Summer Director Retires After 19 Years

Every August for the past 19 years, Elizabeth Chapman Hewitt has seen her students pack their belongings and leave Cambridge for destinations throughout the country, carrying with them memories of their Harvard experiences. Today she will join them.

The veteran director of Harvard’s Secondary School Program (SSP)—known for her direct style of interaction and exacting standards—is retiring from her post with the closure of this summer term. She hopes to take advantage of her first year away from the Cambridge bustle to finish a nonfiction book called So There, Stupid World that she began as a student several years ago, she says.

During her years at the helm of the SSP—a program enabling about 1,000 high-school students to enroll in classes and extracurricular activities at the Harvard Summer School—Hewitt came to be known best for her distinctive administrative and personal manner, colleagues say.

“Most people, when they’re first introduced to it, are astonished by her style,” says SSP Assistant Dean Keith Moon, who has worked with Hewitt for a total of eight summers. “She is blunt, and she is spare with her language. She says what she thinks needs to be said, and I think that is sometimes jarring for folks around her.”

But Moon says Hewitt’s direct, if sometimes brusque, style has garnered respect among many of her colleagues because of the candor it countenances.

“I always know exactly where Elizabeth is coming from,” he says. “What I like about working with Elizabeth is that I can disagree with her and we can have an honest discussion. She is not afraid to disagree with anyone.”

Hewitt’s co-workers describe her a conscientious administrator fearlessly true to her own beliefs—and to her love of precise grammar.

“She’s a stickler for correct use of the English language and she is not afraid to correct people of any rank, including many of her colleagues with a Ph.D.,” says Summer School Dean of Students Christopher Queen.

Co-workers credit growth and development of the SSP over the past 20 years primarily to Hewitt, who became director of the then-10-year-old program late in 1984.

Since then, she has been closely involved with every aspect of the program, reading students’ applications over the course of the year and hand picking the proctors—many of whom are former students in the program—who work closely with the high school students outside the classroom.

Now, as she prepares to retire, Hewitt—who will be succeeded by William J. Holinger from the Graduate School of Education—says she’s sorry to leave the group of colleagues that she has assembled around her.

“I’ll miss the assistant deans with whom I’ve worked over the years and the proctors,” she says. “I’ve enormously enjoyed them.”

Each summer, as other University administrators found some relief from the academic year’s fast pace, Hewitt faced the arrival of hundreds of high-school students. But her busiest season, she says, was by far her favorite.

“It’s been a pleasure to be with this marvelous group of people year after year. The summer is what you live for in this program. The winter is just something to get through.”

Under Hewitt’s leadership, the number of students enrolled in the SSP increased, and program itself saw a number of adjustments.

“It has become a more fun place,” Moon says. “What haven’t changed are her standards and expectations.”

Because the SSP is not used to recruit students to Harvard College in particular, the program also sponsors bus trips to surrounding colleges.

Hewitt organizes a yearly discussion panel of proctors to offer students a broad perspective on their college options.

“We end with a rather short dramatic talk on why not to go to Harvard. We give them 10 good reasons,” she explains.

Hewitt also oversaw the creation of a student talent show and trivia bowl that have since developed into a popular tradition.

“Last year a student came [to the SSP] just to win the trivia bowl,” she says. “He came in second.”

Hewitt says she views the program as an environment in which high-school students can find enjoyement in academics.

“We really hope that a course will fire students up in a way that high-school courses have not,” she says.

Hewitt says she also hopes that students in the program—many of whom may be spending weeks away from home for the first time—begin to learn proper adult behavior.

Her strong and unremitting emphasis on discipline has not been popular among all students, Queen explains.

“She’s had students who think she’s much too stern in her approach,” he says.

But Hewitt says several students have reported developing stronger time management during their weeks at the SSP—a learning process the program aims to engender.

Now, after nearly 20 years of working at Harvard according to a rigid schedule, Hewitt has to re-budget her own time in the face of a new lifestyle.

She will be leaving her home in Lexington to live in southwestern New Hampshire. Hewitt, who arrives at her office at 6 a.m. every day, says she most looks forward to a chance to wake up later.

“I will no longer get up at five in the morning. It will be a great pleasure to sleep until a civilized hour,” she says.

Hewitt has already planned her new daily schedule. She will write for three hours each morning, she says, and spend the afternoon pursuing one of several recreational activities possible in the rural area where her new home is located.

Hewitt estimates that three hours of writing every day will enable her to finish in one year a book that she has been drafting for “far too long”—a project that she began in graduate school.

It is not only the free hours but the change of setting that excites her. She describes with uncharacteristic effusiveness a particular sheep-covered hill near her new New Hampshire home.

“The sheep are guarded by an elegant llama, and it is a pleasure to say hello to the llama every day,” she explains.

Hewitt says she may work as a volunteer teacher in some of the New Hampshire grammar schools as well, continuing a career in education even after retirement. She spent her academic career teaching Expository Writing in addition to upholding her administrative duties.

“It’s the only thing I know how to teach,” she says. “I’m really ignorant in several fields.”

But colleagues such as Moon describe Hewitt as a well read educator with an acute sense of humor and—behind a stern facade—a passion for teaching and for her students’ wellbeing.

“She is someone who has devoted a major portion of her career to young people, motivating and inspiring them,” Queen says. “We’re very sorry to see her retire.”

—Staff writer Nathan J. Heller can be reached at heller@fas.harvard.edu.