Back to School

Among the many special attributes of the ASP at St. Paul’s School, one thing in particular stands out: The connection many students maintain with each other and with the program in the years and even decades that follow their summer at SPS. This notion blossoms each July when past students from across generations return to campus for Alumni Day.

 

“As a student the ASP felt like an opportunity to look at my life both forwards and backwards,” says Sheb Swett ’02, a Bow, New Hampshire, native who now lives in New York City where he works as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. “While the whole experience was preparing me for the next step in my life — leaving home for college — it was also firmly rooted in the place I had called home almost my entire life. When I go back to campus for Alumni Day, I feel like I am immediately seeing things with that dual perspective again — the way life can take you places you didn’t expect, but wherever you go there’s always a piece of you that stays behind.”

 

But for alumni like Swett, who interned with the program in 2008 and today is the chair of the ASP Board of Overseer’s Development committee, the chance to reconnect with old friends and the campus is only part of the Alumni Day experience. The event also serves as a chance to meet with more recent ASP students and let them know that he and others can be a resource for them later in life.

 

“As an alumni who moved to New York, I always appreciate connecting with other people from the ASP who ended up in New York City,” says Swett. “In particular, it’s important for me to let young alumni know they have someone to help them in what can sometimes be a daunting transition to life in a big city.”

 

Like Swett, Caitie Cotton ’05 has also maintained close ties with the ASP. A native of Weare, New Hampshire, Cotton interned in 2009 and over the last several summers has taught a course on bio medical ethics for the program.

 

“I love hearing stories of how students were able to take everything learned at ASP back to their high schools, how it influenced what they studied in college, or why they may have even returned to the program as an intern,” says Cotton, who teaches fulltime at the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut. “ASP is so uniquely New Hampshire and often a tradition passed from one grade down to the next, and I think bringing all of that energy back together on Alumni Day is very special.”

 

Cotton has attended 12 Alumni Day events over the years. But one of her most memorable, she says, was one of her earliest, when she was an intern.

 

“That summer I experienced former students coming to visit the class I was working with, but I also got to go visit long-time ASP Master Teacher Richard Schade in his class, “The Quest,” which I took as a student,” she says. “For the students, I think it was fun to see a current intern visiting their class and, for me, it was so fun to know that the students in Herr Schade’s class could also be interns in a few short years, too.”

 

Cotton says this year’s Alumni Day, which returns after a two-year hiatus, will also be a cherished one.

 

“Everyone is excited to be back on campus and on the grounds,” she says. “To be able to see each in person and hopefully unmasked is just unmatched. I hope no matter how long folks have been away from the ASP, they remember they are always welcome back.”