The Episcopal Academy needs a new campus for a number of reasons. First, it is a far larger and more complex community than it was even 20 years ago. There are more courses, more varsity teams, more arts programs, and more energy. The dynamic new facilities will enable our students to broaden their horizons even further and push their potential to greater heights.

Second, in order to remain one of the top day schools in America, we need a new, larger, unified campus. Leadership and forward thinking means embracing change while mitigating risk; determining your own destiny rather than waiting until your options expire. This campus is our future. It provides the flexibility to grow, to introduce new programs, to build additional facilities, and when needed, to evolve. It ensures that the Episcopal Academy will still be an example of academic excellence long after we’re gone.

This decision makes it possible to build a learning environment that is specifically designed to meet students’ needs, rather than converting or adapting existing facilities.

A lack of adequate field space will be a thing of the past, helping all of our students maximize their physical well-being, staying fit and sharp in body as well as mind, while cherished traditions such EA/Haverford/AIS Day, will act as bridges between the past and the future.

Episcopal is no stranger to breaking new ground. Over the course of two-hundred years and numerous locations, our alumni have continuously created a legacy of intellectual curiosity, bold thinking and courageous leadership. We will take this tradition, history, and mission with us, so that alumni, along with former faculty, former trustees, and others, feel immediately at home on the new campus.

We have a plan in place to ensure that numerous artifacts – including the smaller stained glass windows at the Merion Chapel, the stained glass window here at Devon, the entry gates at Merion, the athletic shields, the reading frog, and numerous sculptures and pieces of art – all make the move with us as well.

Our spiritual center, the Chapel will be the visual anchor of the new campus, and its very placement and scope will make it prominent in students’ day-to-day lives. Because, as has always been the case, reflecting our religious heritage and promoting the importance of values and character is the essence of who we are. Our new campus will not only embody these ideals, but will allow us to explore them in new ways with renewed vigor and purpose.

And perhaps this is what’s most important. Because the true value of the new campus, and all of the advances and improvements it comprises, is that every facet of its design was meant to improve learning and create community.