By Cody Pomeranz ‘11, Co-Editor-in-Chief
It was 9:30 am in Harvard Square, and Peter Fossett was in a hurry. The first day at any law school would be stressful, but Harvard took the anxiety to a whole new level. He darted across Massachusetts Avenue and onto Everett Street, eyeing Harkness Commons, the student law center, in the distance. The freshman trotted past the slew of bike racks and through the patio of metallic lunch tables. Three female students followed closely behind him. Coffee in hand and a satchel strapped across his shoulder, he halted in front of the door to catch his breath. It was almost 70 degrees under the effulgent Cambridge sun and he was seriously beginning to wonder why he had chosen pants and a sweater as his first-day apparel. The three young women behind him had finally caught up.
“Uh, hello? You’re blocking the door,” one of them piped in an arrogant tone.
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” he replied. “Come on, guys,” he said, chivalrously opening the door and motioning them inside. The three students stopped dead in their tracks, shooting him laser-like glares like a pack of wolves eyeing their prey. Fossett continued to hold the door open as he tried to understand their defiance.
“We’re not guys,” the middle one said emphatically. “We’re women.” The feminist Harvard law trio continued through the door and into the commons. My God, Fossett thought, what have I gotten myself into in this hotbed of liberalism? “Guys,” apparently, was not a gender-neutral term, at least not at Harvard. And he would quickly find that the liberal activist spirit that he had encountered on his first day was not isolated.
Fossett, whereby his own admission was a self-proclaimed “knee-jerk” fiscal conservative, foreign policy hawk and “Cold Warrior” in his student days, holds many memories of being a political minority. In one instance, during Fossett’s first year of law school, President Ronald Reagan came to speak in downtown Boston during the 1984 presidential campaign. Fossett stood up in the middle of his Torts class and announced that he was going to the Reagan event and wanted to invite anybody interested to come. His offer was met with a protracted silence and a room full of glares. The thought of even going to see Reagan speak, let alone support him, was repulsive to his classmates.
Fresh out of Colgate with a Political Science degree and a 99th percentile LSAT score, Fossett was bombarded by offers from the most prestigious law schools in the country. Northwestern Law School offered him a full-ride scholarship, Duke put $30,000 per year on the table, the University of Chicago made their wager, and myriad other esteemed institutions from the University of Pennsylvania to Cornell were ready to welcome him with open arms. But names can be persuasive, and the acceptance letter from Harvard was too hard to resist. “You know, I loved law school,” Fossett said. “But if I had to do it over again, I would like to see what would’ve happened had I chosen the Northwestern scholarship.”
While law school was expectedly intellectually stimulating, practicing the law proved a much more insipid task than Fossett had imagined. After a summer of a brutally taxing internship writing hundred-page memos on pension plans, Fossett rethought his path. Following his first year at Harvard, he took time off. “I had a bit of a crisis,” Fossett said. “My initial experience with a corporate law firm had been awful and I was beginning to question whether law school was worth the money and time.”
With a spare year on his hands, he ventured off to Europe where he ended up going to a school in the south of France. He added to his continuing education with law classes at Emmanuel College of Cambridge University. Following his gap year, Fossett headed back to Harvard, still uncertain about the law. “Things got better,” Fossett said. An interest in building golf courses brought him to an enjoyable internship with a law firm in Phoenix. Fossett also interviewed at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and contemplated taking a job as a law clerk for a federal judge in Arizona. But corporate law firms had their appeal, especially when it came to finances. He had always wanted to return to Cincinnati, and with a Harvard law degree in hand, Fossett landed a job at a law firm downtown. What little affinity he had left for corporate law was lost when he returned to his hometown. To put it simply, “It was miserable.” Within a year, he was fed up with practicing for a private firm. After dabbling in editorial work for a publishing company, Fossett was named the group’s house council. The legal work at the publishing company may have been a step up from the law firm, but the dullness of the work still bothered him. His wife begged him to quit, and she would eventually get her wish.
“I want to provide a better car-buying experience for women,” she told him. “So I’m going to start a car dealership run by women for women. Quit your job, come home, and take care of the kids.” Fossett replied with a simple word, “OK.” He left the publishing company and together they started the “Auto-Garden.” However, the experiment was short-lived. After a few months, they sold off the inventory and closed down the auto-shop. Now what do I do, he thought. “I was stuck,” Fossett said. He pondered his options for a short while before making his decision. “There was no doubt in my mind that the happiest years of my life had been when I was a student,” Fossett recalled. “So, I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to get back into that world?”
With his eyes set on education, Fossett visited the deans of law schools at Northern Kentucky University and University of Cincinnati. But while Fossett was interested in teaching, the colleges explained that they were looking for professors who would publish works and burnish the reputation of their respective institutions. “I didn’t want to be stuck in an office doing research,” Fossett said. “So I finally decided on high school.” Because his education at CCDS had been so stimulating, his focus was on independent high schools. He had already substituted at various private schools in Cincinnati, but for a full-time job, Fossett spent a year taking education classes at Xavier. “I wanted to know what it took to become a teacher,” Fossett said.
While the classes helped build his resume for a teaching job, Fossett was a natural educator. He finally accepted a job in the History department at his alma mater, Cincinnati Country Day School. Known for his diligence, reticent demeanor, and self-admitted “nerdiness” as a member of the Class of 1980, Fossett has fond memories of his days at CCDS. Bob Plummer, who taught the young Fossett for three years, recalls that “He was an excellent student.” Unfortunately, Plummer jokes, he did not follow his true calling in mathematics.
Fossett would beg to differ. “Just look at my AP Calculus exam and you’ll realize math wasn’t my strongest subject,” he said.
Eleven years after joining the faculty at CCDS, Fossett is one of the most esteemed teachers in the school. His professorial style, erudite mind, and unmatched dedication to the success of his students have earned him the respect of his colleagues, as well as an impressive annual A.P. U.S. History pass rate (100% last year). Fossett provides his students with hundreds, if not thousands of
pages of personally authored notes, from study guides to textbook chapter reviews and document-based-question-writing guides. Each night, he does the assigned homework for all of his classes along with his students, and every day after school he can be found burrowed in his classroom, grading DBQ’s, Constitution tests, and superfluously long junior research papers. In the little spare time he has, Fossett advises one of the most successful clubs at CCDS: Model United Nations.
Despite his dogged work ethic, Fossett and his colleagues, fellow History teacher Eldrich Carr in particular, are still kids in their own right. Whether he’s playing “assassin” in the hall with junior Mitchell Cruey, engaging in a prank-war with seniors Jack Wildman and Will Duncan, performing his school-famous reenactment of the 1929 Stock Market Crash, or sporting a Mohawk if 95% of his class passes the A.P exam to encourage A.P. success, Fossett remains lighthearted with his students.
As for his fellow teachers, Fossett is in awe of them. “I admire the people I work with,” Fossett said. “The faculty here is full of smart, amazing people.” The feeling is mutual. Mr. Merle Black, who has worked alongside Fossett in the History department for the past eleven years, expressed his sentiments: “Mr. Fossett is focused, possesses a great sense of humor, and he is a gentleman,” Black said. “By setting high academic standards, Mr. Fossett contributes to creating a standard for teaching excellence at Country Day. His commitment to teaching inspires his colleagues and me.”
The teaching job also boasts another perk: “I get to see my son, Sam, every day. He may not like that,” Fossett joked, “but it’s something I value greatly. This is the best job I’ve ever had.”
No one knows where Mr. Fossett might be in ten years—not even he knows. But for now, he remains an educator to us all. Hunched over at his cluttered
desk both at school and at home, the Harvard law graduate spends his days and nights diligently ensuring the best education for his students. And while he has only taught for eleven years, Peter Fossett has already left an enduring legacy, as a student, a teacher, a role model and a friend. Veteran 8th Grade History teacher Park Gilmore summed up the sentiments of all those close to Fossett in a single sentence: “He’s just a wonderful man.”
Photo courtesy of Katie Leonard ’12, Photography Contributor
