Families and friends of the Class of 2023 filled the rows at the Mountain Winery on Thursday for the 2023 graduation exercises, which featured stirring performances and speeches to send off the seniors as they concluded their careers as Harker students.
As the Harker Chamber Orchestra performed “Pomp and Circumstance,” the graduating seniors made their way to their seats, cheered on by their loved ones in the audience. The first of the day’s speakers was valedictorian Jack Hsieh, who delivered an address thanking his fellow graduates for the care and compassion they expressed for one another during the massive disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The strong sense of solidarity we discovered ultimately was molded by the surprise crucible that was the pandemic. And the challenges that lie ahead, both personal and community-wide, are going to be just as unpredictable and will again throw the balance of our lives into question,” he said. “But we can take the lessons we’ve learned here about the needs of ourselves and the world and the importance of investing with each other in our community. And we’re a little better prepared now knowing to expect the unexpected.”
Music teacher Susan Nace then directed the 2023 Graduation Chorus in a performance of Greg Gilpin’s “We Are All the Stars,” the first of two songs they would perform during the ceremony.
The 2023 keynote address was delivered by Maheen Kaleem ’03, vice president of operations and programs at Grantmakers for Girls of Color. Kaleem’s career in social justice work has spanned nearly 20 years and has included service at the NoVo Foundation, endeavoring to end commercial sexual exploitation, and work as a civil rights attorney. She recalled how Harker instilled in her the values that she would go on to practice in her professional work, including the famous Blue Jeans Rebellion of 1999 that persuaded administrators to alter the school dress code. She expressed happiness at seeing those values carry through to the current generation. “I now get to spend my days talking to young folks like you, young people around the world who are leading racial justice movements, leading social justice movements. Make no mistake, they are leading,” she said. “And they are pushing us, as each of you are, to think about anti-Blackness, to think about gender against a binary, to think about climate justice and remember the crisis that we’re living in. And when I talked to the graduating class, it felt like so many of the young people that I get to talk to.”
The 2023 Graduation Chorus followed with a rendition of The Harker School Song, a fitting precursor to the farewell address delivered by Brian Yager, head of school. Yager, who worked in Texas prior to joining Harker, shared a pair of quotes from people in his former home state, one of which was Rhonda Durham, whom he worked with at Trinity School in Midland, Texas, who reminded colleagues that “our job is to water the grass, not the rocks,” he said, affecting a Texas drawl. The quote, he said, is a constant reminder of the fruitlessness of putting too much energy into a task with no positive outcome. A second quote was from Texas author Zane Grey: “Don’t go borrowing trouble.” This statement, Yager said, cautioned against worrying over negative outcomes, which is frequently taken advantage of by entities such as social media and the insurance industry.
“But the wonderful thing about being human is that we can know ourselves and respond accordingly,” he said. “The opposite of fear is hope, and we can choose to approach our decisions in life with a lens that sees positive opportunities in the future rather than all of the prospective pitfalls. While it might be simply a question of semantics and perspective, surely life is better if we seek the light, rather than avoid the dark.”
After the subsequent applause had subsided, each member of the Class of 2023 walked to the stage to receive their diplomas, all the while receiving cheers from their classmates and families. After the final diploma had been delivered, the newly minted graduates celebrated by throwing their caps in the air and watching a flock of doves take flight.