CSW Celebrates the Class of 2018

Students, faculty, staff, alumni/ae, family, and friends gathered under the tent on the quad for CSW’s annual commencement exercises on a sunny day in June. Members of the Class of 2018 processed down the steps from the Garthwaite in threes and twos, passing under this year’s class arch, a beautiful assemblage of natural tree branches and vines intertwined with garlands of flowers and a single floral wreath at the top.

Head of School Jane Moulding set the ceremony in motion by welcoming attendees and introducing Sue Vogt P’14, chair of CSW’s board of trustees. Sue thanked and acknowledged members of the board — including student representatives Liam Baxter-Healey ’18 and Harmony Bickerton ’19, and faculty representatives Evelina Galper P’14 and Po-wei Wang — and highlighted their work this year to launch a search for a new head of school, a process that has been highly inclusive and collaborative. Lastly, Sue implored graduates to “remember this day, and how you got here,” calling on grads to celebrate their parents, families, and all of those who helped them along the way.

After Sue’s remarks, Jane took the the podium to reflect on Elaborate Lives, the title and unifying theme of this year’s spring musical. “The song, ‘Elaborate Lives,’ introduced and reprised throughout the performance, struck me as a kind of anthem for this graduating class and the role they must play in these uncertain and confusing times,” she shared, going on to express the deep resonance of lyrics from the song about “wild ambitions,” “how we might define love,” “the stress and speed of life,” “unintended emotional crimes,” and “too many choices,” in the lives of our graduates, particularly in the complex world we now live in.

“More than anything we hope that your time at CSW has helped you better know truth, better understand prejudice and bias, and be better equipped to see through pretence, sham, and subterfuge,” Jane said. “We hope that you have learned how to make wise, informed choices. We wish that, like the characters in Elton John and Tim Rice’s musical Aida, you will sometimes choose ‘slower,’ ‘gentler,’ ‘wiser,’ ‘free.’”

The two faculty members chosen to speak this year were English teacher Mark Santa Maria and history teacher Rachel Hirsch.

In his address, Mark urged graduates to “find inspiration, lessons, and wisdom from likely and unlikely sources,” and to “always be on the prowl to grow,” sharing examples from his own life when he stumbled upon glimmers of insight and inspiration: the scary-looking man in the graveyard who convinced him to explore a new area, or the man with no legs cheering him on during a half-marathon race. He ended his speech with a finger puppet conversation between two of his more likely sources of inspiration: Herman Melville and Kurt Vonnegut.

Rachel’s remarks centered around an article by a writer named Jonah Sachs, titled, “The Unintended Consequences of a Too-Nice Work Culture,” which cited research from two psychologists at the University of Michigan. The article pointed out that, when workplaces put too high of a value on “niceness,” however harmonious the resulting work environment may be, the information that is shared is typically already known, thus stalling creativity and reinforcing cultural biases. Instead, the author advocated for respect, over niceness.

“Our community is stuck at nice when we snap in support of a speaker at town meeting — it draws lines, asserts a single cultural identity, tells the speaker not that they have educated the community, but instead they’ve reflected back the easiest shared perception,” Rachel reflected, drawing a clear parallel between the article and CSW. “Respect is when we listen to, encourage, and seek out counter perspectives, and then use the tension between ideas as the engine and fuel for something different and collaborative, even when it makes things go slower.”

The first student speaker was David Sabot ’18, the much beloved leader of CSW’s Consolidated Media club, who reflected on an enduring, albeit bemoaned, CSW tradition: “Lost” emails, community-wide messages sent out about lost phones or jackets or earrings. But what happens when you, yourself, start to feel a bit lost? He asked. Should such an event occur, he advised his fellow graduates not to shut people out; to “keep asking questions;” and to “listen to everything you can and then make your judgement.” David closed by urging the Class of 2018 to “get lost” and offered one final “lost” email of his own, wondering where the last four years had gone. “They are very precious to me,” he said.

The final speech of the day came from Caroline Keppler ’18, co-head of CSW’s Advisory Board for 2017-18. Caroline spoke of the “value of curiosity,” and the enduring impacts of tiny actions and gestures. “Appreciate even small things, and especially small things,” she said, noting examples like “the asking of an unanswerable question” and “the asking of a simple one;” “The offer to help carry big things,” or “the gift of an extra baked good to a passer by.” She encouraged her fellow graduates to “take on each day as it comes,” and to be each other’s daily champions. “In the small choices and actions, we build, we sustain, we nurture our community,” she explained.

Following the official conferral of degrees — with this year’s names read by English teacher Samantha Simpson and math teacher Carl LaComb, and diplomas handed out by LeeAnn Brash (math), Ben Ibbetson (languages), Jermaine Thibodeaux (history), Barbara Whitney (theater), Patrick Foley (history), Marvin Gutierrez (math), Jane Reynolds (English), Tom Evans (visual art), Ryan Jacobs (history), and Nailah Randall-Bellinger (dance) — students raised their diplomas into the air in celebration and walked out to the tune of Abba’s “Dancing Queen,” ready to take on the world.

Congratulations to all of our graduates! We are so proud of you.

View photos from the day.
Watch the video highlight reel.