What You Gave Me When I Asked
As The Campaign
for St. Paul’s School
nears a success-
ful end, I’ve been
thinking about the
education this effort
has given me. Nine
years after my grad-
uation, I returned to
St. Paul’s as a history teacher and crew coach,
young and anxious to try my hand at emulating
the teachers who had guided me so well. Whether
I ever neared my ambition in the classroom, I
discovered how much it meant to me as an adult
to learn alongside my students – to enjoy a new
kind of education, from another angle at the
Harkness table.
After a few more years, I was drawn into dif-
ferent roles at the School, and I learned more
about St. Paul’s and its students from other van-
tages – in the college office, in admissions, and,
eventually, nervously answering a call from Bill
Matthews, into the what was for me the largely
unknown world of development.
I wasn’t entirely na
ï
ve; I knew that a place that
gave this kind of experience to its students could
not offer so much without income beyond tuition,
and that an endowment needed to grow more
steadily than investment strategies could ensure.
After all,
I
had been a financial-aid kid. I knew
that many beyond Millville had been my bene-
factors in my time here as a student and as a
member of the faculty.
I will confess that my view of development was
also shaped by the prevailing misperception of
the work – that it is simply about asking people
for money. I perceived it to be a vocation requiring
a certain kind of courage.
What Bill Matthews tried to explain to me those
years ago was that the work would deepen my
understanding of the School immeasurably. I
would learn from those who loved the School as
well as those who felt they were hurt by it. Bill
was even bold enough to claim I would enjoy it!
Of course, he was right.
As vice rector for external affairs, and since, I
have learned considerably more about St. Paul’s
School than ever from my years of studying and
teaching, or from reading Heckscher and Drury,
as much as their writing has meant to me. In my
visits and conversations with so many of you, I
began to understand far better than ever the
many perspectives – the innumerable realities that
together coalesce into the truth of this school.
In my time as Rector, and in pursuing our
ambitious comprehensive campaign, I have met
with hundreds of you – alumni, parents, and other
friends, who have given to this effort in mean-
ingful ways, and not always with a checkbook.
What you have given me personally, though,
has been an education about what a school can
mean, and what
this
school truly
is
. Thank you.
Michael G. Hirschfeld ’85
RECTOR
PETER FINGER
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