If you’re reading this, you’ve definitely read page 59 of Milton Academy’s Student Handbook. And pages 78 and 31 too? Every student here has nodded—or at least not actively shaken their head “no”—when asked if they’ve read it. Even freshmen have already heard their teachers refer to the Handbook dozens of times by now. But honestly, that 128-page list of rules and regulations feels more like the terms and conditions you accept when downloading an app—in fact, only 9 out of 29 people polled in the library had read a page, and only 6 had read the whole Handbook. No matter how often it gets referred to, the Handbook falls far short of what we need: articulating a shared, positive vision of the Milton community’s values, which define the key principles that knit us together from the moment we step on campus as opposed to goals, which outline the school’s predetermined plan for us.
The Student Handbook is Milton’s place for its rules, containing every last detail about topics ranging from the late policy (page 31) to what happens if a student is found with string lights in their dorm room (page 78). While the preamble to the handbook claims it is “designed to provide general guidance,” I believe that 128 pages is not very “general” at all. The Handbook tells us—at length—what not to do rather than what we should do. In fact, besides sections on campus features and programs, 46 sections detail prohibitions and consequences for subpar behavior while only 11 lay out expectations for how one should be a good community member.
Alongside the Handbook, Milton faculty often cite our motto “Dare To Be True” as a guideline on how to act at school. In my view, the motto speaks to being yourself and taking advantage of every opportunity that you get at a school like Milton. It serves the purpose of an ideal to strive for, but this motto does not provide any guidelines as to how people in the Milton community should act toward each other.
It turns out that Milton also has a mission statement, something that I didn’t know until I began writing this article. Besides the fact that the mission statement is rarely mentioned in school life, it’s also buried alongside 11 other topics in size 10.5 gray font on the “About” page on Milton Academy’s website. The statement says: “Milton Academy cultivates in its students a passion for learning and a respect for others.” The mission statement goes on to mention Milton’s “di- verse community” and our “active learning environment … that develops creative and critical thinkers.”
While our mission statement gives us insight into what students might expect to gain from their experience here, we are still missing a statement of the values that make the Milton community such a great place to be. To capture the real soul of the school, administrators and admissions officers must remember to reflect Milton’s principles in the materials that paint a picture of our community for prospective students.
When researching how communities articulate who they are and what they’re about, I came across a framework from research organization Boardsource called “Mission - Vision - Values” that is commonly used by nonprofits for defining an organization’s purpose, goals, and core beliefs. The mission statement speaks to why you do what you do; the vision statement talks about your community’s goals; and the values statement is about how you reach your goals. When done well, these are simple statements that every member of the community can remember and easily refer to in guiding their actions. Nonetheless, Milton seems to operate in a “Mission - Vision - Rules” fashion. Nowhere on campus nor online could I find a simple statement of Milton Academy’s values. Milton’s mission is to “develop creative thinkers,” Milton’s vision is to “Dare To Be True,” and Milton’s rules are in the Handbook. But what are Milton’s values? What does the Milton community stand for?
From what I’ve seen of the community, we’re strongly focused on learning about each other to deepen our relationships with both others and the world. Students and faculty treat each other with respect, compassion and curiosity. But when there are not publicly available values of that community embedded in something like the Handbook, it makes it harder to know how to interact.
Milton Academy needs a set of community values that can be cited regularly to make our community stronger and provide students with positive guidelines on how to act during their time at Milton. Our community value statement would be created by the Self-Governing Association (SGA) and faculty to represent what Milton actually stands for in the context of the modern world. I envision these values being posted in every classroom, reminding all of us how to cultivate strong relationships and a healthy learning environment here. I am not proposing that we get rid of anything we already have; the Handbook certainly provides necessary, detailed rules if anyone is to be involved in discipline. But, somewhere between “Dare To Be True” (4 words) and the Handbook (over 24,000) there has to be a common language that defines and captures the values, goals, and expectations of the Milton community.
If you have made it this far in my article, by the way, you have read the equivalent of approximately 3.1% of Milton’s Student Handbook.