Tim Murphy ‘96, a distinct member of the prep school community, spent a combined thirteen years on the Williston campus, six as a day student and another seven as an administrator.

He says, “For a variety of reasons I would say the experience of attending a school like Williston and being part of a close-knit boarding school was very meaningful.”

Mr. Murphy first came to Williston as a seventh grader and later went on to the Upper School. In those six years, Mr. Murphy says that he was introduced to “a very diverse range of friends…[who I] continued to stay in touch with throughout the years.” 

Mr. Murphy noted, “[I have] about the same number [of people he stayed in touch with] as in college.”

Mr. Murphy was an enthusiast of the English department as a student at Williston, noting that some of his English teachers, in both the Upper School and the Middle School, were role models for.

Mr. Murphy commented, “Paul Sonerson was my seventh and ninth grade English teacher. Paul was an absolutely unbelievable teacher, and I credit him with my pursuance of English all the way through college.”

Mr. Murphy looks back fondly on his time in Mr. Peter Gunn’s history classroom as well as his U.S. history class with Mr. Glenn Swanson. Mr. Murphy also talked about his interactions with his college counselor, Mr. Tuleja, who is now the school’s Academic Dean.

“[Mr. Tuleja] was somebody I had a great relationship with. He was a really impactful guy,” Murphy noted.

After graduating from Williston, Mr. Murphy went to Boston College in 2000 with a degree in English. Following his graduation Mr. Murphy returned to Williston to work in the Alumni Connections office for one year. After that he worked in the Admissions office for six years. 

During his time in the alumni office, Mr. Murphy worked as the assistant Director of Annual Giving and Young Alumni Outreach. Mr. Murphy’s job in the alumni office included as he notes, “[planning] really fun get togethers for young alums all over the country.”

Mr. Murphy is currently the Director of Secondary School Placement at the Fessenden School in West Newton, Mass. Fessenden is a junior boarding school and goes up to 9th grade, so Mr. Murphy helps students find prep schools to attend after their 9th grade year, similar to how college counseling helps Williston juniors and seniors find colleges.

Mr. Murphy notes, “The fact that I had this incredible independent school experience really inspired me to want to help families work through that process and identify schools that might provide life-changing opportunities for their kids.”

He adds, “No doubt that what I do today is a direct reflection of the incredible experience I had at Williston and it is in my beliefs that my students can seriously benefit from the next school they go to.”

Mr. Murphy reflected on some of the classic Williston traditions such as ringing the victory bell and painting the lion. One experience that Mr. Murphy spoke about was intersession. This was a two-week program that occurred in the early Spring and allowed students to participate in learning experiences outside the classroom, such as betting on horses or scientific studies outside of the United States. This tradition is no longer active at Williston.

Mr. Murphy remembers Intermission fondly, “During intersession all of these really cool two week intensive classes were on campus. There were things like video production, or movie making, maybe a very narrow literary classes that focused around one book,” he notes. Mr. Murphy adds, “There were also on location classes, so I went one year with a dozen of my classmates on a science trip to the Galapagos Islands.”

This opportunity to travel during the first two weeks of March brought Mr. Murphy on his first trip outside of the United States, excluding Canada. He also noted that Al Shaler, a former teacher at Williston, taught a course on horse racing that usually took place in Mr. Shaler’s living room.

Mr. Murphy left the school in 1996 to work at The Fessenden School. Since then, he has been back to Williston multiple times, both for work and to visit the campus.

He remembers Williston and his years here with great appreciation, he notes, “Being a teenager can be hard in a lot of ways. It is a challenging time of life but even as I have progressed through my career and visited every boarding school you have heard of and a hundred you haven’t, I don’t think I have ever come across a school that lessens the blow of the teenage years more than Williston does.”