Miss Porter's School

Miss Porter's School
Puellae venerunt. Abíerunt mulieres.
Location
Farmington, Connecticut, USA
Information
Type	Independent, boarding
Religious affiliation(s)	none
Established	1843
Head of School	Dr. Katherine G. Windsor
Faculty	60
Gender	female
Enrollment	333 total 223 boarding 110 day
Average class size	11
Student to teacher ratio	8:1
Campus	55 acre township campus
Color(s)	Green and White
Athletics	18 Interscholastic teams
Mascot	Fighting Daisy (unofficial)
Average SAT scores	627 critical reading 636 math 633 writing  (2011)
Endowment	$100 million
Annual tuition	$46,650 boarding $36,850 day
Website	www.porters.org

Miss Porter's School, sometimes simply referred to as Porter's or Farmington, is a private college preparatory school for girls located in Farmington, Connecticut.

History

Miss Porter's School was established in 1843 by education reformer Sarah Porter, who recognized the importance of women's education. Management passed onto her nephew, Robert Porter Keep, after her death in 1900. The school was incorporated as a non-profit institution in 1943. To this day, "Porter's remains a place where girls are supported by a close-knit community of students and faculty."

Academics

Off Campus Study

If so desired, a student in her third year at Porter's may choose to participate in any of the following programs:

• Maine Coast Semester
• Rocky Mountain Semester
• School Year Abroad offers students the chance to enhance their foreign language by studying in its native country. Countries include, but are not limited to, China, France, Italy, and Spain.

Campus facilities

Academic facilities

• The iconic Main building, the front door of which is depicted on the school seal, was built in 1830 as the Union Hotel on Main Street. Originally intended to serve patrons of the nearby Farmington Canal, it was rented by Sarah Porter in 1848. To this day, the building continues to house the school's dining facility, several administrative offices, and a small dormitory for first year boarding students.
• The Hamilton building is home to the English and History Departments. Named for the Hamilton sisters, namely Alice and Edith, this building was formerly used as a dorm but, in the mid-1900s, was transformed into the schools English and History building.
• The Olin Arts and Science Center is home to the schools Science, Mathematics, and Visual Arts Departments. Thanks to a generous contribution from the Franklin W. Olin Foundation, the Olin Arts and Science Center, which has since been renovated and expanded, was built to honor three members of the Olin family that are graduates of the school. The building has a painting and ceramics studio, each with 25-foot ceilings and 500 feet of windows; a computer art lab with the most current programs and equipment; a multi-media studio for jewelry and textiles; and a photography studio and dark room.
• The Leila Dilworth Jones '44 Memorial building, formerly the school's library, is now houses the school's language department, equipped with "a state-of-the-art language laboratory and classrooms for foreign language instruction," which include, but are not limited to, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Latin.

Historic buildings

The Thomas Hart Hooker House, now used as the school's admissions building, was part of the Underground Railroad when owned by abolitionist Samuel Deming.^{[citation needed]} It is part of the Connecticut Freedom Trail.^{[citation needed]}

Athletics

Interscholastic sports

Fall BadmintonV Cross Country V/JV Equestrian V Field Hockey V/JV Soccer V/JV/III Volleyball V/JV/III

Winter Basketball V/JV/III Equestrian V Skiing V Squash V/JV/III Swimming V

Spring Crew V/JV Equestrian V Golf V Lacrosse V/JV/III Softball V/JV Tennis V/JV Track V Ultimate Frisbee V

Opponents

Porter's competes in the Founders League with Choate Rosemary Hall, Hotchkiss, Kingswood-Oxford, Loomis Chaffee, Taft and Westminster schools. Porter's arch-rival is Ethel Walker's.

Championships

In 2010, the varsity volleyball team defeated Convent of the Sacred Heart to become the 2010 New England School Athletic Council (NEPSAC) Class B Champions.

Student life

Residential life

Most Porter's girls live in dormitories, most of which are former Farmington private residences left to the school. Each dormitory has a house director. "Their doors are always open, and they often invite students into their apartments for snacks, movies, and group discussions."

Porter's Terminology

• Big-D - Formal Dress
• Daeges Eage - yearbook, loose translation from Old English for daisy, "the day's eye."
• Haggis Baggis - school literary magazine
• Little-D - Semi-Formal Dress
• Milk Lunch - Morning Break
• Mountain Day - School holiday granted once a semester
• Nova Nine - 9 members of student council
• P-lhettes - Perilhettes, Senior Singing Group
• Prescott - Visiting Speaker Program sponsored by The Prescott Fund
• Salma - Salmagundy, School Newspaper
• Sit-Down Dinner - Semi-Formal Dinner

Notable alumnae

• Mimi Alford - Former White House intern who wrote a book about having been JFK's teenage mistress
• Dorothy Walker Bush (1919) - Mother of the 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, grandmother of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush
• Anne Cox Chambers (1938) - Former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium
• Laura Rockefeller Chasin (1954) - American socialite
• Pema Chodron (formerly Deirdre Blomfield-Brown) (1955) - Buddhist nun and author; resident director of Gampo Abbey
• Brenda Frazier (1939) - American socialite
• Ruth Pine Furniss - Short story writer and novelist.
• Mamie Gummer - (never graduated) Actress and daughter of Actress Meryl Streep
• Agnes Gund (1956) - president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art and 1997 recipient of the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton, she was nominated by President Barack Obama as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Council on the Arts in 2011
• Alice Hamilton (1888) - First female faculty member of Harvard Medical School, founder of the field of industrial medicine
• Edith Hamilton (1886) - Greek Mythology scholar and sister of Alice Hamilton
• Barbara Hutton (1930) - American socialite, dubbed "Poor Little Rich Girl"
• Dorothy Bush Koch (1977) - Philanthropist and First Family member
• Julia Lathrop (1876) - the first woman ever to head a government agency in the United States.
• Elizabeth May (1972) - the first elected Green Party Member of Parliament in Canada and leader of the Green Party of Canada
• Ruth Hanna McCormick (1897) - member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois and the first woman to run for the U.S. Senate.
• Polly Allen Mellen (1942) - Editor with Vogue magazine
• Dina Merrill (née Nedenia Hutton) (1943) - Actress and American socialite
• Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1947) - First Lady of the United States
• Hayley Petit, victim of the Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders
• Lilly Pulitzer (née Lillian Lee McKim) (1949) - Fashion designer and American socialite
• Elizabeth Cushman Titus Putnam (1951) - founding president of the Student Conservation Association (SCA) and recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal
• Theodate Pope Riddle (1888) - Architect
• Gene Tierney (1938) - Academy Award-nominated actress
• Gloria Vanderbilt (1941) - Fashion designer and American socialite

Summer programs

The summer programs, offered to girls entering grades 7 through 9, provide access to most of Porter's facilities and staff.

The Sarah Porter Leadership Institute Level I offers girls the opportunity to "learn, practice and hone" their problem solving, quick thinking, teamwork and trust skills. The Sarah Porter Leadership Institute Level II gives those who have attended Level I of the program the opportunity to more completely develop their leadership skills. This program includes an off campus camping and rafting trip, which test the skills and responsibilities that come with those activities.

The Porter's Junior Model U.N., offered by faculty advisors Heather and Robert Mooney, is "designed to teach students about civics, current events, effective communication, and global perspective through engaging and interactive lessons and exercises." The program concludes with a "two-day Model UN-style conference at Porter's."

Porter's also offers a Rowing Academy during the summer.

In fiction

• In the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Buffy's mother thinks it would be best to send Buffy away to school, she picks up an application to Miss Porter's.
• In the television show The Nanny, in Mr. Sheffield's office, Fran suggests Gracie attend the summer program at Miss Porter's.
• In the musical Rent, one of the leads, Harvard-educated lesbian lawyer Joanne, attended and learned to tango with the French ambassador's daughter in her dorm room at Miss Porter's.
• In the novel, Betrayed (A House of Night Novel) by P.C and Kristin Cast, Zoey finds Miss Porter's after researching different "private preparatory schools" to find examples of good student councils to model her own new Dark Daughters' council after.
• In the novel The Debutantes by June Flaum Singer, the four main characters met at Miss Porter's.

External links

• Official Website