Ceremonies of Celebration
It’s commencement time—not so much an ending as the launch of a new beginning for our graduates. Ceremonies of celebration leading up to graduation include Girls’ Swing Out and Boys’ Senior Dinner at the Upper School and Strawberry Festival and Baccalaureate at the College.
College commencement is on Saturday, and our speaker will be Dr. Robyn Metcalfe, Director of The Food Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Based on her TED Talk delivered in Austin last year, I’m confident that we are all in for a treat. (You can listen to commencement live on Principia Internet Radio on Saturday, May 10, at 2 p.m. central time.)
Upper School graduation follows on May 25, and our graduating seniors are already working on their senior projects—experiential learning opportunities that range from interning at Nike to writing a children’s book and learning falconry.
The Middle School classes recently returned from trips to Costa Rica, New York, and Boston, where they immersed themselves in the rainforest, literature and theatre, and the American Revolution, respectively.
Following graduation, underclassmen at the Upper School will spend “trip week” traveling with their class to New Mexico, the Dominican Republic, or New England. As a parent who chaperoned one of the Middle School trips discovered, these trips bring out “all aspects of the whole man education, stretching students physically, mentally, socially, intellectually, and spiritually.”
Throughout this semester, I’ve enjoyed spending time in the classroom. My upper-level management consulting class at the College just finished delivering presentations and conclusions to the client company, a local manufacturer with national distribution at major hardware stores. And I recently took on the role of Harry Truman in Evan MacDonald’s eighth-grade history class, where teams presented four foreign policy briefings to the President at the end of WWII. The students did an exceptional job of arguing their cases and discussing the issues.
It was also a treat to attend the School’s first-ever student craft fair. Budding entrepreneurs sold a variety of items they had made, drawn, painted, or baked. The goodies ranged from homemade lip balm to cupcakes and birdhouses, and I can vouch for the fact that there were many irresistible future salespeople working the Lower School gym that Saturday morning.
This spring has brought many terrific accomplishments and recognitions. One of our College students was awarded the Volunteer of the Year Award from the Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge, and the College women’s tennis team won the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament, going undefeated in conference matches for the season.
At the School, Alli Ball was named the Missouri Class 3 State Player of the Year by the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association, her latest honor in a season of notable achievements. Two Upper School band ensembles, as well as a number of solo performers, were honored with the top-level “Superior” rating at the State music competition last weekend. And the Upper School robotics team had a strong showing at the recent FIRST Robotics Championship, after having won the Rookie All-Star award in regional competition in March. (Read more.)
Our Principia-wide metaphysical theme for the year has encouraged all Principians to “hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true . . . ” (Science and Health, p. 261). The truly good, even excellent, outcomes of this academic year are sure to be enduring as our students advance a grade level or graduate and go out to bless the world.
As Principia founder Mary Kimball Morgan wrote in a letter to the Junior College graduating Class of 1928, the next step of progress is cause for rejoicing. “You are not really leaving Principia, in one sense,” she wrote, “for you have given to Principia something of yourselves which she will always keep and which will ever bind you closely to her heart” (Education at The Principia, p. 168).