Living with Principles - 2024 Baccalaureate Remarks

This evening, I wanted to let you know that Vermont Academy will be considering some of the paradigms of free, independent thought this summer and laying a groundwork based on two important studies that have defined the purpose and mission of being an educator in America, and in the world.  

Teaching and learning with students is what we are passionate about and what occupies us every day, but we live at a time when it is incumbent on us to return to the very principles that lie at the foundation of liberal arts and intellectual, moral, and ethical inquiry. Some of the rationales for educators stem from the Greeks and a long tradition of Socratic discourse.

The Chicago Principles have existed since the 1960s, and they are rooted in the history of intellectual thought and debate. The University of Chicago has a core value and commitment to lead on this path and to encourage other schools to join them on a journey of an intellectual quest, without bias.

In 1961, George W. Beadle spoke at his inauguration as President of the University of Chicago, and he said, “One cannot search for truth with a closed mind, or without the right to question or doubt at every step. Any injunction to close the mind, to restrict one’s beliefs arbitrarily, or to accept authority without doubt, violates the concept of freedom of the mind.”

University of Chicago President, Hannah Holborn Gray who led the university from 1978-1993 commented: “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think.”

This year, the E.E. Ford Foundation and a group of educators and heads of schools developed a document called The Framework that they offered to educators throughout the nation as a guideline for unbiased, debate-oriented study of opposing views, of current events, of conflict negotiation, of understanding what it might mean to be “in the middle,” of recognizing media bias.

The framework is structured on three pillars:

“These mutually reinforcing pillars support the central goal of the framework: to form students as “distinct thinking individuals,” skilled in the habits of independent thought, conversant with the norms of disciplined inquiry, and empowered to discover, develop, and courageously express their own political and civic commitments.” 

We, at Vermont Academy, hold educational values dear as we also do the importance of service, citizenship, and character, and we do not want these core values to be torn asunder by the media, or those who would try to persuade others to think in certain ways rather than for themselves. Questioning, listening, and debating matters – these are skills and habits of mind to which we all must re-commit.  

I look forward to working with our community on these goals this summer and this coming year, but seniors, and families, I feel so confident that these values are already intrinsic in the experiences you have had with our school. I know that our seniors and post-graduates will step into the world with unfettered minds, seeking truth and exploring evidence before coming to their own opinions.

I will close by telling you that this was on my mind as I walked down the hill from my house to see the girls’ lacrosse game a few weeks ago, and I stopped to speak to two students, two juniors, to ask them what they thought about the university protests at Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale, USC and elsewhere, and the way schools handled it or didn’t and shared that I wanted us to have an open expression of ideas and inquiry.  Their response to me was as follows: “We are glad that you are thinking about this, and we need to think about it, but I have been studying for APs and working on projects, and I have not had the time to do the research to know how I feel or what I think about the protests or the values behind them.”

There are many moments when I am proud of our school, but in that one, I took a deep breath and saw that we had instilled enough research skills, habits of mind, and critical thought that these two students knew they needed to work before formulating their opinions and beliefs. To me, that already was great, and I knew that our faculty and students wisely understood the implications of bias, of rushing to judgment or any move to step away from our core values of respecting and valuing the individuals in our community, and in our world.

Let us now celebrate our seniors and post-graduates. I look forward to seeing them step on the stage to be recognized for their exceptional work.

Thank you!