Miss Porter's School

Miss Porter's School
Puellae venerunt. Abíerunt mulieres.
Location
Farmington, Connecticut, USA
Information
Type	Independent, boarding
Religious affiliation(s)	none
Established	1843
Head of School	Dr. Katherine G. Windsor
Faculty	60
Gender	female
Enrollment	322 total 198 boarding 124 day
Average class size	11
Student to teacher ratio	8:1
Campus	55 acre township campus
Color(s)	Green and White
Athletics	18 Interscholastic sports
Mascot	Fighting Daisy (unofficial)
Average SAT scores	635 verbal 620 math 646 writing  (2010)
Endowment	$85 million
Annual tuition	$45,100 boarding $35,450 day
Website	www.porters.org

Miss Porter's School, sometimes simply referred to as Porter's or Farmington, is a private college preparatory school for girls located in Farmington, Connecticut.

Contents 1 History 2 Campus facilities 3 Historic buildings 4 Athletics 4.1 Interscholastic sports 4.2 Opponents 4.3 Championships 5 Porter's Terminology 6 Campus room terminology 7 Notable alumnae 8 In fiction 9 References 10 External links

History

Miss Porter's School was established in 1843 by education reformer Sarah Porter, who recognized the importance of women's education. Management passed onto her nephew, Robert Porter Keep, after her death in 1900. The school was incorporated as a non-profit institution in 1943. To this day, "Porter's remains a place where girls are supported by a close-knit community of students and faculty." ^[1]

Campus facilities

Historic buildings

The Thomas Hart Hooker House, now used as the school's admissions building, was part of the Underground Railroad when owned by abolitionist Samuel Deming. It is part of the Connecticut Freedom Trail.

Athletics

Interscholastic sports

Opponents

Porter's competes in the Founders League with Choate Rosemary Hall, Hotchkiss, Kingswood-Oxford, Loomis Chaffee, Taft and Westminster schools. Porter's arch-rival is Ethel Walker's.

Championships

In 2010, the varsity volleyball team defeated Convent of the Sacred Heart to become the 2010 New England School Athletic Council (NEPSAC) Class B Champions.

Porter's Terminology

• Big-D - Formal Dress
• Daeges Eage - yearbook, loose translation from Old English for daisy, "the day's eye."
• Haggis Baggis - school literary magazine
• Little-D - Semi-Formal Dress
• Milk Lunch - Morning Break
• Mountain Day - School holiday granted once a semester
• Nova Nine - 9 members of student council
• P-lettes - Perilhettes, Senior Singing Group
• Prescott - Visiting Speaker Program sponsored by The Prescott Fund
• Salma - Salmagundy, School Newspaper
• Sit-Down Dinner - Semi-Formal Dinner

Campus room terminology

• Amphitheater - Outdoor stage
• Congo - Congregational Church used as a meeting house
• Cool House - Squash and Pool Building
• Counting House - the business office, formerly the Music Cottage
• Cowbarn Field - playing fields on Garden Street, former site of the school farm
• Daisy - Daisy Cafe and Common Room
• Hacker - Barbara Hacker Theater
• Hamilton - English Literature, History Building
• Nonie - Nona Evans Room
• Olin - Sciences, Mathematics, Arts, and Computer Sciences Building
• Timco - Timothy Cowles Archives Building
• Jones - Language Building

Notable alumnae

• Dorothy Walker Bush (1919) - Mother of the 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, grandmother of the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush
• Anne Cox Chambers (1938) - Former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium
• Laura Rockefeller Chasin (1954) - American socialite
• Pema Chodron (formerly Deirdre Blomfield-Brown) (1955) - Buddhist nun and author; resident director of Gampo Abbey
• Brenda Frazier (1939) - American socialite
• Ruth Pine Furniss - Short story writer and novelist.
• Mamie Gummer - (never graduated) Actress and daughter of Actress Meryl Streep
• Alice Hamilton (1888) - First female faculty member of Harvard Medical School, founder of the field of industrial medicine
• Edith Hamilton (1886) - Greek Mythology scholar and sister of Alice Hamilton
• Barbara Hutton (1930) - American socialite, dubbed "Poor Little Rich Girl"
• Dorothy Bush Koch (1977) - Philanthropist and First Family member
• Julia Lathrop (1876) - the first woman ever to head a government agency in the United States.
• Elizabeth May (1972) - Leader of the Green Party of Canada
• Ruth Hanna McCormick (1897) - First woman to run for the U.S. Senate.
• Polly Allen Mellen (1942) - Editor with Vogue magazine
• Dina Merrill (née Nedenia Hutton) (1943) - Actress and American socialite
• Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1947) - First Lady of the United States^[2]
• Hayley Petit, victim of the Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders^[3]
• Lilly Pulitzer (née Lillian Lee McKim) (1949) - Fashion designer and American socialite
• Elizabeth Cushman Titus Putnam (1951) - founding president of the Student Conservation Association (SCA) and recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal ^[4][5]
• Theodate Pope Riddle (1888) - Architect
• Gene Tierney (1938) - Academy Award-nominated actress
• Gloria Vanderbilt (1941) - Fashion designer and American socialite

In fiction

• In the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Buffy's mother thinks it would be best to send Buffy away to school, she picks up an application to Miss Porter's.
• In the television show The Nanny, in Mr. Sheffield's office, Fran suggests Gracie attend the summer program at Miss Porter's.
• In the musical Rent, one of the leads, Harvard-educated lesbian lawyer Joanne, attended and learned to tango with the French ambassador's daughter in her dorm room at Miss Porter's.
• In the novel, Betrayed (A House of Night Novel) by P.C and Kristin Cast, Zoey finds Miss Porter's after researching different "private preparatory schools" to find examples of good student councils to model her own new Dark Daughters' council after.
• In the novel The Debutantes by June Flaum Singer, the four main characters met at Miss Porter's.[1]
• In the novel The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry, a main character is sent to Miss Porter's.
• The novel The New Girls (1979), by Beth Gutcheon, is set in a school called Miss Pratt's based on Miss Porter's.

References

External links

• Official Website