The Deerfield STEM Deficit

HEIDI LIANG/DEERFIELD SCROLL

On any given fall Wednesday, Science Teacher and Varsity Football Coach Jeffrey Crosby will spend more time with his football team in one afternoon than he does with his Honors Chemistry 2: Research class in an entire academic week. Both Varsity Football and Chemistry Research are meant to be the highest level of a team or a class that a student can be a part of at Deerfield. Yet, because of Deerfield’s curriculum and schedule, the football team will receive significantly more time with Dr. Crosby, who holds a PhD in molecular biology, than his chemistry students ever will. 

This pattern reveals a fundamental problem with how Deerfield approaches science. Unlike an English or history essay, science cannot happen in an isolated dorm room late at night. It requires access to laboratories, equipment, and mentors—all resources that Deerfield has, but doesn’t use. 

Deerfield's graduation requirements offer a starting point. While 28 terms worth of humanities classes are necessary to graduate, only 15 terms of math and science classes are required. Even if students routinely exceed those minimum requirements, the contrast emphasizes Deerfield’s preference for the humanities. The electives that seniors can take tell a similar story. While seniors can choose from over 18 history electives and 22 different English classes, students only receive 13 different choices of science electives and essentially a set progression for math classes. The problem isn’t necessarily that Deerfield overemphasizes the humanities, but that Deerfield does not provide the resources necessary to its students to fully pursue STEM, despite having the resources to do so. 

Yet the numbers only tell one part of the story. A student interested in historical or literary research at Deerfield can do so at any time, even in the comfort of their own rooms. The only requirements are a computer with an email account and internet access to JSTOR. Student-run initiatives that are sponsored and funded by the school show similar patterns. Clubs like the Scroll, Speech and Debate, Model United Nations, and Albany Road receive thousands per club in separate funding, making publishing and sending competitive teams around the world possible. The debate team has been able to send a delegation to the World Championships each year on the school’s dime, and the school has allowed students to miss more than a week of classes for the opportunity. Meanwhile, the MUN team has attended Harvard MUN and Yale MUN—the two most prestigious tournaments in the entire country—for at least all four years I’ve attended Deerfield. At both an individual and institutional level, we are given the opportunity and resources to succeed in the humanities at Deerfield. 

There are no similar opportunities in STEM. Original science research, now important in an increasingly competitive college admission scene, requires a laboratory with adult supervision, equipment, and often a faculty mentor. At Deerfield, that currently looks like taking one of the four research classes offered to seniors and the occasional junior. Even then, these classes do not produce original research but function more as a supervised familiarization with lab protocol. Worse, these classes meet for at most four hours a week—significantly less time than any cocurricular team would spend playing an away game on Wednesday, and a pitiful amount compared to the time necessary to conduct proper scientific research. The research background of competitive STEM applicants that our similarly well-funded peer schools have simply cannot be attained within the Deerfield curriculum. There's a reason that Deerfield, despite being in Massachusetts, sends far more students to Yale than it does to MIT. 

The cocurricular schedule exacerbates this issue. Although it is possible to receive a cocurricular exemption to pursue science research, doing so requires finding a faculty mentor, who is usually coaching a sport during that time. As a result, the precious hours in which lab work could be happening overlap with the very hours that every qualified science teacher on campus would be on the athletic field. In order to find time, Science Teacher Dr. Jenn Pousont goes out of her way to open the lab for Honors Biology 2 Research students before 1st and 4th period, during the 15 minutes before lunch, flex time, and even during school meetings, so that her students can have time to work on their projects. 

Outside of the curriculum, opportunities are similarly sparse. Student-run STEM clubs only receive the standard $300 budget every other club receives, far from enough to pursue any serious research. Moreover, with the exception of the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) and the Physics Olympiad (F=MA), the Science Department has stopped sponsoring olympiad science, the other alternative to research, even when students offered to find proctors themselves. Compared to our peer schools, we are sorely lacking in these opportunities. In the past five years, Deerfield has had, to my knowledge, four students in total qualify to either the USA Math Olympiad (USAMO) and the semifinal rounds of the USA Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO), or the USA Biology Olympiad (USABO). In 2024 alone, Andover and Exeter had four and five medalists, respectively, in the USAMO. While this could be because Deerfield has fewer STEM-oriented students compared to the humanities, that in itself is a self-fulfilling prophecy: students with a stronger STEM skill set who are accepted to Deerfield have less of an incentive to come to a school with a comparatively weak science and math program. There is no way that a dedicated science student can pursue their ambitions at Deerfield the same way that a dedicated humanities student can, whether that be inside or outside the curriculum. 

The problem with Deerfield STEM isn’t that the school doesn’t have laboratories, equipment, or extremely overqualified faculty. Students just cannot utilize them. 

Deerfield’s academic administration is at the root of the problem. Educational institutions, especially their curricula, reflect the vision of the people who lead them. Deerfield’s current academic leadership has been shaped far more by the humanities than the natural or formal sciences. Head of School Dr. John Austin holds a PhD in English and comparative literature and previously taught English. Outgoing Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Anne Bruder holds a PhD in English Language and Literature. Dean of Studies Ms. Lydia Hemphill is a Latin teacher. Incoming Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs, Mr. Brian Hamilton, chaired the history department. While the previous Dean of Academics, Dr. Ivory Hills, held a PhD in Organic Chemistry, Dr. Hills has since left Deerfield in 2024 to become the Head of School at St. Marks. This isn’t meant to criticize the capacity of any single individual or the Academic Affairs department. However, it is meant to demonstrate that when major decision-makers for the academic curriculum share the same humanities background, the curriculum they create may not capture the full needs of advanced science. 

The solution to Deerfield’s science deficit is straightforward. It looks like granting more science teachers exemptions from coaching duties to allow students easier access to the lab during cocurricular time. It looks like allowing students to pursue Olympiad science, just as Speech and Debate or MUN, is supported. It looks like implementing a program like Choate’s Science Research Program, where students are paired with university professors and can pursue serious science research projects for the entirety of their junior summer. A sanctioned summer program could allow students to continue participating in cocurricular activities while also being given access to the lab. As much as it pains me to admit, Choate’s current science curriculum and program give its students vastly more opportunities like the SRP than Deerfield’s. 

Deerfield describes in its mission statement that it aims to prepare students for a rapidly changing world. The administration recognizes the importance of science and technology in the future, enough to host the most recent Deerfield Forum on gene editing. Yet, despite that, it fails to grant the science students researching CRISPR gene editing technology in Honors Chemistry 2 more time with their mentor in a week than the football team does.