Graduation Remarks - 2016

Students, parents, family members, alumni and friends, faculty and staff, trustees, and most of all, graduates of the Class of 2016, welcome to the 200th Commencement ceremony at the Academy in our 203rd-year history. 

 

I would like to recognize the honored guests who have joined us in the processional and are seated in the front row.  Immediately to the left of the Reverend Gregory-Davis is our Commencement Speaker – Joe Williams, Assistant Head of School, as well as members of the Board of Trustees:

 

 

Assisting with the conferring of awards and diploma are:

 

I would also like to call your attention to the women and men seated to the left and right of the class - the Kimball Union faculty whose dedication and talents are the personification of our Mission: mastery, creativity, responsibility, and leadership.  I invite everyone to join me in showing our appreciation for the inspirational efforts our extraordinary faculty and Trustees. (Applause)

On behalf of the Class of 2016, the faculty and the board of trustees, I want to also extend our thanks to those of you seated before us, parents and grandparents, family and friends for your faith and confidence in us, entrusting the education of your loved ones to our care, and to all Kimball Union’s families and friends and alumni for your sustained efforts, for your encouragement, and support in our partnership to prepare and inspire these talented young people as we ready them to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.

 

And finally, and most importantly, this morning, we welcome and congratulate you – (look to Class of 2016) each and every one a member of this Class of 2016 – each in your own unique way is an important part of this very special school community, and this senior class, full of curiosity and imagination, promise, purpose, and full of spirit, and devotion to one another and to this school, which is now, in turn, your responsibility to support as alumni. ….May the many fond relationships and lessons endure, may they enrich you in all ways, and may your tomorrows be abundant with opportunities, happiness and love.

 

Today, on this Memorial Day Weekend, we honor service and sacrifice and we remember:

 

 

(Incidentally, it is the 90^th anniversary of the writing of Winnie the Pooh! Yes, Winne the Pooh, a quote from the 1926 book reads, appropriately for today.

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying good-bye so hard.”)

 

And of course, this is also the 200^th year of celebrating graduates of the Academy – our alumni – whose global reach extends to all the continents of the globe – Dating back to our roots, founded by Daniel Kimball, who laid the first stone for our first Academy building with his own hands, a revolutionary war officer who fought in the Battle of Ticonderoga, and his wife, a life-long-educator, Hannah Kimball, whose portrait hangs in the class of 2014 room in Miller Bicentennial Hall. Hannah Kimball began the women’s seminary, making Kimball Union one of the oldest co-educational boarding schools in our Nation, long before the advent of free public education.

 

Kimball Union was founded to prepare poor and pious young men for lives of meaning and contribution. Graduates from across the globe and all our Nation are represented by Free Slaves, Native Americans, Americans, immigrants, and International Students representing all the states and territories of these United States and over 80 countries, whose vast array of talents and influence sustain us still through this day and beyond.

 

For those unfamiliar with the history of our school, I encourage you to see the documentary of Kimball Union, on our web-site, to see how the nation’s history and that of our school and our graduates have travelled through time together; in many ways a parallel story of growth and change, challenge and triumph, building and rebuilding, and how this honor we are about to bestow on our most recent graduates on this Memorial Day weekend, honors our Nation’s and our school’s history together.  These graduates today, like those who came before them, are indeed prepared and inspired.  As we see them today, this graduating class year, comes with the responsibility and distinction of being our school’s 200^th class. It will be up to each of these graduates to demonstrate how our long-standing Mission, Mastery, Creativity, Responsibility, and Leadership, will always be part of their past, present and future, now and forever and how they will remain committed to their and our ongoing success.  So today, as we celebrate our 200^th year graduates, we also remember those men and women of Kimball Union who served our country, from the Civil War, through and until today’s present conflicts, and the thousands of graduates like these before us.

 

Today, we honor four individuals, who by virtue of their work on the faculty, will receive honorary diploma - two couples, who collectively, have given a combined 100 years of dedicated service to Kimball Union.

 

 

Since 1981 and 1985, a combined 66 years, Jim and Sandy Ouellette, you have served our students and our school community as Director and Assistant Director of Health Services, along with many other roles in school including the operation of our diversity programs, RELAY, and Global Fair, in the community, and local causes, with the utmost care and distinction, compassionately and expertly handling some of the most challenging situations of personal health and safety, to the daily, nightly, weekly, and yearly responsibilities of caring for every student, faculty member and staff, in the Huse House or Tracy Health Center. While raising your graduate daughter, Rachel, Class of 2003, and later, in Tracy Health Center, you have treated each student with love and care as if every student were your own. You have also educated us all to value our personal and community well-being as the first and most important building block to our realizing our fullest potential, and happiness. Jim and Sandy Ouellette you have opened your home, and your hearts, providing expertise and assistance, comfort and love to thousands of students (and their parents) far away from home at your and our home on the hilltop, at a very vulnerable time in their lives. You have soothed bruised feelings, mended broken hearts and broken bones, cared for students with rare illness, and provided truly life-saving care and training, no matter the time of day or night. As you both now officially retire, “sort of”, you can finally get a sound night’s sleep. It is my distinct privilege to present you both together at your official retirement with a Kimball Union diploma making you honorary members of the class of 2016.

 

 

Joe and Eileen Williams, you have a combined thirty-eight years of service to Kimball Union, and though we wish we could have you both here forever until your retirements, your influence will always be a part of Kimball Union and in the lives of the students.  Arriving in Meriden in 1997, with a young Charlie Williams, class of 2015, you settled in as Dorm Parents in Chellis Hall. Cooper, Class of 2016, arrived on your first day of school in 1997 – a KUA baby on day one, followed by Tucker, class of 2019, and then the lovely Carter.  For you both, education, and Kimball Union have always been a family affair.  Your children’s godparents include past faculty Steve and Joan Bishop, who retired from the Academy after a 37 years together on the Hilltop and are here today.  You have lived in Chellis, Densmore Hall, Bishop Cottage, and the 1813 House, giving credence to the notion that at Kimball Union, as faculty, one never should remove all things from one’s boxes, nor permanently nail pictures on the wall.  As you will hear in Joe’s remarks, Kimball Union is and always will always be in your soul and your family.  In the varying roles that you have both held as teachers, coaches, advisors, mentors, colleagues, friends, family, you have shaped the experience for each student and for our school, leading individual and community growth in abundance, each day, with devotion, great skill, personal sacrifice, and love.  For all of your contributions, Joe and Eileen, you now join the 200^th graduating class, as honorary members of the Class of 2016.

 

 

 

Last evening when Salutatorian Aruzhan Bazylzhanova spoke, we heard how a young person’s passion, fueled by curiosity, challenge and inspiration, can make a difference, and how diverse views of the world can help shape our own.

 

Such is the case with our Valedictorian, Ethan Kable, whose curiosity and appetite for challenge, whose passion and inspiration took him from the Upper Valley, to full immersion as an exchange student to Italy where he joined a public high school as a sophomore, learned Italian on the fly, and played some of the highest level soccer for his age group in the world.  If anyone in the audience is like me, a subscriber to the idea that soccer explains the world, this learning experience of culture and difference has been central to the way Ethan how he sees the game from the middle of the field, and sees the world -- embracing all that he does -- with anticipation and insight, open mindedness and purpose linking ideas and people with great awareness, timing, and skill. 

 

His college advisor, Mr. Gueldenzoph wrote, “Brilliant, humble, driven by curiosity, of irreproachable character, the complexity of the world, people and ideas, drives Ethan to dig deep to experience the learning and to share his learning with others.” 

The world over has known people by their mononym, or single name.  Ghandi, Pele, Beyonce come to mind.  And we know many others, from politics to sports and entertainment.  In a way, these individuals have become, to quote another, mononym (one with the definite article) The Donald, a brand!  We have one such mononym at school, made famous by our school President’s All School Meeting ritual of the game “baby face.” Parents submit baby pictures to the All School President who shows them on the big screen and the audience shouts the name of the person they think is the person in the photo. It seems that every photo of every student as a baby, male or female, blonde or dark haired, black, white, or Asian, wearing a fireman’s hat or riding a pony resembles the class speaker about to address you…in fact, he is the brand in many ways, the face and name of every student whose distance travelled here on the Hilltop is measured by enormous personal growth – physical, emotional, and even intellectual…. …….We love him because, of course, there is a little inner Vasili in each of us, and if there isn’t, I hope all of the graduates will try to find it in them.  Boundless energy and exuberant humor, some might even say Boundary-less……KUA and he have turned an amorphous “thing” into shape, into context. Vasili, the brand, will live on at KUA long after he is gone, a memorable figure for students and faculty for his big heart, and his profound – a word I may not have always associate with HIS brand - influence on this community.  His atomic energy is the epitome of FUSION, bringing us all together to do BIG things.  Yes, he is the face of the class, your class speaker, “say it with me” Vasili!

 

Leaders come in all shapes and sizes like the students who sit before you and the faculty - each and every one in his or her own unique way -

A friend of mine who is a fellow head of school asked me how he could “on-board” his faculty to better support him and his ideas... He revealed a very personal concern. Succeeding a larger than life Headmaster, very tall, and he very not tall.  He was worried his ability to implement some new initiatives might be a leadership challenge.

As a man of average height myself – (5’11” or 6’1” in the program) – in an effort to support my friend, I tried to say something nice about the size of the fight in the dog, not the dog in the fight.... I talked about Margaret Thatcher and Mother Teresa, great women leaders who were not very tall…. I even went back to a quote on leadership by Larry Summers – some of you may remember him as an outspoken, ousted president of Harvard, who finally admitted that his combative style was too brusque. Effective leadership he finally realized was not about the ideas of authority, but rather the authority of ideas ... I said something else that I thought might be comforting. You know, how when we hear people with British accents speak they sound smart, and when leaders are tall they seem more in control, more credible... So, the larger question was “Does height really help with leaders?”  Now if Joe was to lead with his (size 16) feet, maybe he would have a leadership advantage, but here's a towering figure who works in an old school building, lives in an old house, and pretty much has to do the limbo all day to protect himself from getting a concussion... Maybe it's that aspect of daily life that gives Joe his agility as a leader, his subtle awareness of impediments, obstacles to success, okay, maybe. Just maybe, there is a perception of strength, even a little intimidation which never hurt us in a meeting with a recalcitrant boy or girl. Yet, the thing about Joe as an effective leader isn't that he leads with his stature, it is that he leads with his heart. Joe leads with integrity.

As Assistant Head, Joe keeps us whole. He keeps our community together. He is present for every person, ever student, and faculty, and staff member, and when we are present together, he is present in every way, of course except when we see his head drop in a meeting trying not to nod off, apparently just like his dad used to do when Ben Williams was headmaster ... So like father, like son, in so many ways Joe is the consummate leader by example.

 

 

One of the things I believe characterizes this school’s most essential unique characteristic is what Joe embodies and he has worked so hard to create, and that is the power of love to fuel all that we do.  Joe arrives to school every day with love in his heart.  Love for students and colleagues as people, love for family and community. With a love to learn, he shares in each student’s and our school’s growth and stature.

 

I have a lot more to say about Joe Williams, my friend and deeply respected colleague. He is a consummate professional, and a quintessential school person.  In 13 years together working with thousands of students and families, I’ve only seen him lose his temper once…and I deserved it!

Joe, your Kimball Union legacy is that KUA, like you, will always stand tall and proud, caring and connected to what matters most in education. We are inspired and grateful for your leadership. There was only one choice for these students and me for this 200^th Commencement address, and, it’s my honor to ask everyone to join me in welcoming Joe to the podium.