What exactly is the nature of Menlo School’s relationship with the College? Read more to find out. Staff photo: Arnav Bhagat. 

By Arnav Bhagat

For a Menlo School student, Menlo College becomes a part of campus life. During a student’s four years, they will use facilities shared between the two campuses, including the cafeteria on a daily basis, and maybe even venture onto the other campus.

However, there’s a history between the two organizations. The two weren’t always separate educational institutions. Menlo School was originally founded in 1915, and Menlo College was added in 1927. “We’ve actually had two different types of separation from the college. The first occurred around 1993 to 1994. This separation created two separate business entities. While there were complexities in drafting the separations, but I wouldn’t define it as rocky,” Director of Communications Alex Perez said. “The second event took place in 2007/2008. This was to formally separate the land and resulted in the institutions creating a new MOU (Memorandum of Understanding).”

Head Of School Than Healy spoke on the relationship between the two institutions during the course of their post-separation existences. “I am sure that there were points of contention, but it seems to me that the two institutions have worked well together in the interest of their students,” Healy said..

Because the two institutions were once one entity, a separation included figuring out the nature of the shared facilities going forward. Today, some of the main facilities Menlo School and Menlo College share include the Cartan Athletic Complex, Wunderlich Field, the pool, and the cafeteria. “When the school and college separated, they came to an agreement about which institution would get which facilities and under what conditions. For instance, the school and college agreed to share the college gym until the school had the opportunity to build its own at which time we would move out of the college gym,” Healy said.

The maintenance and use of each facility involves the idea of stewardship. Healy described the role of stewardship in the shared facilities. “Being a steward means that you are responsible for maintaining the facility and for fronting the costs of that maintenance, with the other organization paying back their share of the maintenance costs according their usage. The steward also coordinates the schedule,” Healy said. For example, Menlo is the steward of Wunderlich field, and therefore they had to oversee the project to update the field turf. In turn, the college reimbursed Menlo for their usage of the field.

There has also been talk about the possibility of construction on Cartan Field. “Improvements to Cartan require complicated negotiations between The Town of Atherton, the surrounding neighbors, and the College. It’s important for the School and College to work together so we are in agreement before approaching the Town and Neighbors,” Perez said. “The School is very committed to making improvements and will put those into motion as soon as we have the permissions we need to move forward. We are in the process of negotiating possible solutions to upgrading Cartan. These negotiations remain complex.”