Nayoung Yoo arrived at Loomis Chaffee on Thursday, October 23, from South Korea for Family Weekend. “I’m pretty jet-lagged,” she said with a smile on Friday afternoon, cellphone ready for photos, as she stood in Hubbard Music Center before the performing arts sampler.   

In just a few minutes her daughter, freshman Surene Cho, would be performing with the concert choir. There’s nothing like a little music to help shake off a full day of flying.   

“She fell in love with Loomis Chaffee and really wanted to come, and it happened,” Nayoung said. “Dreams come true. And to see her on the stage as a student, beyond amazing.” 

Family Weekend, a two-day event on Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25, is a time when families come from far and near and places in between. They get to spend time with their children and sample what life is like on the Island.  

On one corner of Rockefeller Quad, representatives from the Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies mixed with parents and talked about the International Education Program trips this year. 

Parents also dropped into the Pearse Hub for Innovation (PHI), listened to a conversation with a college dean of admission, and watched as students practiced on the Norris Ely Orchard Theater and in the Black Box Theater for two upcoming Shakespeare plays. Families also enjoyed ceramics teacher Sophie Gibson’s art show in the Mercy Gallery, attended an open house for families of international students, and mingled at another open house in the Center for Inclusive Excellence and Belonging. There also were many athletic events on campus during the weekend and a chance to hear from Head of School Jody Reilly Soja, whose address to parents on Friday packed the Hubbard Performance Hall. 

Jody opened by sharing her impressions of a book she read this summer, My Friends, by Fredrik Backman. This passage projected on the screen led to laughter: “Louisa is a teenager, the best kind of human. The evidence for this is very simple: little children think teenagers are the best humans, and teenagers think teenagers are the best humans, the only people who don’t think teenagers are the best humans are adults. Which is obviously because adults are the worst kind of humans.” 

Jody said she figured she would go to the best humans to ask them what she should share in her opening remarks. So that is what she did. Talk about “all that community stuff,” several students told her. She heard about close friendships with peers, mentoring relationships with faculty and staff, and the feeling that Loomis Chaffee is a home away from home. Then there was a student, Jody said, who seemed to think the head of school was asking about topics for her talk because she was nervous. “Don't worry, Mrs. Soja,” the student said, “you got this!” 

New community-building efforts started last year with dorm dinners and Chapel Talks, where students, faculty, and staff can share personal stories or pieces of music. This year, the first in a series of all-community dinners took place in September, with students and faculty seated around 80 tables on Grubbs Quadrangle. Seating assignments were designed to bring a mix of class years, genders, and interests to each table. Many did not know each other. Jody’s table, by luck of the draw, had 10 girls and one boy. “This is either your dream come true — or your worst nightmare,” she said she told the boy. At the end, she thanked him for being a good sport. “I had fun,” he said.  

Another all-community dinner is scheduled for November. There also have been multi-dorm community dinners and  a few weekends where all students must be on campus, with special activities planned. Jody noted the energy of the campus, sidelines filling up for games and students supporting each other in various ways. 

“Joy and academic challenge are not mutually exclusive,” Jody said. “This should be a really joyful, vibrant, happy place to come to school. ... Our students and adults work exceptionally hard, and the quality of those relations and our ability to have fun and be silly together are no less important than the hard work they’re doing.”  

The parents of senior Jayden Williams came from Maryland for Family Weekend. Jayden’s mom, Kelly, said the school has given Jayden “her voice.” 

“She is involved in a lot of activities. ... She has really found a place in her community, made lifelong friends,” Kelly said. “The school has given her a platform for her future life, how to study, how to navigate life in her own.” 

As Kelly said, Jayden moved more than a six-hour drive from home as a freshman, and finding the right school was about fit. “We visited multiple schools and this was the fit,” Kelly said. 

Fit was a word also used by Jennifer Dowe, mother of freshman Riley, of Ellington, Conn. 

“This was the best fit for her,” Jennifer said. “She is surrounded by like-minded students. ... She feels accepted and welcomed here very nicely.” 

As Jayden’s father, Edward, looked out at the campus from Rockefeller Quad, he said, “It is a beautiful campus, almost like a college, and I love the scenery in the fall.”