Photos Courtesy of Will Gilyard and Amanda Arcand
Choate is a “place of many paths,” and for some alumni, the path out of Choate leads them right back to their alma mater.
For many alumni teachers, today’s campus has undergone some major physical changes since they were students here. Mr. Will Gilyard ’98, a fourth-form dean who joined the faculty this year, said, “I think, number one, the number of fields we have now is crazy!” He reminisced about what Choate looked like in the nineties, when sophomores living on upper campus competed in snowball fights against those on lower campus, or when students snacked on goodies during study break from the local restaurants’ food trucks. Many of Mr. Gilyard’s teachers are still at Choate. Specifically, Mr. Gilyard remembers Ms. Jan Cook’s challenging honors chemistry course and recited a passage from The Canterbury Tales he’d retained since learning it as a student.
In fact, many alumni teachers came back to Choate to teach subjects they became passionate about while attending the School as students. Ms. Amanda Arcand ’94 is a current Spanish teacher who was introduced to the language in her Spanish 100 class at Choate. The School has experienced considerable change since she graduated in 1994, particularly regarding the acceptance of diverse identities. She recalled one day when, as she sat with peers in her Spanish class, her teacher, whom she loved, came out to her students as gay. Her teacher later told the class about her request to address the School at large, a request the teacher said the administration at the time denied.
“I think we have a really long way to go in terms of our work for equity and inclusion, but what I can say is that, having been here in the ’90s, it just kind of puts into relief and makes the changes stand out,” Ms. Arcand said. “I really appreciate where we’ve gotten to, the progress we’ve made, while also acknowledging that we are still a work in progress as a school.”
Teachers whose students return to Choate as teachers themselves also get to witness changes in the character of their former students. Mrs. Anne Armour is a long-time French teacher who has taught a few alumni-turned-teachers, including Dean of Students Mr. Mike Velez ’00, who was in her honors French class during his junior year. She said, “The most beautiful part of my watching him come back to school as a teacher was that he was later the coach for my two sons.”
A particularly gratifying moment for her occurred during a lacrosse game against the Loomis Chaffee School in which Choate was falling behind. Her son had said, “Mom, guess what MAV told me? When we were taking the field after halftime, he grabbed me by the jersey and said, ‘Son, it’s not too early to be a leader out there.’” Mrs. Armour said that she not only gained a new perspective on her former student on that day but also had a laugh at the fact that her former student was calling her child “son.”
But not everything has changed. Although each of these alumni returned to Choate as faculty members under different circumstances, they all shared a mutual sentiment: “The focus on building a strong community has not wavered, and that is something that I’m really happy to see,” said Mr. Velez.
Ms. Arcand added, “[We] continue to have a student body that is largely intellectually curious and that makes it a really exciting place to be, both then and now.” She continued, “I was in awe of my classmates a lot of the time, and I am in awe of my students a lot of the time.”
Despite all of the positive changes, there is still one aspect of today’s Choate that makes alumni teachers a little bit uncomfortable: calling their teachers-turned-colleagues by their first names. Although Mr. Gilyard recognized the support, check-ins, and encouragement he received from his fellow colleagues since starting at Choate, he said of one former English teacher, “I still see him and say, ‘Hi, Mr. Loeb.’ And he says, ‘Call me David.’ And I’m like, yeah, I guess I’ll get there at some point.”
