page_title: Pomfret School
section_title: Prominent guests & Fellows
hierarchical_section_title: Pomfret School / Prominent guests & Fellows
caption_attribution_description: Photo of Christine Todd Whitman, former New Jersey Governor and Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 2001-03
context_page_description: Pomfret School is an independent, coeducational, college preparatory boarding and day school in Pomfret, Connecticut, United States, serving 360 students in grades 9 through 12 and post-graduates.
  Located in the Pomfret Street Historic District, a 45-minute drive west from Boston, the average class size is 11 students with a student-teacher ratio of 6:1. Over 80% of faculty hold master's or doctorate degrees. Typically, 40% of students receive financial aid or support from over 60 endowed scholarship funds, 9% are students of color, 17% are international students.
  Pomfret is ranked in the top 20 of similarly sized U.S. boarding schools, in the top 50 of all U.S. boarding schools, and has been recognized as one of the "Most Beautiful Boarding Schools Around the World." The 2008 film Afterschool by Antonio Campos was filmed on Pomfret's campus.
  Opened October 3, 1894 by Founder William E. Peck and his wife Harriet Jones Peck, who designed the school's coat of arms, Pomfret's graduates have distinguished themselves in sports, government, the arts, sciences, business, and public service as philanthropists and activists.
context_section_description: Through Pomfret's Schwartz Visiting Fellow Program, the school hosts a prominent figure from the world of art, literature, science, or politics invited to the campus for three days each year to share their unique experiences, ideas, and insights. Additionally, the school invites other speakers through its Lasell Visiting Alumni/ae Program and the W.P. Carey '48 College Admission Lecture Series. All Fellows and guests are recorded in the official records of Pomfret School.
  Robert Ballard, oceanographer, discoverer of RMS Titanic
  The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor of the City of New York
  David Brinkley, co-anchored of The Huntley-Brinkley Report and NBC Nightly News
  Tom Brokaw, anchor of the NBC Nightly News
  Bill Bryson, writer A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
  Oteil Burbridge, bass guitarist for the Allman Brothers Band
  Chevy Chase, writer, actor, performer
  Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, (D-NY) first African American woman elected to the United States Congress
  Jean-Michel Cousteau, explorer, environmentalist, educator, film producer
  Jacques d'Amboise, world-renowned dancer with the New York City Ballet Company
  Wade Davis, noted Canadian anthropologist, ethnobotanist, author and photographer
  Brian Dennehy, actor
  Bob Feller, Hall of Fame Major League Baseball pitcher
  Shelby Foote, author and American Civil War historian
  Carlos Fuentes, Latin American novelist
  Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
  Benny Goodman, jazz musician, clarinetist and bandleader
  Brian Greene, physicist and string theorist
  Chuck Hogan, novelist known for The Prince of Thieves and the Strain Trilogy co-authored with Guillermo del Toro
  Donald Johanson, paleoanthropologist, discovered the 3.2-million-year-old skeleton known as "Lucy"
  Peter Kaplan, editor-in-chief of the New York Observer
  Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Angela's Ashes
  David McCullough, writer, historian and host of The American Experience on public television
  Joyce Carol Oates, national award-winning author
  George Plimpton, journalist, writer, editor, and actor
  Carolyn Porco, planetary scientist and director of NASA's Cassini Imaging Team
  Carole Simpson, ABC News anchor
  Ray Suarez, PBS broadcast journalist
  Governor Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., (R-CT) U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator and Governor of Connecticut
  Governor Christine Todd Whitman, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Governor of New Jersey
  Victor Wooten, bass guitarist for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones
  Cheryl West, playwright, recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Playwriting Award, Helen Hayes Charles McArthur Award, AUDELCO Award, and others
caption: Christine Whitman
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