Media Relations
News Releases
For Release Upon Receipt - September 15, 2009
Contact:
Colin Riley, 617-353-2240, criley@bu.edu
BOSTON UNIVERSITY & NATURE'S CLASSROOM FINALIZE LEASE TO OPERATE SARGENT CENTER
(Boston) – Boston University (BU), owner of Sargent Center in Hancock, N.H., and Charlton, Mass.-based Nature’s Classroom, have agreed to a lease authorizing the non-profit environmental education organization to offer programs at the site under the name “Nature’s Classroom at Sargent Center.” Terms of the lease were not disclosed.
Operating at 13 locations in the Northeast, Nature's Classroom, founded by Dr. John Santos in 1973 at Potter Place, N.H., is a residential environmental education program for children in grades 4-8.
Along with the school programs, Nature's Classroom at Sargent Center will continue the long history of summer camp programs, and has resumed serving groups of all types for conferences and retreats, as well as the twice-weekly Senior Meals program through October. The lease arrangement will also allow the university to continue its research and orientation programs. It’s expected that the facility will close in November and re-open in March.
BU, which obtained the 700-acre property in 1932 as part of the acquisition of the Sargent School of Physical Training, announced in January that it would cease the operation of Sargent Center for Outdoor Education (SCOE), which included conferences, retreats, instructional programs and summer camps, under the aegis of BU’s Metropolitan College, effective August 31. Most SCOE employees were laid-off as of August 31, although a few remained to conclude the university’s business. According to Nature’s Classroom, some of the former BU/SCOE employees were re-hired as of September 1.
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