Convocation 2025
Hello, friends. It is wonderful to be here today as we formally greet both the new school year and one another.
Over the course of orientation and registration, I welcomed arriving students and parents from down the road and across the globe. I love hearing their stories on why they chose Northfield Mount Hermon.
Family after family expressed their deep commitment to giving their child the gift of NMH. This is true for the family arriving from across an ocean who traveled to the U.S. for the first time. It is also true for the grandmother who lives just down I-91 and pulled me aside to share what her grandson attending NMH means to their family. And, it is true for the mother who shared with me that NMH is different because we allow our students to be their authentic selves. It is profoundly humbling to hear these stories, to understand the sacrifices made, and to consider the abundant optimism as families consider how NMH will transform their children in the days to come.
As I look out this morning, I am incredibly proud of you and our community. You are all here for a reason. You have been carefully selected among, quite literally, thousands of applicants. You are physicists seeking to solve the space time continuum, you are runners aiming to set records in the mile, you are authors breaking ground with new poetry, and you are dancers dreaming up new choreography. You are all remarkable, and you all bring different qualities, backgrounds, and perspectives to our community.
Of course, we all carry expectations for the year ahead. We bring our hopes; we also naturally hold our own fears. I assure you, the adults of NMH – along with your families – want the best for you. We want you to be the best version of yourself. And, we want others to treat you in kind, encouraging ways.
Today, I ask you to pause for a moment and consider what the best version of yourself looks like. What choices are you making? How are you showing up in spaces across campus? How are you supporting your classmates, castmates, teammates, and fellow residents? How are you encouraging and supporting your neighbor? How are you, as I shared at NMH on Stage, simply, “doing good today"?
This year, the good work of nurturing a community that offers safety and security to all its members is as important as any time I can remember. Together, we are navigating swiftly changing social and political realities. Therefore, we must be crystal clear about who we are and what we stand for at NMH. It anchors us.
At NMH, we embrace our diversity and our commitment to interrogate what equity and justice really mean. We celebrate the wide-ranging backgrounds, experiences and identities represented in our community. And, we know that our education – and our preparation for life – is immeasurably strengthened because we seek to understand, respect and affirm our differences.
While these ideas may sound radical to some, this is not new at NMH. We have been doing this since our earliest days, when we seized the mantle of responsibility as the very Lamplighters Grant Gonzalez described in his remarks at NMH on Stage. For 147 years, we have persevered with purpose and promise. Quite simply, we believe there are paths forward that seek to bring people together rather than to divide. This is our ongoing legacy; it is also our responsibility.
As our values are challenged in some quarters, we must take care to hold onto them tightly. We must also offer unrelenting love and care for our friends, classmates, and colleagues who find themselves living with new or increased fears and facing very real persecution. Our care for our neighbors – our ability to extend ourselves and offer radical love – is one of our most beautiful qualities at NMH. Let us share this love generously this year and always.
As we engage in this noble endeavor together, I encourage each of us to strive to be the best version of ourselves, to embrace the responsibility we hold as Lamplighters, and to live our values each and every day so that we make our families – and our NMH community – proud. This is our shared work as we engage our heads, hearts, and hands in all we do. I am so thankful that we get to do it together here in our remarkable home on the Connecticut River.