Tabor Academy
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Tabor Academy is a four-year independent preparatory school located in Marion, Massachusetts in the United States.
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[edit] History
Tabor was founded in 1876 as a school for elitist children from Marion by a bequest in the will of Elizabeth Taber, a wealthy widow from the town. She didn't wish to name the school after her, so she named it after Mt. Tabor.1 Tabor was reorganized in 1916 as an independent secondary school by Headmaster Walter H. Lillard. The school was, until the late 1940's, a military-style maritime school where uniformed "cadets" performed morning and evening drill as well as other military routines daily. It then became a Naval Honor School with occasional military marching. Two other headmasters followed Lillard, James E. Wickenden and Peter M. Webster. The headmaster as of 1989 is Jay S. Stroud.
[edit] Campus
Tabor's campus a rural / small town campus. It is totally open and ungated. The campus is divided into three sections by two public roads (Front Street and Spring Street); both of which are small town arterials with only light to moderate traffic. The freshman dormatory and dining center (both in Lillard Hall), the performing arts center (in Hoyt Hall), the Oceanography Center, and some athletic fields and tennis courts form the waterfront portion of the campus (which is a distinction for Tabor Academy). Across Front Street is the academic and athletic core of the campus comprising of the Academic Center, the Hayden Library and Science Building, and the Athletic Center, as well as additional playing fields and the art studio. Across Spring Street is the more rural part of the campus, comprising of the Wickenden Chapel and several small dormatories which appear to be cottages or private homes from the outside. The lack of gates and fences create a seamless blending of the campus with the surrounding community.
[edit] Academics
The Tabor campus in the small town of Marion stretches along a half mile of Sippican Harbor on Buzzards Bay leading to the Atlantic. Tabor offers a rigorous academic program that provides a solid foundation for study at competitive colleges. For a school of its size, the curriculum contains an especially broad spectrum of courses, from introductory levels to honors and 21 AP courses to highly sophisticated opportunities for independent work. Tabor offers classes in the traditional liberal arts fields such as the humanities, math and the sciences but also unusual offerings for a secondary school such as Greek, archeology, Chinese Language, lighting design and numerous nautical and marine science courses in the school's brand-new one-of-a-kind waterfront Marine Science building (opened for the first time for classes in September, 2005, this building was the winner of several architectural awards).
Tabor utilizes its waterfront location in a variety of ways. It is one of the few secondary schools in the United States to offer extensive programs in nautical science and oceanology. The school also owns Tabor Boy, a 92-foot Dutch Pilot Schooner, which is a certified school sailing vessel. Tabor Boy has logged tens of thousands of miles with her crews of Tabor students, from nearby Buzzards Bay to the Caribbean.
[edit] Athletics
Tabor fields 55 different teams in 23 interscholastic sports and another 15 instructional programs. The school has a large Athletic Center, which includes an indoor hockey rink and a fitness center. Notably missing is a swimming pool; due to the high cost of liability insurance for a swimming pool, Tabor Academy felt that the money could be put to better uses. Tabor does have the waterfront in Marion for swimming in the Summer months. Tabor's men's ice hockey team, 3 time New England Champions, has produced over 2 dozen NCAA Division 1 and NHL caliber players over the last 20 years. Tabor also has extensive waterfront facilities, including the 92' schooner S.S.V. Tabor Boy. The Tabor sailing team is consistently strong, having won the Inter-Scholastic Sailing Association New England Schools Sailing Association (NESSA) Team Racing championship several times in the early 2000s. Although in recent years they haven't made it to the top four in national competitions. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the boy's and girl's basketball teams were consistently the champions or runners-up in Class B of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Conference. Fall Sports: Girls/Boys Soccer, Boys Football, Girls Field Hockey, (Instructional Crew, Sailing, Squash, and Tennis) Winter Sports: Girls/Boys Basketball, Girls/Boys Squash, Girls/Boys Ice Hockey, (Conditioning) Spring Sports: Girls/Boys Crew, Girls/Boys Lacrosse, Boys Baseball, Girls Softball (Senoir Conditioning)
[edit] Student life
Tabor is primarily a boarding school that enrolls approximately 490 students. About 75 percent of those students live in dormitories on campus while the remaining 25 percent are day students who live at home and commute to the school. There are many activities for students to participate in. A few include: dances, "coffee houses", movies, trips to Boston, and various club run activities.
[edit] Notes
- Note 1: Mount Tabor is a hill in Israel, near Nazareth, believed by many to be the site of the Transfiguration of Christ
