SJS News

For 31 years, students, colleagues, and families at Saint James School have known Ted Camp as much more than a history teacher. He has been a coach, dorm parent, advisor, chapel leader, mentor, and daily presence whose warmth, humor, and unwavering generosity have helped define life on campus for more than three decades. As he prepares to retire at the end of this academic year and return to Connecticut, the Saint James community is celebrating a career marked by deep devotion to the School and to the people who call it home. 

Mr. Camp’s path to Saint James began in Connecticut, where he grew up and attended a local day school. After earning his undergraduate degree from Long Island University and his master’s degree at the University of Connecticut, he gained early teaching experience before beginning his boarding school career at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts, where he spent seven years teaching, coaching, and working in residential life. 

When he entered the hiring process at Saint James in the mid-1990s, several people made an immediate impression. He recalled being especially struck by former associate headmaster Sandra Pollock and Father Dunnan during his interviews, remembering a thoughtful conversation with Ms. Pollock about students and school life that left him impressed.

Since arriving at Saint James, Mr. Camp has filled a remarkable number of roles. He has served as History Department Chair since his arrival, Senior Master since 2017, faculty advisor to the Honor Council, lay eucharistic minister, and faculty advisor to the ushers in the chapel. He has coached boys’ and girls’ basketball and continues to coach JV boys’ soccer. He has served as dorm head in Claggett Hall and later lived in Rich Cottage and then Stonebraker House, where he still hosts much-loved nacho nights for advisees, ushers, and prefects. In the classroom, he teaches five sections of history, including AP European History and AP World History. 

To generations of Saints, Mr. Camp has been recognizable not only for his encyclopedic grasp of history and animated teaching style, but also for the details that made him unmistakably himself: duck boots, bow ties, impeccable manners, dry wit, and a cheerful word for nearly everyone he passed on campus. He truly embraced the fullness of life at Saint James.

“If my whole job was teaching five sections of U.S. history every day and that’s all I did, I would be too bored,” he said. “I really enjoyed the different parts of the day.” 

He noted that a difficult class could be redeemed by a good practice; a long afternoon could be lifted by a conversation at seated dinner.

“I like to be able to get to know kids outside of just the classroom,” he said. “Saint James is such a relationship school.” 

That emphasis on relationships helps explain why Mr. Camp has meant so much to so many students. He has never viewed education as limited to facts, dates, or test preparation. He said that if students leave with only “a cocktail party knowledge of the Peloponnesian War,” that is not enough. 

“The deeper work is helping young people grow as a whole,” he said. “It’s one of the compelling things I’ve always enjoyed, those connections you form.”

It is a philosophy that has shaped not only his teaching but his presence in dorms, on sidelines, in chapel, and at the lunch table.

Asked what has remained consistent at Saint James over his three decades on campus, Mr. Camp pointed first to the School’s enduring character. He praised its small classes, rigorous but balanced academics, commitment to faith, and the people who continue to invest themselves in the mission. 

“Over the years, there have always been a core of people who have really bought into the mission of the School and who care about students beyond academics alone,” he said.

He remembers colleagues such as Sandra Pollock, Marty Collin, Chick Meehan, Robert Grab, Ross Berntson, George Blake, and Jennifer Sherman as part of a strong culture of committed faculty. 

At the same time, he has witnessed extraordinary change. He noted that the most obvious difference is the physical growth of the campus. He spoke with admiration about how Saint James has expanded while preserving its architectural integrity and sense of purpose. 

“Architecture tells a story, and it tells what’s important to the people who built it. A nice building says that we care about the kids,” he said. “Beauty inspires kids.”

It is no surprise that Father Dunnan describes Mr. Camp as “our most dependable volunteer and the perfect example of a boarding school master.”
“When it comes to the languages of love, Mr. Camp is 100 percent a doer and a giver, and he never says no,” said Father Dunnan.

That tribute captures what colleagues, students, and alumni have known for years: Mr. Camp has given himself wholeheartedly to the life of the School.
In recognition of that service, the Alumni Council has elected him to the Kerfoot Society for Distinguished Faculty, and he will be inducted at this year’s Alumni Dinner. It is a fitting honor for a teacher and mentor whose influence reaches across decades of Saint James graduates. 

As retirement approaches, Mr. Camp is thoughtful about what he will miss and what lies ahead. 

“It sounds trite, but I’ll miss the people, the rhythm of the day, that sense of community,” he said. He will also miss chapel, meals, classes, games, conversations with colleagues, and the friendships built with families over the years. 

And yet he is also looking forward to something well deserved: time with family. Returning to Connecticut will allow him to be closer to his brothers, stepfamily, nieces, nephews, and cousins, and to participate in moments that the school calendar did not allow. 

Mr. Camp will surely be missed. But his legacy will remain in the classrooms he enlivened, the teams he coached, the students he guided, the traditions he upheld, and the countless everyday moments of kindness that made Saint James feel like home.

If you have any kind words or memories that you would like to share with Mr. Camp, you may submit the form. He has asked that any gifts in his honor be made to the Dunnan Fund for Financial Aid at www.stjames.edu/dunnanfund.