Collegiate Holds Class of 2024 Commencement

During each year’s Commencement, watching the students move across the stage — some bearing full smiles, others flashing a more apprehensive grin — I think of lines from John Ashbery’s poem “Blue Sonata”: “That now, the one once / seen from far away, is our destiny / no matter what else may happen to us.” We always anticipate a far-away moment, the way a climber faces a mountain while still in the foothills looking up at the destination, and then, after a while, we arrive. How exciting — whether a student has been at Collegiate for two years or 13 — to arrive at the culminating moment, the one commemorating all that a class has accomplished and all that a class will accomplish. This fixed point, Commencement, is what every student has their sights set on, the long path they knew, eventually, with the full support of everyone in the Collegiate family, would arrive. But then the day comes and, no matter how excited you are for the next step in life’s journey, a part of you, dizzy with time’s pace, asks, “Already?” But, in the same breath, asks, “What’s next?”

This Commencement, Collegiate’s 109th, seen once from far away, arrived with the same slow but sudden surprise, and then proceeded, with a slight rain scare, on the hazy morning of Friday, May 24.

To begin the ceremony, Chair of the Board of Trustees Carter Reid P ’16 ’18 welcomed families and friends and saluted the Seniors, complimenting the graduates on how well prepared they are to become leaders and good citizens of the world as they take their next steps.

“Each of you has contributed, in your own special and unique way, to this community,” she said. “You have helped make up the essence that is Collegiate. Continue to be curious and find ways to serve.”

When Interim Head of School Billy Peebles took the stage to deliver his remarks, he began by speaking of the humble sacrifices the faculty, staff and parents have made to help get the graduates to where they are now. He emphasized the importance of recognizing that sacrifice and, in doing so, using the education the students have received to serve others. 

“We are here today because of the opportunities others have created for us,” he said. “When these opportunities come, we have the important responsibility to use our education as a vehicle for lifelong learning and for serving others. Indeed, our mission here at Collegiate challenges us to use our learning to engage life with intention, with energy, with imagination and with integrity.

The kind of education we are blessed with here calls us to grab hold of life, with a whole-hearted love that in turn seeks to bring out the best in new and old ideas and also to bring out the best in one another.”

The three valedictorians of the Class of 2024 — William (Liam) Riordon Harbour ’24, Benjamin (Ben) Leon Brackett ’24 and Giles Winston Ferrell ’24 — were next to speak.  

Liam discussed the embrace of Collegiate’s community and its great warmth of support. It didn’t take much, he came to learn during his time on North Mooreland Road, to find friends. Sometimes, he recalled in an anecdote, simply asking a few classmates to dinner brought forth more friends than he could have imagined. “Community is a core value here, and, for me, it’s what has made my time at Collegiate special,” he said. “I really do believe that at some level, at some point, everyone has felt the warm embrace of this community.”

Ben followed Liam, first making light of the steady but overall inconsequential rain throughout the event. The Class of 2024, he said, was used to the rain, which, he recalled, has caused a number of snafus to their grade’s events in the past. He then made a metaphor of resiliency out of the rain, saying, “If you give up when it starts to drizzle, then you aren’t going to get much accomplished.” To achieve anything takes a certain level of endurance. “In life there will be rain. But it will not rain forever. The clouds will clear and the sun will come out eventually. If you never do anything when it rains, you will never be able to take full advantage once the sun is shining.”

Giles followed Ben’s remarks, beginning by acknowledging that, for soon-to-be graduates, it is common to face a swell of well-intended variations of wisdom or advice from elders. But life, she goes on, is full of beautiful, unexpected twists and turns, and to offer formulaic advice hinders the thrill of surprise. “Life happens. Sometimes it happens to us and sometimes it doesn’t,” she said. The real excitement of life rests in the beauty quivering beneath the surface of the everyday, and it takes a bit of wonder, a bit of curiosity, to fully take up that beauty reverently. “The excitement [of life] is in the looking, is in the searching. In short, the excitement is in the unknown.”

Even though the Class of 2024 is ready for what’s next, the unexpected still waits for them. “We graduates are ready, but we don’t know it all — in fact, we probably know very little,” she said. “But we want to feel the excitement of searching and feel the rush of apprehension and fear that come with all new adventures. We want to experience love and learning in its many forms.”

Before awarding diplomas to the graduates, Head of the Upper Patrick Loach, drops of rain dropping down like a thin curtain of beads through the huge oaks shading Flippen Hall, gently reaching the 141 students, paused and looked out at the gathering before him. Loach spoke with passion about the respect and honor the Class of 2024 has exhibited during their time on North Mooreland Road. Each of them, he says, has the potential to affect positive change in the world. Then the time finally came for them to graduate. This watermark day, the one each of the students knew would eventually arrive, finally came, and they were ready for it. They’re ready for what’s next, too, in all its sublime surprises. 

The Class of 2024 Graduation Honors Recipients were:

Greenbaum Award - Valedictorians: William (Liam) Riordon Harbour, Benjamin (Ben) Leon Brackett and Giles Winston Ferrell

E. Angus Powell Award: Charles Taylor Nolde

Rosemary Award: Giles Winston Ferrell

Dr. Martha E. Kolbe Award: Bolling LePrade Lewis

Louise Mattern Coleman Award: Hannah Gray Bonbright

Charles F. Wiltshire Citizenship Award: Carter Brien Williams

Johnel Tate Poffenberger Award: Mary (Stella) Williams

 

To view the Senior tribute video, click here.

To view a recording of the ceremony, click here.