A recurring message over the first month of school has been the importance of building community, and faculty and student leaders have taken steps to bring individuals together in meaningful, authentic interactions. As the Third Form has acclimated to their new environment in Wilson Hall, they have already been brought together in camaraderie-building events, most notably the Camp Saginaw trip.
At the end of September the Third Form—along with dozens of Sixth Form leaders and faculty advisors—departed to Oxford, Pennsylvania for an overnight bonding trip as one of their first upper school experiences.
Third Form Dean Mr. Stephen Cloran, who helped organize the trip, kept the primary aim in mind while working through the logistics.
“I think everybody can agree that brotherhood is something that you need to build, and you need to cultivate, and you need to work at.”
Mr. Stephen Cloran
“The main goal is to just try to bring the freshmen closer together,” Mr. Cloran said. “I think everybody can agree that brotherhood is something that you need to build, and you need to cultivate, and you need to work at. This class needs to get to know each other. They need to learn about one another. They need to start kind of constructing the culture of their class and the brotherhood of their class. And we do that through fun activities.”
Some of these activities included a blindfolded challenge, led by Mr. Andrew Poolman, and a “Thursday Night Live” entertainment night organized by the Sixth Form leaders. Much of the closeness was also derived from the moments in between events.
“We eat together, we walk around camp together. We do all these kinds of activities, we stay in a cabin together, we ride on the bus, a hour-and-a-half trip together. So it’s just coming together and doing a lot of different activities to have fun, but also to get to know one another,” Mr. Cloran said.
The Third Form started to build relationships and a larger identity throughout the trip.
“It was just a lot of bonding,” Third Former Brayden Trexler said. “We weren’t allowed to just stare at our phones the whole time, and we got to meet and get to know a lot of new people.”
Mr. Cloran feels that these types of bonding trips are becoming increasingly valuable in the digital age.
“We take the screens away from the freshmen; we store them away, so they don’t have their phones for the entire trip. It’s a great screen break that they get, and it just really creates that atmosphere of eye contact and talking to one another, walking around together without our mobile devices, without screens,” Mr. Cloran said. “It just really enhances the opportunity to connect, and it creates extraordinary opportunities for guys to get to know each other, without having their cell phones in their hands.”
The Third Formers felt the effects.
“I got to know a lot of people. If I had my phone, I probably wouldn’t have talked to them as much or gotten to know them,” Trexler said.
The Camp Saginaw trip also helped to forge a larger sense of brotherhood in the upper school, bringing Third Formers and Sixth Formers together in an isolated environment.
Sixth Former Ryan Brewington said, “We didn’t really have it our freshman year [due to the pandemic], so we didn’t really know much of the seniors. I couldn’t name a single Signet member of that senior year class.”
Sixth Form Honor Council Chairman Luke Fesnak agreed that the trip was crucial to developing a closer upper school community.
“It connected probably the two most disconnected grades from each other in a way that was fun and engaging for both.”
Luke Fesnak ’24
“It connected probably the two most disconnected grades from each other in a way that was fun and engaging for both,” Fesnak said.
Sixth Form leaders served as role models and established early expectations for how an upper school student is expected to act in the community.
“We expect our seniors to teach and to mentor these freshmen in how we expect them to speak, to act, to participate in the community,” Mr. Cloran said. “We have very high standards and very high expectations.”
To this point, Mr. Cloran feels that the Third Form is meeting, and, perhaps even exceeding, those expectations. As their dean, he is looking forward to the remainder of the year and beyond.
“I’m really optimistic about this class and the brotherhood they’re cultivating,” Mr. Cloran said. “They just have to continue to trust the upper school community, trust their teachers, trust their advisors, and trust their leadership from the upperclassmen. I think this class has the chance to be a really special, extraordinary, remarkable class.”