[Holton Arms School] was administered by a triad of powerful and vastly different women. Miss Gertrude Brown was the president of the school and exuded that sense of power that went with her title. I never got along with her. Miss Sallie E. Lurton was the headmistress of the school, the academic center of the curriculum. She became one of my life mentors.

 

Miss Laura Crease Bunch was the social director. She was delightful, funny, generous spirited, who meted out the punishments for our major offenses (like Halloween pranks) with the good sense and humor that they deserved. In order to manage the business, the school had developed two tracks for the basic curriculum, one for those who aspired to attend an academically challenging college or university and the other for those who planned to attend a finishing school or extend their European grand tour.

 

These curricula included different disciplines (biology rather than earth science) and different English curricula taught by different teachers. The science instruction was particularly good in the academically challenging track, with exceptional teachers in biology, physics, and chemistry. My interaction with the faculty in the other track was limited, except for a noteworthy exchange with the earth science instructor (Miss L). She was a devoted disciple of Miss Brown.

 

Miss Brown created her own little coterie of students and faculty and staff. If you were in that group, you were the elite. Some of the boarding insiders were allowed to live in the president’s house with Miss Brown, accommodations quite elegant for a boarding school. I was not one of the chosen. Was that because I did not fawn in her

presence or aspire to be one of her acolytes? Was it because I chose to substitute a music course for her senior class in art history, because I did not come from old money, or because I was Jewish? Who knew. But in the ignorance that besets young people, I decided to make it very clear that I did not mind being on the outside and that in fact

I did not admire or like Miss Brown very much. I made completely indiscreet and unfounded statements about the state of her mental and intellectual health and more founded statements about her personal hygiene. Miss Brown was not amused.

 

I was sitting in my dorm room when Polly Gordy walked in and said, “Did you hear what Miss L said about you today?” No. What would she have to say about me? I do not even know her.”

 

“Well, she said you were always out of uniform. Your shirts are always wrinkled and recently they were dyed pink. Sometimes you do not even wear a shirt under your sweater. She said you dressed like a slut.”

 

“Like a what? Are you kidding me?”

 

I jumped up from my bed. Checked to make sure that I did in fact have one of my still-white Peter Pan blouses under my sweater, slipped on my oxfords, and stalked out of my room. I speed walked to the academic side of the campus. When I got to Miss L’s classroom, I stood outside the door, waiting for class to be dismissed. She caught sight of me and came to the door. She loomed before me.

 

“I would appreciate it if the next time you have something to say about me, you say it to my face and not to my friends.” I turned on my heel and walked away.

 

My parents found out about the episode and reached out to Miss Sallie Lurton, who was as nurturing as [the headmistress of my previous school] was cold. Miss Lurton was reassuring to my parents, which reaffirmed their opinion that with her in my corner, I was going to be able to navigate this difficult situation even though I was still refusing to admit my own responsibilities in creating it. I learned so much from this episode. First, sometimes it really is the better part of wisdom to keep your opinions to yourself. Second, standing up to bullies is not just gratifying, it enhances your pride and your resilience and thereby enhances your stature in others’ eyes. Finally,

you should recognize and cherish the real mentors in your life.

 

In the spring semester of my senior year, Miss Lurton was the presence at Holton that helped me endure the pain of the second great death in my life, my friend Cliff Matthews.

 

We were discussing Paradise Lost in my English class when there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Rogers went to the door, and we heard some murmuring. Mrs. Rogers came back in and said, “Bobby, you need to go down to Miss Lurton’s office. She needs to speak to you.” I gathered up my books and walked to the door. I could not even imagine what Miss Lurton

would have to say to me. I did not think that there was any more fallout to come from the episode with the earth science teacher, but I wasn’t sure. The student worker who had come to get me was unfazed and did not seem to have any special insights, so we did not speak on our way to the administrative suite on the first floor of the main building.

 

Miss Lurton was standing outside her office, and when she saw me, her eyes filled, and she said, “Thank you, Courtney. Bobby, come on inside my office.”

 

She put an arm around my shoulders, and only then did I start to get worried. “Bobby, let’s sit down.” She pointed to the couch in her office, and she sat down first, ndicating that I sit next to her. “I am so very sorry, Bobby, but I have some very sad news to share with you. There’s no easy way to say it, so I’m just going to say it. I just got off the phone with your parents. Yesterday afternoon, your friend Cliff was in a car accident. He was killed.”

 

The air in her office got very stuffy; I began to have trouble breathing.

 

It could not be. Not Cliff.

 

“Do you want me to get your parents on the phone now? They are waiting to hear from you.”

 

“Yes,” I said. “I need to speak to Mom and Dad. They must be so sad.” Miss Lurton picked up her phone, dialed a number, and handed me the phone.

 

“Bobby, it’s your mom.” Then she walked out of her office and closed the door behind her.

 

Not until I became an academic administrator myself did I realize the power of this gesture from Miss Lurton. Miss Lurton could not make the loss go away, but her kindness and empathy certainly made the experience less painful.

 

. . . 

 

When I entered academic administration, Sallie E. Lurton, Headmistress at Holton, served as my primary role model. In fact, during one of my numerous interviews during those periods of job hunting in 1991-92, I was standing before a mirror in some anonymous hotel in some city I cannot remember. As I adjusted my suit jacket and pulled the sleeves of my blouse below the edges of the jacket sleeves, I thought, “Who am I thinking of? Right, Miss Lurton.” Just as I finished my doctorate and moved to Missouri for my first academic post, I contacted Miss Lurton to let her know what I had been doing in the last number of years. On September 2, 1975, she wrote a letter of congratulations and even more significant a letter of thanks. “I cannot find the words to tell you how much I appreciated your letter. It arrived at a time when I was feeling somewhat depressed—useless

. . . and it raised my spirits to be reminded that I was in the past of some help to others.” 

 

Miss Lurton’s response taught me just how important it is to tell mentors what they mean to you. When I became president of The College of New Jersey, every single time I would receive a complimentary note about a faculty member from a student or a family, I would respond and copy the faculty member to make sure that that mentor knew the important impact that he or she had had on someone’s life. I also learned the lesson of the kind and caring gesture in moments of pain and loss. As president, I called every family after a student death. Before each call I would think, “What can I say?” and after each call, I remembered that no parent cared what you said in these horrible times; they only cared that you cared.