Harkness Table Arrives At Auldern Academy

When Bill Grant arrived at Auldern Academy, one of his desires was to "bring the classrooms to state of the art." Bill came from traditional boarding schools and thought that a therapeutic school such as Auldern truly needed to "look and feel" more like a traditional school. His goal is to enhance our excellent education with state of the art equipment. Thus, he introduced us to the "Harkness table."

Wikipedia describes the Harkness table as this:
Harkness table refers to a style of teaching wherein students sit at a large, ovular table with their teachers, in use at many American boarding schools and colleges. It encourages classes to be held in a discursive manner.

Developed at Phillips Exeter Academy, the method's name comes from the oil magnate and philanthropist Edward Harkness, a graduate of St. Paul's School (Concord, NH) who presented the school with a monetary gift in 1930.

He described its use as follows:
What I have in mind is [a classroom] where [students] could sit around a table with a teacher who would talk with them and instruct them by a sort of tutorial or conference method, where [each student] would feel encouraged to speak up. This would be a real revolution in methods.

Bill's dream began to come true this fall with the generous support of a father of one of our students, Jimmy Smith. Mr. Smith, a history major in college, has been very appreciative of all that Auldern has done for his daughter, both academically and emotionally. He began to talk to Bill about what he could do for the school to show his appreciation that would best serve the Auldern girls. His daughter, Amy, is scheduled to graduate from high school this December and he wanted to leave a special gift in her name.

On November 3, 2008, we held a dedication of the Social Studies room, which is now named the "Smith History Room". Jimmy had the room completely outfitted with a new Harkness table and the 14 chairs, flat screened tv, dvd player, laptop and LCD media projector and screen. Jimmy came to campus to meet the girls and to see the newly outfitted room.

The staff and students of Auldern are greatly appreciative of Jimmy for his generous donation. He has given us a gift that will be used by many generations of Auldern students.

Auldern Academy is a therapeutic boarding schools in North Carolina serving young women grades 9-12. It is owned and operated by Three Spring, Inc.