Hotchkiss School

The Hotchkiss School is an independent, coeducational American college preparatory boarding school located in Lakeville, Connecticut. Founded in 1891, the school enrolls students in grades 9 through 12 and a small number of postgraduates. Students at Hotchkiss come from across the United States and 37 foreign countries.^[1]

Hotchkiss is a member of the Eight Schools Association, begun informally in 1973-74 and formalized in 2006. Hotchkiss is also a member of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization, founded in 1966. There is a seven-school overlap of membership between the two groups.^[4] Hotchkiss is additionally a member of the G20 Schools group.

As of the 2005-06 school year, the school had an enrollment of 595 students and 151 classroom teachers, for a student-teacher ratio of 4-1.^[1] Hotchkiss has one of the lowest admissions rates in the country with only 20% of students who applied being accepted.^[5]

History

Maria H. (Bissell) Hotchkiss founded the school in 1891 to prepare young men for Yale University.^[6] Maria originally had aspirations for the school to serve underprivileged students, and the original charter provided some scholarships, and reserved space for academically gifted Lakeville boys (regardless of family income). Maria Hotchkiss was the widow of Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, who founded the French arms company Hotchkiss et Cie, made famous by the use of its machine guns in World War I http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/mgun_hotchkiss.htm. This led to a nickname for the school, "son of a gun".^[7]

The current Head of School is Malcolm McKenzie, former principal at Atlantic College in Wales. McKenzie is a Rhodes Scholar, and holds a degree in linguistics from University of Oxford.^[8]

Arts facilities

2005 saw the completion of Hotchkiss' Esther Eastman Music Center. Elfers Hall seats 715 people. The school has equipped the hall with a handmade Fazioli piano, 12 Steinway pianos, 12 practice rooms, 3 ensemble practice rooms, the WKIS radio station, and a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) lab.^[9]

Athletic facilities

Indoor facilities

• Field House - multi-purpose playing surfaces with an elevated indoor exercise track
• Ice Hockey Rinks (two) - Dwyer Rink (Olympic), Schmidt Rink (NHL)
• Natatorium - 10-lane pool with a separate diving well
• Fowle Gymnasium (hardwood basketball court)
• Wrestling/Multi-Purpose Room
• Squash Courts (eight)
• Ford Indoor Tennis Courts (three)
• Chandler Fitness Center
• Boat House (sailing)
• Training Rooms
• Locker Rooms and Shower Facilities

Outdoor facilities

• Nine-hole golf course (designed by Seth Raynor)
• All-weather track
• Outdoor tennis courts (twenty)
• Paddle tennis courts (two)
• Field hockey, soccer, lacrosse, and softball fields
• Climbing walls
• Football stadium
• Baseball stadium
• Lake Wononscopomuc (sailing)
• Three ponds and extensive hiking trails on a wooded campus

The athletic complex contains a 35-meter ten-lane pool, indoor jogging track, eight squash courts, two ice hockey rinks, a fitness center/weight room, two basketball courts, a wrestling room, three indoor tennis courts, and two paddle tennis courts.^[10]

Boarding and general facilities

Hotchkiss has twelve dormitories on campus, six for boys (Tinker, Edelman, Coy, Dana, Watson, and Wieler) and six for girls (Bissell, Buehler, Flinn, Memorial, Garland, and Van Santvoord). Rooms vary in size, from singles to the occasional triple.^[11]

Athletics

Hotchkiss currently fields 17 interscholastic sports teams. The school is a member of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council and the Interscholastic Sailing Association.^[12] The athletic directors of Hotchkiss and the other members of the Eight Schools Association compose the Eight Schools Athletic Council, which organizes sports events and tournaments among ESA schools.^[13] Historically strong athletic programs include the girls' field hockey team, the girls' volleyball team, the boys' hockey team, the boys' lacrosse team, and the boys' track and field team. Hotchkiss's field hockey team has won thirteen New England championships, including ten consecutively from 2002–2010. In 2010, the team defeated Phillips Academy Andover 1-0 in overtime in the semifinals, and defeated Greenwich Academy in strokes in the finals.^[14] Hotchkiss's volleyball has won seven New England Championships including the 2007 New England Volleyball Championships.^[15] The boys' track and field team was undefeated in regular season meets from 2005 to 2009. During this five year span, they placed in the top three at Founder's and NEPSTA Championships each year and won both titles in 2007^[16] and in 2009.^[17] In the 2008 fall athletic season, Hotchkiss became the first school to win four New England Championships in one fall season. The four championships were a seventh straight in field hockey, a second straight in volleyball, a first in soccer, and a second in football.

Clubs

Hotchkiss students run a number of clubs,^[18] including The Record, a biweekly, student-run newspaper; the Human Rights Initiative; WKIS Radio Station; BaHSA, the Black and Hispanic Student Alliance; the Gay/Straight Alliance; HotchkissTV; Hotchkiss Under God; The Whipping Post (Hotchkiss's satire publication); the Writing Block (a creative writing publication); the Chinese Club; Hotchkiss Republicans; Hotchkiss Democrats; Hotchkiss Libertarians; the Hotchkiss Political Union; Science Club; and SEA (Students for Environment Awareness); and the yearbook (called the Mischianza). Clubs are student-run, though most have faculty advisors, and many of them receive a budget from the school to provide for their various needs.

Round Square

Hotchkiss is one of four U.S. schools in Round Square, a global conference of more than 50 secondary schools. Students have the option to go on an exchange for a semester to another participating school, or they may meet other Round Square students while working together on a project in an area of need. Hotchkiss has recently hosted students from Australia, Germany, South Africa, and India.

Notable alumni

Hotchkiss has a history of captains of industry in attendance, such as:

• founders of Time Henry Luce and Briton Hadden;
• automotive giants Henry Ford II, Edsel Ford, and William Clay Ford;
• candy men Forrest Mars and John Mars;
• former New Jersey governor and son of inventor Thomas Edison, Charles Edison;
• former Solicitor General, U.S. Attorney General, and U.S. Court of Appeals judge Robert Bork;
• Wyoming oilman and politician Warren A. Morton;
• founder of Morgan Stanley, Harold Stanley;
• former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart;
• former Deputy Secretary of Defense, and partner of prominent New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Roswell Gilpatric; and
• CIA director Porter J. Goss.

Within the fields of the arts, science, and technology, Hotchkiss alumni include:

• Nobel prize laureate Dickinson W. Richards (Medicine);
• John G. Avildsen, director of Rocky and The Karate Kid; and
• Tom Werner, producer of television shows such as That '70s Show, The Cosby Show, and Roseanne', now co-owner of the Boston Red Sox.

Professional athlete alumni include National Hockey League players Matt Herr, now retired, and Torrey Mitchell, currently playing for the San Jose Sharks. Ducky Pond, the last Yale alumnus to be head football coach at Yale University, was a Hotchkiss alumnus. Hotchkiss also has a strong literary tradition; alumni authors include Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet Laureate Archibald MacLeish and Pulitzer Prize Winner John Hersey. Hotchkiss has also produced 25 known members of Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale.

Hotchkiss in print

• The school is mentioned several times in F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise and in his short story Six of One.^[19]
• In the book Primary Colors by Joe Klein, later turned into a film, the principal character, Henry Burton, was educated at Hotchkiss, and is frequently referred to as "Hotchkiss".^[20]
• In Jeffrey Archer's novel Sons of Fortune, protagonist Fletcher Davenport is a Hotchkiss alumnus.^[21]
• Hotchkiss is mentioned in Elizabeth Wurtzel's 1994 book Prozac Nation.
• For the school's centenary, Ernest Kolowrat was commissioned to write Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School (ISBN 1-56131-058-1).^[22]
• The Hotchkiss School: A Portrait was published by the school in 1966 (Wertenbaker & Basserman, p. 113).^[23]
• Prominent alumnus, Librarian of Congress, and poet Archibald MacLeish refers to Hotchkiss in a 1982 interview in American Heritage magazine. He mentioned not liking his time at the school.^[24]
• Barney Penniman plans to go to Hotchkiss in the young-adult fiction book Through the Hidden Door.^[25]

References