FROM THE RECTOR

Gratitude, Optimism, and Excitement

ere on the grounds, it has been a mild and warm autumn, and we enjoyed a tremendous Family Weekend, the halfway marker for Fall Term.

Like everything else this term, Family Weekend was greeted by the community with great enthusiasm. Nearly 900 registered and vaccinated family participants joined us in Millville for two days of events. Because many international families could not travel, we hosted virtual “mini-classes” for parents on Thursday, before in-person programming on Friday and Saturday. With the pandemic, many families have hardly spent any time here, so it felt good to provide a range of activities, from a student-life expo to social gatherings by form and by house to a Chapel program for parents. On Friday night, our talented ballet, music, and theatre students took to the stage, and on Saturday, our student-athletes gave it their all, which included a couple of stirring wins over the Big Blue of Phillips Andover. You can visit sps.edu/familyweekend for more about the programming.

We used to take such weekends for granted. We used to take so much for granted — easy travel, full grocery store shelves, good community health. From this place of extraordinary privilege and opportunity, gratitude — for hearing the referee’s whistle on a Wednesday afternoon, for enjoying a live performance, for sitting together around a table in class — is easy, every day. It is ever-present and omnipresent; or, at least, it can be and should be.

While gratitude forms a great mindset, gratitude alone will not move us forward. Last year, the Board of Trustees worked to refresh our mission statement, re-articulating the core mission, “to educate students to build purposeful lives in service to the greater good.” When we use the verb “to educate,” we mean to bring forth what is best in ourselves and in each other. From that springboard, over the course of these fall months, we are engaging as a community in strategic planning to support the continued

Hevolution of St. Paul’s School in a world of rapid, constant change and to determine how we build upon the School’s strengths and reinforce its values. This year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of coeducation under the banner, “Her Purpose: 50 Years of SPS Women in the World.” Our 3,000-plus alumnae are making extraordinary contributions in both their personal and professional lives, and I encourage you to read about some of those women at sps.edu/herpurpose. While you are there, I also encourage you to nominate SPS alumnae who are trailblazers, thrivers, and rising stars, those whose stories will inspire all of us to bring forth what is best in ourselves and in each other. This spring, we also will mark 150 years of rowing at St. Paul’s School, a powerful and proud tradition that began in 1871 with the first race between Halcyon and Shattuck. Since then, the tradition of crew at SPS has attracted thousands of alumni/ae to the pond, and we look forward to honoring that heritage during a special celebration on Anniversary Weekend. With so much happening and so much energy within our community, it is easy to be excited about the School and full of optimism for the future. It is acutely clear to those of us who teach and work with teenagers every day that these young people need us, the adults in their lives, to manifest these traits of optimism and excitement. The antidote to frustration, anxiety, and fear is gratitude, kindness, and empathy — qualities held dear in this community, virtues for which we pray in our School Prayer. It is a great time to remind ourselves of those exhortations — let us never forget to be kind; let us be unselfish in friendship and eager to bear the burdens of others — as we go about these pandemic days in what is an unusual, but typically beautiful, fall.

MICHAEL SEAMANS