Category: Issue 3

A quirky quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, reads: “a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.” Climbing the stairs to the fourth floor of Campus School, one enters swinging glass doors to find themselves in a different type of “brain-attic”– the SCCS library– overlooking the Campus School playground, Northampton rooftops, even a far-off mountain range. In its own way, the library is the brain of the building: colorful, joyful, welcoming. Over 20,000 books rest on its shelves; posters adorn its walls;…

“I love being a kind of Willy Wonka of plants, saying ‘welcome to my magical world of dirt and leaves and tactile, experiential learning,’” shared Gaby Immerman, landscape and education specialist at the Smith College Botanic Gardens.  Seated in a lab classroom at the back of the Conservatory, through a room bursting with mums and past a tall banana tree, Gaby sat on a stool next to her closet of microscopes and spoke with passion about her role as “a portal, a point of engagement” at Campus School and beyond. Now in her nineteenth year at Smith, Gaby has many roles: college…

On November 3rd, 2018, prospective Campus School parents joined Head of School Chris Marblo, Director of Admissions Maureen Litwin, Campus School teachers and alums for the Fall 2018 Campus School Open House. Below are copies of speeches delivered by two alums, Brittany Collins (‘08) and Saenger Breen (‘16), on the enduring power of a Campus School education. For more information about Campus School, or to schedule a tour, please visit our admissions page. Brittany Collins (‘08) “HI everyone, I’m Brittany Collins, and I graduated from Campus School in 2008 before attending the Williston Northampton School for middle and high school and returning…

“Paradise Pond wouldn’t be so paradisey if all of the trash went into it!” an eager third grader exclaimed on a warm October morning. Circled on the carpet in Jan Szymaszek’s classroom, Smith College senior and Campus School student teacher Ruth Neils led her students through a pilot lesson of Inquiry, Inc. and the Case of the Missing Ducklings, an interactive storybook and unit designed by a group of student researchers at Smith. “The Water Inquiry project of Smith College works to improve children’s understandings of water while advancing idea-centered learning,” the program’s website reads: “Participants investigate water as a topic that…

Jennifer duBois ‘96 is the author of A Partial History of Lost Causes, which won a California Book Award for Fiction, a Northern California Book Award for First Fiction, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Prize for Debut Fiction. The National Book Foundation named her one of its 5 Under 35 authors. Her second novel, Cartwheel, was the winner of the Housatonic Book Award for fiction and was a finalist for a New York Public Library Young Lions Award. An alumna of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Stanford University’s Stegner Fellowship, duBois is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and…