September 19, 2019

Dear Members of The Hill School Community:

As the Board of Trustees prepares to return to campus next week for our fall meetings, I wanted to share with you some thoughts on the journey we've been on during the past five years -- my tenure as Chairman of the Board. We are roughly halfway through an exciting transformation at The Hill, one that has seen our School make substantial progress toward our long-term goals. In fact, The Hill School today is stronger than it has been in many years across almost every measure, as you will see below.

Changes to our academic program, to our physical plant, and to the student experience have come about partly in response to challenges common to all boarding schools. But beyond these pressures, we are striving to compete more effectively against our peers and be seen as a boarding school leader. And, in the midst of changes, the Trustees and the Headmaster are determined to uphold Hill's commitment to our core values, in essence to living out our ideal “Whatsoever things are true.” Though The Hill's appearance may have changed in some ways, what we stand for will not change.

Now to some of the areas that have me excited and show the kind of progress I mentioned.

Admission
The quality and performance of Admission is like a leading indicator in economics – it presages the quality and health of the student body. Bucking demographic trends, we received 11% more applications last spring than in the previous year, allowing our selectivity (the percentage of students accepted from those who applied) to decrease to 29%, the lowest it has been in memory. Because our yield (those who matriculated three weeks ago divided by those we had accepted) was gratifyingly high, we started this year with an enrollment of 529 young men and women. We also continue to do well enrolling legacy students (those students who follow in a family member's footsteps at Hill), with approximately 30% as legacies. This number of alumni and their children choosing Hill is a very good measure of our standing with those who know us best.

Here are a few metrics looking at our enrollment picture for this year versus five years ago that show our progress.

Student Aid
Because The Hill provides such a superb educational experience, I think it is important that we offer that experience not just to students whose families are financially able, but also to highly capable and deserving students who may need financial assistance to attend the School. We work hard to run the School on a balanced budget, and we control costs commensurately, but student aid plays a vital role in the competition for talented students. Thanks to previous and current alumni support, we are offering more than $8 million in student aid and faculty tuition remission in the current year, with about 38% of the student body receiving some aid.

Our Faculty
For most alumni, a key memory of The Hill is a faculty member who was influential to their experience and personal growth. The heart of our School is the faculty. In 2014, when Mr. Lehman reviewed with the Board his plan to launch a financial campaign to transform the School, he insisted that the first priority be increasing faculty compensation. It was crucial to both keeping the talent we have and attracting new teachers to offset retirement and departures. Because of that focus, we have moved average teaching faculty salaries from below median in our 40-school peer group up to second quartile in five years, and we're aiming to hit top quartile by 2024. For this and other reasons, our faculty turnover has been remarkably steady for many years, averaging about 9% annually, which we believe puts us in the top quartile (lowest turnover) of our peer group.

At the same time, we've worked hard to attract wonderful teaching talent that reflects the increased diversity of the School. The Hill is nearly unique in not relying on expensive recruiters. We manage essentially all of our faculty recruiting through a proprietary internal process, and the results are both striking and cost effective. We've attracted people from around the U.S. and overseas. One had developed his own effective engineering curriculum. One was a past teacher-of-the-year in her state. Two teachers who had left Hill a few years ago to take on school administration roles (both became headmasters of private schools) have returned to Hill to teach, coach, and participate once again in our community. We've attracted coaches who coached or played on NCAA championship teams to lead our programs with startlingly rapid results.

Financial Performance
Our endowment stands at about $170 million. Our financial performance, under the watchful eye of the Board's Investment Committee, has been above average, and our asset allocation is appropriately diversified to help weather the worst of market vagaries. We recognize the investments in The Hill our alumni and parents have made through the years, and we steward them carefully. This year, the School expects to run a small budgetary surplus, something we have done for 11 consecutive years and is critical to avoid stressing the endowment as we address much needed physical plant maintenance on our campus.

Campus Improvements
Thanks to the gifts of so many of you, we've seen the most aggressive improvements to The Hill's campus since John Meigs' regime 120 years ago. Last year we invested more than $16 million to renovate and update the Dining Hall and kitchen facilities. The Hill's food service and quality, as well as the family dining experience, are major selling points to prospective students and families. We've also received strong support allowing us to renovate the Chapel, update dormitories, build faculty houses, and beautify the campus.

Nothing, however, surpasses the importance and excitement of the Quadrivium project. We've taken the historic Widener Arts and Crafts and Science Buildings, and we are completely renovating them inside and out for the first time in their 80-year history. They will be joined with a striking new center structure and atrium to create the Shirley Quadrivium Center, a major investment in Hill's excellence in the science, math, engineering and technology programs. I'd like to thank our faculty, staff, and students for enduring the disruption of a major construction project in such a central part of campus.

In Conclusion
One of our School songs has the words “A thousand hands have labored long, mighty visions to fulfill.” All the changes that have occurred, and all the progress we have made, were due to the efforts of legions of people. Alumni, parents, students, faculty, staff, trustees, senior administration – all have pulled together to get us to this point. But progress is meaningless if it does not have as its primary goal the education and preparation of young people to succeed in college and in life. Even with the changes in curriculum, pedagogy, and physical plant that have occurred, the ethos of The Hill has not.

I am thrilled with our progress and excited for The Hill's future. I thank all of you for your support of our School. As you might expect, it may not be exactly the same as you remember it; it is stronger, more energized, and on a great track. Please come and see for yourself.

Best wishes to you all,

Preston G. Athey '67
Chairman of the Board of Trustees