Moses Brown School received an anonymous $1.5 million donation to a new Sailing and Marine Education Center in Cranston at the site where the historic Edgewood Yacht Club is being rebuilt, the school announced Oct. 17. The Edgewood Yacht Club, whose clubhouse burned down in 2011, invited Moses Brown and the University to partner on a project to rebuild and renovate the clubhouse, for use by both of the schools’ sailing teams, according to a press release from the school.
The donation was given to support the Moses Brown Travel, Research and Immersion Programs, known as MB TRIPS, said Matt Glendinning, head of Moses Brown School. The donation would enable the school to access a waterfront building that introduces students to the Narragansett Bay, he added. The school decided where to allocate the donated funds based on internal deliberations and the donor’s interest in strengthening marine and sailing education at the school.
The Edgewood Yacht Club, which is where Moses Brown School originally housed its sailing program, was founded in 1885 and is one of the oldest yacht clubs in the country. The club, which was also home to the University’s sailing team, was destroyed during a blizzard, The Herald reported at the time.
Moses Brown is interested in rebuilding the club’s infrastructure because its vicinity and size were appealing, Glendinning said. Though the University was invited by the Edgewood Yacht Club to take part in the rebuilding process, no decision has been made regarding its participation, said John Mollicone, head coach of the University sailing program and a Moses Brown alum, adding that the decision will be made next month.
The construction of the sailing and marine education center has not started, but the school hopes to break ground on the project this coming year, Glendinning said.
The center will operate as a “1,500-square-foot, free standing building” in the club, Glendinning said. The building would serve as both a classroom and laboratory for marine science courses and will include space to teach “tactics and strategies for sailing,” Glendinning said. There will also be sufficient areas to store equipment, an attached locker room and shower facility and an outdoor washing and cleaning area, Glendinning said.
The school envisions the center as supporting the objectives of MB TRIPS, placing a stress on the importance of experiential learning, Glendinning said.
The school has long been involved in this hands-on method — students of the lower school may travel through campus and “study the trees” and middle school students often participate in an off-campus, four-day team trip prior to the start of the school year.
The school is currently working on the “nitty-gritty” of the design of the sailing and marine eduction programs, Glendinning said. Aside from studies of environmental science and marine biology, the program could also promote learning across various disciplines.
“What we are imagining is using the history and on-site experience as an evocative and experiential way to learn about the history and literature,” Glendinning said. “Wouldn’t it be interesting to actually go out on a boat, go to the very spot and read primary sources that describe the Gatsby affairs? To me, that would lead to somehow more memorable deep learning than sitting in the classroom.”
Glendinning said that the establishment of the center — only 15 minutes away from the Moses Brown campus — makes trips more accessible to students from all economic backgrounds.
“We try to make traveling a fundamental part of how students learn at Moses Brown,” Glendinning said.
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