Masters School

The Masters School
Do It With Thy Might
Location
49 Clinton Ave Dobbs Ferry, NY, USA
Information
Type	Private, boarding
Established	1877
Founder	Eliza B. Masters
Head of school	Maureen Fonseca, Ph.D.
Grades	5-12
Enrollment	Upper School: 415 Middle School: 164
Campus	96 acres (390,000 m2)
Color(s)	Purple and white
Mascot	Panthers
Newspaper	Tower
Yearbook	Masterpieces
Website	http://www.mastersny.org/

The Masters School, known as "Masters", is a private, coeducational boarding school and day college preparatory school located in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Its 96-acre (390,000 m²) campus is located near Manhattan in the Hudson Valley in Westchester County. Originally founded as an all girls private school in 1877 by Eliza Bailey Masters, the school first admitted boys in 1996. Notable alumni include Marin Alsop, Nancy Kissinger, Jill Kremetz, Betsy Gotbaum, Victoria Hagan, and Kara DioGuardi.

Student body

The Masters School has over 570 students in grades 5-12. The school is co-educational with the exception of grades 6-8 in which most classes are separated by gender. Masters students come from 17 states and 17 countries. In the Upper School, 14% of students are international.

Faculty

Over 70% of the faculty have advanced degrees.^{[citation needed]} The average class size is 14 students.^{[citation needed]}

Campus

The school’s extensive wooded and lawned 96-acre campus is on a hilltop in Dobbs Ferry, a historic village with a sloping geography and waterfront on the Hudson River. A five-minute walk from the campus lookout over the Hudson brings students down to the heart of town, and a 40-minute train ride from there brings faculty and students to New York City.

Located in the center of campus, two dormitories for boys and three dormitories for girls accommodate more than 150 upper school students from throughout the country and from around the world. The boys' dorms are Thompson and Strong; the girls' dorms are Ford, McCormack, and Cole.

The campus includes Estherwood, a late 19th-century mansion that is the only châteauesque building in Westchester County. It and its carriage house are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It houses faculty in apartments on the upper floors, and the first floor and grounds offer a unique setting for school parties and programs. Student chamber ensembles perform in Estherwood and, each year, drama students present one-act plays in one of the mansion’s rooms.

Facilities

• Masters Hall, which dates back to 1921, is the academic hub of the School. Renovated in 1972 following a devastating fire and again in 2005, it is a state-of-the-art facility for the twenty-first century. The building features the completely refurbished 30,000-volume Pittsburgh Library and McKnight Reading Room; Upper School academic classrooms with Harkness tables and ceiling-mounted LCD projectors; a digital media lab, language lab, and computer lab; and administration and faculty offices.

• Morris Hall is the science and technology center. The building houses classrooms with Harkness tables and fully equipped science laboratories for teaching biology, physics, environmental science, and chemistry; faculty offices; two computer studies rooms; and a special lab for independent research.

• The Middle School building opened in January 2005. It houses twelve spacious classrooms; the Great Hall, which accommodates the entire Middle School for morning meeting, assemblies, and special events for the entire school; common areas on each floor for informal meetings and socializing; an art classroom and kiln; and a music room with keyboards.

• Cameron A. Mann Dining Hall is the school's dining hall. The Dining Hall serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily for boarding and day students and is the site of many student and faculty hosted dinners and community events. The dining hall houses the student activity center and meeting spaces.

• Claudia Boettcher Theatre is a 450-seat theatre in which actors, musicians, singers, and dancers perform. It is also the School’s gathering place where the entire Upper School assembles most mornings to begin the academic day.

• Strayer Hall houses the school’s Gymnasium, Fitness Center, Music Center, and Dance Studio.

• Art Studio is a two-story art studio adjacent to the theatre. A digital media lab and darkroom are located nearby.

School traditions

• Morning Meeting

• Delta-Phi Identities

All members of the school's community are randomly assigned a Delta or Phi identity that stays with them for their time at Masters. If a student has a relative that attends or attended The Masters School then he/she will be assigned to the same team. Delta sports blue shirts while Phi is red. The school color is purple which arises from mixing the two colors. At the beginning of each year Delta's and Phi's compete on a special day called Founder's Day in a giant match of tug of war.

Athletics

The school offers the following sports each season:

Fall Cross Country Soccer Field Hockey Volleyball

Winter Basketball Fencing (Epee, Foil, and Sabre)

Spring Lacrosse Baseball Softball Tennis Golf

In the winter of the 2007-2008 school year, the Masters Varsity Basketball team won the NYSAISAA Class C State Champion title, beating second seed Loyola on March 9, 2008.

The Masters School fencing program has won 5 consecutive Independent School Fencing League Championships (Team and multiple individual championships).

Academics and curriculum

The minimum course load each year includes five major courses. Graduation requirements include four years of English, three years of a foreign language, three years of mathematics, two years of lab science, three years of history (including U.S. history), religion (a one year minor), grade 9 introductory computer science course, humanities minor in grade 9, visual or performing arts minor, speech, health, and four years of physical education or other athletic credit.

The Masters School offers honors sections in the sciences, mathematics, and languages. Advanced Placement courses are offered in a wide variety of subject areas.

Arts and music

In the fields of theater, dance, music and the fine arts, many classes are offered during and after the school day.

Theatre

The Drama department puts on three theater productions each school year, a straight play in the fall, a musical in the winter, and a night of one-act plays in the spring, which takes place at Estherwood. During the 2009-2010 school year The Masters School had nine productions!

Music

The music program offers classes and private lessons during the school day, one of the most popular being the school's chorus, known as Glee Club. Smaller a cappella groups are also popular. Students may participate in any of three groups. The Naturals, an all male group, Dohters, all female, and Dobbs 16, a coed group. Dobbs 16 has won competitions including the Northeast regional of National Championship of High School A Capella 2005. The group toured China in the spring of 2008 and went on the Tyra Banks show in the fall of 2009. The students also participate in Orchestra and Jazz Band.

Dance

The dance program offers classes during the day and three audition-only dance companies. Muse and Urban Connection perform modern/ballet and hip-hop, respectively. The Masters School Dance Company performs twice a year, and in it students have the opportunity both to choreograph their own pieces and to havs pieces set on them by professional choreographers.

Visual arts

The visual arts program offers classes during the day, which can fulfill the arts requirement. Studio art minor classes are offered for one semester, and the more intensive major classes are offered for the entire year. These classes focus on a variety of mediums such as drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, and printmaking.

Journalism

The school newspaper is The Tower

Notable former students

• Kara DioGuardi
• Marin Alsop
• Nancy Kissinger
• Hannah Friedman
• Martha Farish Gerry
• Ruth Hanna McCormick
• Ruth Rowland Nichols

Notable faculty

• Grete Sultan
• Gwendolyn Bradley

External links

• The Masters School, official website.
• CITYterm at the Masters School