" (1910). "The Varmint," which recounts the school years of the fictional character Dink Stover, was made into the 1950 motion picture "The Happy Years" which starredLeo G. Carroll andDean Stockwell and was filmed on the Lawrenceville campus. A 1992 PBS miniseries was based on his Lawrenceville tales.In 1959,
Fidel Castro spoke at the School in the Edith Memorial Chapel. Recent speakers have included boxerMuhammad Ali , former president of Honduras and alumnusRicardo Maduro , first female President of IrelandMary Robinson , playwrightEdward Albee , legal scholarDerrick Bell , poetBilly Collins , playwrightChristopher Durang , historiansNiall Ferguson andDavid Hackett Fischer , the Rev.Peter J. Gomes , poetSeamus Heaney , political analystAriana Huffington , novelistChang-rae Lee , photographerAndres Serrano , poetMark Strand , writerAndrew Sullivan , politician Lowell Weicker, ambassadorPierre-Richard Prosper , philosopherCornel West , physicistBrian Greene , and actorChevy Chase .Among Lawrenceville's prominent teachers over the years have been
Thornton Wilder , a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author, who taught French at the School in the 1920s;R. Inslee Clark, Jr. , who revolutionized Ivy League admissions at Yale in the 1960s; and Thomas H. Johnson, a widely-published authority onEmily Dickinson . Faculty members have gone on to head institutions such as theHorace Mann School ,Phillips Exeter Academy , theGroton School ,Milton Academy ,Westminster School , thePeddie School ,Riverdale Country Day School , andGovernor Dummer Academy .Lawrenceville was all-male for much of its nearly 200-year history, until the board of trustees voted to make the School
coeducation al in 1985. The first girls were admitted in 1987. In 1999, the student body elected a female president, Alexandra Petrone; in 2003, Elizabeth Duffy was appointed the School's first female head master; and in 2005, Sasha-Mae Eccleston, class of 2002, became Lawrenceville's first alumna to win aRhodes Scholarship .The School's weekly newspaper, "The Lawrence", has been in publication for 127 years. It has won numerous awards for journalistic excellence.Fact|date=April 2007
"The Lit" is the school's student run literary magazine first published in 1895 by Owen Johnson.
Lawrenceville will celebrate its bicentennial in 2010. The school is in the midst of a Bicentennial Campaign, with a fundraising goal of $200 Million by June 30, 2010. As of June 4, 2008 the campaign had already raised $120 Million toward its goal.
Geography and setting
Lawrenceville School sits across
U.S. Route 206 or Main Street, from the center of Lawrenceville. The village has historically been active as a commercial center for students. The Jigger Shop was for decades one of the most popular student hang out, with a soda fountain and the school bookstore. The school assumed ownership of the store in the 1970s and after a 1990 fire, the Jigger shop moved from Main Street to an on-campus location. [ http://www.lawrenceville.org/parents/jiggershop.asp ] The village's pizza parlor TJ's remains a popular off-campus spot for students. The ice cream store Peggy Sue's, cafe Fedora's, and the Maidenhead bagel shop also serve as popular hang out locations for students.Along Lewisville Road at the back entrance of the school is the site of Lewisville, a small, largely
African American community, many of whose residents historically worked as staff at the school.Fact|date=September 2007The school includes a golf course, and owns much of the land to its east, which is covenanted as
Green Space under New Jersey state law.Lawrenceville sits midway between Trenton and Princeton, and has a strong historical connection to
Princeton University .Among Lawrenceville's most distinctive features is its
house system common to British boarding schools. Students reside in three distinct groups of houses (or dorms), where they live with faculty members in a family-like setting: the Lower School, the Circle and Crescent Houses, and the Upper School. Freshmen, or 9th grade IInd formers (the school stopped accepting 8th grade Ist formers in 1997), stay in two dorms, one for boys (Raymond) and one for girls (Dawes). For their sophomore IIIrd and IVth form year, students are placed either into the Circle (for boys) or the Crescent (for girls) Houses. The "Circle Houses" are named for their location on a landscaped circle designed by the 19th-century landscape architectFrederick Law Olmsted , who is most famous for designingNew York City 'sCentral Park . The Circle is listed on theNational Register of Historic Places . The "Crescent Houses" are similarly named after the layout of the buildings. Circle/Crescent houses, which field intramural sports teams, have their own traditions, and participate in friendly, though intense, competition. Circle houses are Kennedy, Hamill, Dickinson, Woodhull, Griswold and Cleve. Crescent houses are McClellan, Stanley, Stephens, and Kirby. Plans to build a new Crescent house, to be called Carter, are underway. Seniors (the Vth Form) live in separate dormitories off the Circle and Crescent. Some seniors live as prefects with underclassmen.Like the House system, the
Harkness table is a hallmark of the School. In the Harkness method, teachers and students engage in Socratic, give-and-take discussions around large, wooden oval tables, which take the place of individual desks.Additionally the school prides itself for its use of consultations. Every whole day of school students have a period within the day, 30 minutes long, to go to their teachers classroom and ask them for personalized help. This is with the exception of Friday where the 'Consulation' period is used by the All-School Meeting.
This was, however, altered by the implementation of a new schedule. During an academic week with the current schedule there are 3 consultations a week, on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings. The reason for this was the lengthening of classes from 45 to 55 minutes. Also the addition of a double period "X" period or "Y" period (for science classes) for each class once a week, called for the elimination of consults.
Athletics
Lawrenceville's arch-rival in the
Mid-Atlantic Prep League isThe Hill School ofPottstown, Pennsylvania . On the first or second weekend of November during "Hill Weekend," the two schools celebrate the nation's third oldest high school football rivalry and fifth oldest school rivalry in the nation, dating back to 1887. [Ross, Rosemarie. [http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15568464&BRD=1674&PAG=461&dept_id=18040&rfi=6 "Hill ends season with key victory"] , "Mercury (Pennsylvania) ", November 13, 2005. Accessed October 31, 2007. "In the game that annually means the most to them, it was near total Blues dominance as visiting Hill routed arch rival Lawrenceville, 41-18, Saturday to take home the silver trophy bowl for the second straight year. This was their 103rd showdown in a rivalry that started in 1887."] Also famous is the annual golf competition for the Crooked Stick, similar in format to the Ryder Cup.Lawrenceville competes with other schools in baseball, basketball, crew, cross-country, fencing, field hockey, football, golf, hockey, indoor and outdoor track, lacrosse, soccer, softball, squash, swimming, tennis, volleyball, water polo, and wrestling. In addition, the School offers a variety of intramural sports, including
Ultimate (sport) for the girls' Crescent Houses and 8-man tackle football for boys' Circle Houses.Lawrenceville's House Football League is the oldest active football league in America. Teams compete against each other to battle for the pride of their house. Traditions abound, including the yearly rivalry game between the Hamill and Kennedy houses referred to as "The Crutch Game," first played in 1947. The game is fought for the possession of a historical crutch made of wood. The most recent renewal of this tradition, the 60th anniversary of the Crutch game, resulted in a 39-6 victory for the Hamill house.
A bit of Lawrenceville football lore is recounted in the book Football Days, "Memories of the Game and of the Men Behind the Ball" by William H. Edwards, a graduate of Lawrenceville. The book describes the author's time as a member of the Lawrenceville football team, and paints a vivid picture of "the vital power of the collegial spirit."
Notable Recent Interscholastic Achievements:
In the spring of 2008, the Lawrenceville Boy's Varsity Track & Field team completed its season undefeated, placing first in the NJISSAA and MAPL leagues.
On November 6, 2005, the Lawrenceville Varsity
Field Hockey team defeatedStuart Country Day School 2-1 to capture their third straight Prep A State Championship. On November 5, 2006, the Field Hockey team defeatedStuart Country Day School 1-0 to capture their fourth straight Prep A State Championship. In 2007 they tied rival Stuart Country Day School for a shared victory in their 5th straight Prep A State Championship.Fact|date=September 2008On February 12, 2006, the Lawrenceville Varsity Boys' Squash team won the National Championship for the third year in a row.
On May 18, 2006, the Lawrenceville Varsity Baseball Team won the New Jersey State Prep A Championship over
Peddie School in a double header (14-0 and 6-1), marking their second state championship in three years.In 2006, Lawrenceville graduate
Joakim Noah competed as a member of theUniversity of Florida Gators' back-to-back NCAA-championship winning basketball team in 2006 and 2007. Noah was voted the most outstanding player of theFinal Four in 2006.Facilities
On Lawrenceville's convert|700|acre|km2|sing=on campus are thirty-four major buildings, including the Bunn Library (with space for 100,000 volumes).
Peabody and Stearns designed the original campus of the school, which included Memorial Hall, a gymnasium, the headmaster’s house and five cottage-style residences, and provided future plans for the chapel. [ [http://www.peabodyandstearns.com/schools1.html Peabody & Stearns | Schools ] ]Opened in 1996, the Bunn Library offers more than 50,000 books, computer research facilities, an electronic classroom, study areas and an archives. Other campus highlights include a convert|56000|sqft|m2|sing=on science building (opened in spring 1998), a visual arts center (opened in fall 1998), a history center (reopened in fall 1999), and a music center (opened in fall 2000).
In the main arena of the Edward J. Lavino Field House are a permanent banked 200-meter track and three tennis/basketball/volleyball courts. Two additional hardwood basketball courts, a six-lane swimming pool, an indoor ice-hockey rink, a wrestling room, two fitness centers with full-time strength and conditioning coaches, and a training-wellness facility are housed in the wings of the building as well as a new squash court facility, hosting ten new internationally zoned courts, which opened in 2003.
The four Crescent House Dorms, designed by Short and Ford Architects, of Princeton, NJ, were opened in 1986.
Lawrenceville has eighteen athletics fields, a nine-hole golf course, twelve outdoor tennis courts, a ¼-mile all-weather track, a boathouse, and a ropes and mountaineering course. During the summer, Lawrenceville is a popular site for sports-specific camps for youths, as well as several academic programs for students and teachers, including the prestigious
New Jersey Scholars Program .Affiliations
As discussed above, Lawrenceville athletics compete in the
Mid-Atlantic Prep League .Lawrenceville is part of an organization known as
The Ten Schools Admissions Organization . This organization was founded more than forty years ago on the basis of a number of common goals and traditions. Member schools include Lawrenceville,Choate Rosemary Hall ,Deerfield Academy ,The Hill School ,The Taft School , TheHotchkiss School , St. Paul's School,Loomis Chaffee ,Phillips Exeter Academy , and Phillips Academy Andover.Lawrenceville is affiliated with
The Island School - Cape Eleuthera, The Bahamas Gallery
Notable Lawrentians
The following are some notable alumni of the Lawrenceville School. [http://www2.lawrenceville.org/alumni/association/recognition.asp accessed 5 December 2006]
*George Akerlof '58 - Nobel Laureate for Economics. [ [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2001/akerlof-autobio.html George Akerlof: Nobel Prize Autobiography] , accessed April 2, 2007. "The Princeton Country Day School ended at grade nine. At that point most of my classmates dispersed among different New England prep schools. Both for financial reasons and also because they preferred that I stay at home, my family sent me down the road to the Lawrenceville School."]
*Dewey F. Bartlett '38 - Former Governor of Oklahoma [Slaymaker, S.R. II. "Five Miles Away: The Story of The Lawrenceville School". Lawrenceville, NJ: 1985.]
*Prince Turki bin Faisal al-Saud -Saudi Arabia 's ambassador to United States
*Garth Ancier - President of the WB Network
*David Baird, Jr. 1899 - U.S. Senator from New Jersey. [ [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B000053 David Baird, Jr.] , "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress ". Accessed August 26, 2007.]
*Dierks Bentley '93 - Country Music Singer. [ [http://www2.lawrenceville.org/alumni/welcome/detail.asp?newsid=213089&archives=1&bhcp=1 Dierks Bentley ’93 Wins CMA Horizon Award] , Lawrenceville School, November 16, 2005. Accessed September 30, 2007.]
*George H. Brown c. 1828 - represented ushr|New Jersey|4 in theUnited States House of Representatives from 1853 to 1855. [ [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B000920 George Houston Brown] , "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress ". Accessed September 1, 2007.]
*Frederick Buechner '46 - Novelist.
*Fox Butterfield '57 -Pulitzer Prize -winning Journalist for "The New York Times "
*Jay Carney '83 - TIME Washington Bureau Chief and former White House correspondent
*Sheridan Snyder '54 - Entrepreneur and Philanthropist
*John Cobb Cooper - American jurist and airline executive. [cite book
editor=Homer Edward Moyer | year=1935
title=Who's Who and What to See in Florida | pages=77
publisher=Current Historical Company of Florida
url=http://fulltext.fcla.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?idno=SF00000212&c=fhp&seq=91;view=image
accessdate=2008-08-08 ]
*Richard Dean - Fashion and advertising photographer, model, and former player inCanadian Football League
*Christopher DeMuth '64 - President of theAmerican Enterprise Institute
*Michael Eisner '60 - FormerCEO ofThe Walt Disney Company
*Maurice Ferre - Former Mayor of the city of Miami (1973-1985). Currently a fellow at Princeton University.
*Major SirHamish Forbes , Bt,MBE , MC 1916-2007 Champion of Gaelic Culture -POW decorated for numerous escape attempts. [ [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2491134.ece "Major Sir Hamish Forbes, Bt: Champion of Highland and Gaelic culture who as a wartime PoW had been decorated for his numerous escape attempts"] , "The Times ", September 20, 2007. Accessed October 24, 2007. "Hamish Stewart Forbes was educated at Eton, at Lawrenceville in the United States and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London."]
*Malcolm Forbes - Publisher of "Forbes " magazine. [James, George. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEFDC1438F935A15751C0A966958260 "Malcolm Forbes, Publisher, Dies at 70"] , "The New York Times ", February 26, 1990. Accessed October 24, 2007. "Young Forbes attended the Lawrenceville School and Princeton University, where he majored in politics and economics."]
*Clint Frank '34 - Winner of the 1937Heisman Trophy andMaxwell Award . Team Captain and All-American football player atYale University . ["Frank Is Unanimous Selection As Yale's 1937 Football Leader; Star Halfback, Kelley and Pond Are Among Speakers at Dinner, After Which Eli Gridiron Squad Disbands -- Williams Wins the Managerial Competition, With Wickwire Next.", "The New York Times ", November 24, 1936.]
*Charles Fried -Harvard Law School professor and formerUnited States Solicitor General . ["Court Voice Of Reaganism Charles Fried", "The New York Times " October 24, 1985. p. 9]
*George Gallup - Pollster
*Robert F. Goheen '36 - The 16th President ofPrinceton University and former U.S. Ambassador to India
*John Gutfreund - Former CEO ofSalomon Brothers
*Randolph Apperson Hearst '34 - Former chairman ofThe Hearst Corporation and son ofWilliam Randolph Hearst
*Lydia Hearst-Shaw
*Armond Hill - Former NBA player (Atlanta Hawks)
*Richard Halliburton - Author, adventurer
*Owen Johnson 1895 - Author of the "Lawrenceville Stories"
*Butler Lampson - Renowned computer scientist and 1992ACM Turing Award winner
*Aldo Leopold 1905 - Father ofEcology , author of "A Sand County Almanac "
*Huey Lewis - Musician. [ [http://www.bttf.com/lewis.htm Huey Lewis profile] , "Back to the Future ", accessed December 26, 2006.]
*Ricardo Maduro '63 - Former President ofHonduras
*Reginald Marsh - Painter
*William Masters - Human sexuality researcher and co-founder of the Masters & Johnson Institute
*Anna Bibi '93 - Nobel Peace Prize Winner
*James Merrill '43 - Poet.Gussow, Mel. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2DB143AF934A35751C0A963958260 "James Merrill Is Dead at 68; Elegant Poet of Love and Loss"] , "The New York Times ", February 7, 1995. Accessed October 31, 2007. "He went to Lawrenceville School, where one of his close friends and classmates was the novelist Frederick Buechner."]
*Clement Woodnutt Miller , U.S. Representative fromCalifornia . [ [http://bioguide.congress.govscripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000719 Clement Woodnutt Miller] ,United States Congress . Accessed June 2, 2007.]
*Paul Moravec, Jr - 2004Pulitzer Prize for Music -winning composer
*Tinsley Mortimer
*Joakim Noah - Currentbasketball player forChicago Bulls
*Jarvis Offutt - AmericanWorld War I aviator, namesake ofOffutt Air Force Base
*Rodman M. Price (1816-1894), represented ushr|New Jersey|5 in theUnited States House of Representatives from 1851-1853, and served as the 17th Governor ofNew Jersey , from 1854 to 1857. [ [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000529 Rodman McCamley Price] , "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress ". Accessed September 24, 2007.]
*Bob Ryan - "Boston Globe" sportswriter and ESPN analyst/contributor
*Hugh L. Scott 1869 - Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff and Superintendent of West Point
*Brandon Tartikoff - FormerNBC programming chief
*Taki Theodoracopulos - International journalist
*Lowell Weicker '49 -Governor of Connecticut andUnited States Senator . [ [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=w000253 Lowell Palmer Weicker, Jr.] , "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress ". Accessed December 16, 2007.]
*Meredith Whitney - Research analyst at Oppenheimer
*James Harvie Wilkinson III -United States Court of Appeals , Fourth Circuit and oft-mentioned prospectiveSupreme Court of the United States nominee
*Welly Yang '90 - actor
*Bradley J. Boyer '99 - Retired professional hockey player, York IceCats, NEHLReferences
External links
* [http://www.lawrenceville.org/ Lawrenceville School website]
* [http://www.boardingschoolreview.com/school_ov/school_id/378 Boarding School Review]
* [http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/privateschoolsearch/school_detail.asp?Search=1&SchoolID=00869171&ID=00869171 Data for the Lawrenceville School] ,National Center for Education Statistics
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