President Thomas C. Hudnut travelled to Jordan over spring break to attend the annual conference of the G20, a highly selective group of independent secondary schools in the English speaking world.

The conference will be held at Harvard-Westlake next spring.
The first meeting was held in March, 2006, at Wellington College in the United Kingdom, with representatives from Australia, India, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.

Since its creation, the group has grown, branching out to more locations including Peru and Singapore.

There are six schools from the United States that will be participating:  Exeter, Andover, Deerfield, Lawrenceville and Buckingham, Browne, Nichols and Harvard-Westlake.

The organization was formed in 2006 by Anthony Seldon, the Master of Wellington College, an independent high school in England, said Hudnut.  Hudnut is the school’s representative to the G20.

This year the event was held in Jordan at King’s College, an English-speaking independent school founded by Eric Widmer, former head of Deerfield.

“We talk about issues common to our schools,” Hudnut said. “This year we talked about how the internet has complicated research and has brought into light at so many school issues of academic integrity.”

The conference provides for a global exchange of ideas and perspectives, Hudnut said.
“We talked about climatological and environmental issues which are seen in different lights by people in the Southern and Northern Hemisphere,” Hudnut said. “The Southern Hemisphere doesn’t have nearly the same evident problems as the Northern Hemisphere does and they think we are all bad for polluting and causing all the problems.”

After visiting Harvard-Westlake next year, the G20 will meet in Australia in the spring of 2010 for the next conference.
“I think Australia is more like the United States and most places in attitude and temperament and sense of opportunity and optimism,” Hudnut said.