tone and student conduct are shaped by the religious tradition of our corporate past.
In many respects, then, Wells School continues to pursue the purposes originally set out for it. In so doing, the school is always in the process of carrying out two fundamental tasksâor perhaps two dimensions of the same fundamental task. We are simultaneously in the business of imparting to the young the best of our accrued culture (âa program of liberal arts and sciencesâ) and of maintaining a humane, livable community. It is inconceivable that these two missions will not always be the primary business of a school.
In order to assess the future requirements of Wells in the coming decade and in the twenty-first century, it is necessary to scan the horizon for present or approaching realities that will either help or hinder Wells in carrying out those two essential missions. We must look to demographic developments and to every possible indicator of the state of the national economy. The availability and expense of ever scarcer fossil fuel on the eastern seaboard will without question affect the cost, enrollment, andâliterallyâthe climate of the school. While we are monitoring actual and likely external developments, we must also take shrewd stock of internal needs. It is clear we must build, renovate and innovate in order to remain the same. Faculty salaries and benefits must rise with the current levels of inflation if superior instruction is to be maintained. The academic departments and the athletic staff have indicated below, in a ranked list, the major capital expenditures they feel would most enhance their respective programs. An ad hoc Student Life Commission has recently been established to generate a parallel set of recommendations from the studentsâ perspective.
When these data are complete and assembled, they will be distributed to the various school constituentsâstudents, faculty, board, alumni, parentsâfor further elaboration and refinement. Operating from these shared materials, we will begin to generate two programs. The first of these will be produced by the âimmediateâ constituents (faculty, students and parents) and should consist of those things most worthy of retaining in the Wells experience as well as those things most worth acquiring. From the board and alumni, we need to generate a program of how  to retain and acquire these things. Central to both programs are the following questions:
1. What is best and most durable about the Wells experience?
2. What is worst and most expendable in the Wells experience?
3. How might Wells be changed structurally and substantively to achieve its stated purposes?
These questions are very basic, but they should provide rich soil for argument and discussion. They are worth resolving since, provided for or not, the future will be upon us.
17 November
Mr. William G. Truax
President, Fiduciary Trust Company
New Haven, Connecticut
P.O. Box 121
Dear Bill,
Enclosed is a draft of an introductory statement to cover the âWells: Ten Years and Afterâ project. I have also appended some capital needs (or desires) compiled by the faculty, along with some population and demographic info Iâve culled from here and there. I would like to get a preliminary packet of such materials to the whole board, or at least to the Education Committee, as soon as you give me a green light.
Tell me what you think of this. Iâm not sure.
To me, thinking about the future seems a strangely empty process. The only basis for imagination is the present and the past, which is obvious enough. But when you look to the present and the past for what is essentially good, you are accused of bone-headed conservatism. The accusation doesnât make any sense, but the alternative approach, a kind of compulsion to change, is clearly dominating the age. Futuristic visions are all grounded in a relatively shallow near-past. The daring
In many respects, then, Wells School continues to pursue the purposes originally set out for it. In so doing, the school is always in the process of carrying out two fundamental tasksâor perhaps two dimensions of the same fundamental task. We are simultaneously in the business of imparting to the young the best of our accrued culture (âa program of liberal arts and sciencesâ) and of maintaining a humane, livable community. It is inconceivable that these two missions will not always be the primary business of a school.
In order to assess the future requirements of Wells in the coming decade and in the twenty-first century, it is necessary to scan the horizon for present or approaching realities that will either help or hinder Wells in carrying out those two essential missions. We must look to demographic developments and to every possible indicator of the state of the national economy. The availability and expense of ever scarcer fossil fuel on the eastern seaboard will without question affect the cost, enrollment, andâliterallyâthe climate of the school. While we are monitoring actual and likely external developments, we must also take shrewd stock of internal needs. It is clear we must build, renovate and innovate in order to remain the same. Faculty salaries and benefits must rise with the current levels of inflation if superior instruction is to be maintained. The academic departments and the athletic staff have indicated below, in a ranked list, the major capital expenditures they feel would most enhance their respective programs. An ad hoc Student Life Commission has recently been established to generate a parallel set of recommendations from the studentsâ perspective.
When these data are complete and assembled, they will be distributed to the various school constituentsâstudents, faculty, board, alumni, parentsâfor further elaboration and refinement. Operating from these shared materials, we will begin to generate two programs. The first of these will be produced by the âimmediateâ constituents (faculty, students and parents) and should consist of those things most worthy of retaining in the Wells experience as well as those things most worth acquiring. From the board and alumni, we need to generate a program of how  to retain and acquire these things. Central to both programs are the following questions:
1. What is best and most durable about the Wells experience?
2. What is worst and most expendable in the Wells experience?
3. How might Wells be changed structurally and substantively to achieve its stated purposes?
These questions are very basic, but they should provide rich soil for argument and discussion. They are worth resolving since, provided for or not, the future will be upon us.
17 November
Mr. William G. Truax
President, Fiduciary Trust Company
New Haven, Connecticut
P.O. Box 121
Dear Bill,
Enclosed is a draft of an introductory statement to cover the âWells: Ten Years and Afterâ project. I have also appended some capital needs (or desires) compiled by the faculty, along with some population and demographic info Iâve culled from here and there. I would like to get a preliminary packet of such materials to the whole board, or at least to the Education Committee, as soon as you give me a green light.
Tell me what you think of this. Iâm not sure.
To me, thinking about the future seems a strangely empty process. The only basis for imagination is the present and the past, which is obvious enough. But when you look to the present and the past for what is essentially good, you are accused of bone-headed conservatism. The accusation doesnât make any sense, but the alternative approach, a kind of compulsion to change, is clearly dominating the age. Futuristic visions are all grounded in a relatively shallow near-past. The daring
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