The Hill School's Junior Prize Day ceremony was held on Tuesday, September 10, 2019. Students were recognized for their achievements in the academics and the arts for the 2018-19 school year. View a list of the prize winners and the awards they received.

During the ceremony, Mr. Matthew Gettings, Senior Master of Mathematics and Faculty Adviser to the Honor Council, was introduced as this year's recipient of The Brody Family Fellowship, an award established by Daniel M. Brody '69 and his wife, Nancy, parents of Douglas R. Brody '02. This generous fund supports the professional growth of Hill's talented faculty.

Headmaster Lehman said the following about Mr. Gettings when he was honored with The Brody Family Fellowship:

Mr. Matt Gettings was already a boarding school veteran when he arrived at The Hill in 1994.  He called the School home for the next four years, serving as an Instructor of Mathematics, a dormitory head, Adviser to the Sixth Form, and a member of the Discipline Committee.  Mr. Gettings also was a member of the Strategic Planning Committee during deliberations prior to The Hill becoming a coeducational institution.

After leaving The Hill in 1998, Mr. Gettings spent the next 12 years at The Governor’s Academy.  We were fortunate to have the opportunity to rehire him in 2011, and for the past eight years he has continued to do just about everything one can do at a boarding school.  Mr. Gettings was promoted to Senior Master of Mathematics in 2016, one year after he received the John H. Woodward Master Teacher Award.  A revered dorm parent, Mr. Gettings was the head of Upper School West for many years, and he was recognized for his dorm parenting excellence in 2014 when he received the Giammattei Award.  Currently, Mr. Gettings is faculty adviser to the Honor Council, and each fall he fearlessly heads the Thirds boys’ soccer team.

In gratitude of his service to the School, I am pleased to extend the Brody Fellowship to Mr. Gettings, who plans to travel to Southern Europe to explore his love of mathematics in addition to researching historical foundations related to his position as faculty adviser to the Honor Council.

You could call his adventure: the Golden Ratio meets the Golden Rule.

Mr. Gettings’ itinerary will take him to Italy, Greece, and Croatia and will include The International Conference on Mathematics: Teaching, Theory and Applications, in Athens in late June, and the Eighth International Conference on Ethics Education, in Zagreb in early July.  While visiting ancient cities – whether walking through a museum or on the streets of an historic locale - his focus will be on the underpinnings of today’s mathematics curricula – including the Golden Ratio - of architecture and art.

Additionally, he plans to follow in the footsteps of some of the great philosophers and thinkers of ancient times as he researches the historic cornerstones to today’s honor and moral codes.

Please join me in congratulating Mr. Gettings on this well-deserved honor.