For Chris Howes, wellness is partly about spending time with family and exercising. And if he can be out on a lacrosse field, he indeed feels well. 

The new Loomis Chaffee dean of community life played youth, high school, and college lacrosse, and he has coached in Maryland, where the sport is one with a rich history, and at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. 

“I tell kids it’s an indigenous game and is called the medicine game,” Chris said, “and I have found the way in which the game has impacted my life in a positive way is like medicine to my soul.” 

He said he would like to help lacrosse coach Bill Ball whenever he has time, though he realizes there might not be much of that. Instead, much of his focus and energy will be spent addressing issues of community wellness, starting with the students. 

He said his goal is to build connections with people, understand their needs, and work as a team with all areas of the school that deal with the student experience such as the Health Center and counseling. 

Chris comes to Loomis most recently from Tabor Academy, where he served as the director of community wellbeing from 2022 to 2024. Before that, he was assistant head of school at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania. He is a 1998 graduate of Bates College, was a Klingenstein Fellow at Teachers College at Columbia University, and earned his master’s degree from Wesleyan. 

“I started teaching right out of college,” Chris said, “and loved the classroom but found my favorite parts were the in-between points with kids, the teachable moments with kids, so that led me to student life work, dean of students work. I felt as a dean I could think about … building proactive systems to build culture and community that allow for tackling issues before they become issues. And for the community to engage and support one another.” 

Chris wants students “to feel they are valued and their voice matters, where they are partners in shaping their educational experience and partners in shaping the school.” 

One of the biggest issues schools are dealing with today is the impact of smartphones and social media on the adolescent brain.  

Chris said students today need to learn skills that for years before the proliferation of smartphones were developed “in a much more casual way. So as schools we need to recalibrate and understand what it is we need to be more intentional and purposeful about. ... Some of those things are how we interact with one another. Even the concept of polarization in our country is a byproduct of this. Where are the skills in which we can have dialog — have disagreements but still have dialog and give each other dignity.” 

He also thinks about the adults in the community, whose roles today are “more demanding. How are we shifting our model to support the health of adults in our community who are working with our kids?” 

After all, there can never be too much medicine for the soul.