"Hollywood coudn't create a stage set as perfect as this school"

Bird's-eye view of Governor Dummer Academy (above left) in South Byfield, MA, bounded by salt marshes and mixed pine/oak forest to the east (bottom). (Photo by Sissy Willis, one of our most prized, taken in shock and awe out the open door of a two-person helicopter out of Norwood, MA, when we put our life on the line for a team effort at the Design School for Mass Bay Commons (scroll down for link), a pipe-dream regional plan for Eastern Massachusetts put together under the guidance of one of the dearest professors ever was, Robert D.Yaro of Harvard University, in the fall of 1997)

"Hollywood couldn't create a stage set as perfect as this school," writes Boston Globe reporter Brian McGrory today re the GDA name-change kerfuffle we've been ranting about here and here of late at the behest of our drop-dead-gorgeous -- they say she resembles Sissy in a younger day -- niece and GDA alumna Sarah.  Says McGrory:

You're worried that you're not fitting in well? Get a new name; try some cosmetic surgery; no need to stay true to yourself if something else might be more successful. This is what the trustees are saying,

I was convinced of the absurdity of the decision after stopping by the campus in Newbury's Byfield section yesterday, where brick, white-clapboard, and barn red buildings sit among the woods and playing fields.

Here's the problem with what the Governor Dummer trustees are doing: They're basically teaching a lesson to the 370 students at their school that you have to go along to get along, that in this Botox society in which we all live, the surface is as crucial as the core, that style trumps substance.

William Dummer, who served as acting royal governor of Massachusetts for seven years, bequeathed the land and money for the institution, which was founded in 1763 . . . Administrators boast that it is the oldest boarding school in the country. Last year, they had 800 applicants for 100 slots and sent graduates off to many of the most prestigious colleges in the country . . . But the name, it's not convenient. It doesn't play well in Peoria, which is exactly what a Madison Avenue marketing firm told the trustees. Get something more prestigious, they were advised, like Governor's Academy. That way, you'll get a better roster of students.

"Goodness, what an ordeal," Sarah emails:

I believe Mr. Doggett to be more of a yes man than anything, taking orders from the higher-ups so to speak.  Too bad. I would rather have a headmaster who truly believes in a school and its rightful name and stand up for it.  Might mean we have to get to the higher-ups and convince them to see our view of things!

Sounds good to us.  Nice to know that the Globe sees it our way.

Comments

[Sarah]

Thank you Mr. McGrory!! Maybe we alums should write to him as well...food for thought

[Sissy Willis]

I'm sending off an email this very moment! Brian McGrory, The Boston Globe for anyone who's interested.

[Jack]

Well. The Governor Dummer re-naming kerfuffle. Here I've been swamped at work for a couple of days and barely blogging (to and fro Memphis on Tuesday, for example), and I learn that Governor Dummer is changing its name. I have several observations.

First, it is an unfortunate name in today's brandnamed world. Better than "Beaver College," but not much. That doesn't mean the school should change the name, but you have to think that the name costs the school some applicants.

Second, various prestigious institutions arrived at their present names only after trying on others. The Lawrenceville School, where I went "back in the day," used to be called "Maidenhead Academy," or something like that. I daresay it would not be one of the dozen or so top prep schools today if it had not changed its name at some point in the 19th century. The same can be said of Princeton University, which once was merely the "College of New Jersey." So it is not as though name-changes are unprecedented.

Third, and I offer this last factoid only as a footnote, Marty Doggett was my very first teacher in my very first class at Lawrenceville, more than 27 years ago. He was a young man then, a good teacher and a well-regarded football coach. I have no idea whether he is a "yes man." May I suggest, though, that his receptivity to the changing of the name may derive from his knowledge of Lawrenceville's history, and his hope that GDA might benefit similarly.

Fourth, I am very sympathetic to any alumnus or alumna who objects to such a disconnecting change at a college or boarding school that they love. I would be upset too. The question is whether it is better for the school in the long run.

[Sissy Willis]

All good points, Jack, and thanks so much for all the fascinating info -- Can you say small world? BLOG world, in fact, where the aggregate of knowledge is greater than the sum of its parts! -- although the University of Pennsylvania seems to be doing fine despite its name :).

Goomp, the 1938 GDA grad in the family, reports that name changing is nothing new with GDA, anyway: "The school was originally known as Dummer Academy. When Ted Eames became headmaster in the 1930's, he didn't really like the saying 'go to Dummer and get dumber,' so he changed the name to Governor Dummer Academy."

Be that as it may, there are two things less than ideal about the current name-changing affair, if I can believe what I read. One is the unceremonious way the name-change proposal was apparently dumped into the laps of alums, and the other is the euphemistic timidity of your former teacher, Marty Doggett. My toes curl when I hear what Goomp calls "Intellectual Morons" insult the intelligence of us common folk with weasel words like "name refinement." Janet Jackson's "costume malfunction" comes to mind.