About VVS

Headmaster’s Welcome and Remarks

Members of the board of trustees, parents, grandparents and relatives, invited guests, alumni, faculty and staff, underclassmen students and graduating seniors…..good morning, and welcome to the fifty-seventh commencement exercises at Verde Valley School.

Commencement:  a beginning.  A time of transition from one state to another.  A time of becoming something or someone else.  A time of change.

Change has become an insistent theme at Verde Valley School over the past several years.  Students, faculty, parents, alumni and even members of the independent school community have noted the many changes that Verde Valley School has undergone and will continue to implement.  For some, change is – as the old cliché proclaims – the only constant in life.  Change is expected, welcomed, encouraged.  It is the necessary condition that accompanies progress… improvement.  For others, change is resisted, feared… an unwelcome end to the present reality – however imperfect – and consequent step into the unknown.

But change we must and change we do.  For we live in a world where movement and change are increasingly pervasive.  We have become a transient people, moving from place to place, from school to school, from job to job.  Globalism has shrunk the world.  Information surrounds us.  Isolation is increasingly rare.  And the age-old tendency to complacency is a real disconnect from the reality of global interdependence.  Despite political conditions which may cause us to question our collective grasp of this concept, there is little doubt that you graduates will live and work in a world that is increasingly connected, interdependent, wired-up.  The trappings are everywhere.  Cell phones, instant messaging, the Internet, my space, you tube, “can I be your friend?”  Your world is one of connections, teams, group projects, alliances, collective effort, group think.  This is a dramatic shift from the world in which many of your teachers, parents, and grandparents grew up.  It represents a real change in the way in which we interrelate.  Is this new mode of communication an improvement that will help us achieve a new global awareness and interdependence?  Or is it simply a symptom of information overload that has depersonalized communications?  That remains to be seen.

Every change is not a positive change.  We all know that.   We must be mindful always to preserve the best of our heritage, culture and traditions, while working constantly to improve ourselves, our societies, and our world.  For this is the real definition of progress:  improvement that recognizes, honors and embraces heritage.  Progress does not need to mean the loss of those things we cherish most.  It does not need to mean the abandonment of principle.  Rather, authentic progress requires our collective devotion to the essential notions of truth, purpose, respect, and understanding that are bedrock values at Verde Valley School.

Members of the graduating senior class, it is my sincere hope that during your time here you have learned to embrace authentic progress, to welcome change, to anticipate the future with eager minds and open hearts.  Today you begin a new stage of your lives, a new, changed state of being ... that of Verde Valley School alumni.  You will carry your VVS affiliation with you throughout your lives, whether or not you continue to wear the artful school rings that adorn your fingers today.  Wear your VVS affiliation proudly.  Carry it forward as a guidebook for your lives.  Live its principles of intercultural understanding, global citizenship, and responsibility for others as your own.  Take up the challenge to welcome the unknown, and teach others what you have learned.

Farewell senior class, and godspeed to you all.