SOH News

30th Anniversary Sneaker Ball

What a great evening! SOH board, staff, donors, and friends gathered at HK Hall in Manhattan on October 16th to celebrate our 30th anniversary. Thanks to everyone who supported the Sneaker Ball and helped us raise more than $115,000 for our programs!

30th Anniversary Kick-Off

More than 200 people attended our June 3rd barbecue to celebrate the end of our 2022-23 academic year and the beginning of our 30th year of service. SOH students and alumni, SOH parents and families, plus faculty, staff and trustees all gathered on the patio of Fisher Hall to share good food and good memories!

A Fond Farewell

After 30 years with Summer on the Hill, Dr. John McIvor has retired.

He began his service in 1993 when he was assistant to Gary Miller, then Horace Mann’s Director of Admissions (and later SOH’s board chairman). Along with Headmaster Phil Foote, the three men discussed how Horace Mann could do more for public school students. From their conversation a vision emerged: an intensive summer program with accelerated instruction in math, science, and language arts for students from low-income families who had been identified as academically talented and highly motivated.

In 1994, Summer on the Hill launched a five-week summer program under John’s direction and with seed money from founding benefactor Bruce Brickman (HM ’70). Subsequent years saw the addition of a Saturday program during the academic year, test prep for middle graders, and college prep workshops and campus visits for high school students.

In 2004, Summer on the Hill became an independent 501(c)(3) charitable organization with John as executive director and Bruce as board chairman. John passed the leadership baton to Markell Parker in 2016 and joined the board. With his retirement, he plans to spend more time traveling with his wife Carole and volunteering in his local parish.

“Nothing gives me more pleasure and pride than to talk with one of our graduates who is now going to college or embarking on a fulfilling career, realizing the dream they had as children.”

SOH is forever indebted to the visionaries who conceived the idea for our program and changed so many lives – especially John McIvor, who dedicated so many years to guiding our program.

2023 Letter from the Executive Director

As a small and nimble organization, SOH turned the challenge of remote programming during the pandemic into an opportunity to make our curriculum more responsive and relevant to our students.

We have become more than an academic enrichment program. It is my belief that we are closer to being a leadership development program or a change agent for a planet in need.

We still teach language arts, math, and science, but new and related subject areas have emerged as equally vital: financial literacy, civics, engineering, and media literacy.

• Our goal in teaching Civics is to equip students with context on their family, neighborhood, and city.

• In Financial Literacy, students learn about money – what it represents and how it moves. That seems to be a taboo subject in education despite how central money is to living a fulfilling life.

• Media Literacy is another neglected yet crucial 21st century skill. According to Statista.com, people consume about 13 hours of media per day. If students do so blindly, they will be ill-equipped to be the successful, informed, contributing citizens we need them to be.

• Lastly, our Engineering curriculum aims to make students resourceful problem-solvers. From de-bugging a parallel circuit that is not lighting all of the light bulbs to designing sustainable hydroponic gardens in a city apartment, we help students develop an analytical and investigative approach to addressing issues that impact their home, their community, and their lives.

SOH has always been a place where potential has met opportunity. That continues to explode into life-changing outcomes for our students and their families. Our secret sauce works! Though it is hardly a secret that if you give young people the resources and the chance to be great, they will excel. When you give a hungry mind a meal of high expectations, they devour it and ask for dessert.

As we prepare for our 30th anniversary, we continue to seek new and innovative ways to harness and multiply the potential energy in young minds and aim it at the extraordinary problems the world is facing. If you are reading this, I thank you for supporting our mission and our vision for the future.