Convocation kicks off 140th school year

By Chiupong Huang '23

Senior Class President Annie Gu ‘23 stands for the Pledge of Allegiance along with the rest of the The Wardlaw+Hartridge student body.

The Wardlaw+Hartridge School marked the start of its 140th school year on September 8 as students, faculty, and parents from all three divisions gathered on the athletic fields to celebrate the start of the new school year. This year’s event marked W+H’s second consecutive full community, in-person school year since the pandemic.

The ceremonies began with an acknowledgment recognizing W+H’s presence on Indigenous land, followed by the pledge of allegiance and MadJazz’s performance of America the Beautiful. Head of School, Andrew Webster, delivered opening remarks, welcoming the return of students and staff while emphasizing this year’s 108 new students as the ‘we’ that forms this W+H community.

President of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Ayesha Sitlani, was next to take the podium, offering students guidance on fostering hope and perseverance through a story about Jane Goodall‘s love of animals. Noting the fears and anxieties students often feel when facing a new school year, she emphasized the new possibilities and opportunities that were to come. Dr. Sitlani ended her speech with: “Hope plus a lot of hard work will allow you to achieve your goals.”

The next speaker, Student Council President Annie Gu ’23, celebrated the growth and resilience of the W+H community she had seen over her 12 years at W+H, and offered a call to students to embrace the discomfort of taking on challenges and novel opportunities. She encouraged the student body to “try out for that new music group, pick

up a new hobby, join that sports team even if you don’t know anyone, try a new combination on the panini press,” adding that “it is only through discomfort that we grow and find things we thought we would never like.”

Mr. Webster closed out the ceremony with a closing speech that referenced Leo Tolstoy’s The Three Questions, calling on the school community to be kind, present, and grateful for one another in spite of daily distractions and stressors. Before students and staff returned indoors to officially begin the new school year, Mr. Webster closed with a final remark: “I encourage you to lean on each other, to help each other, to support each other, and help us all create a culture of kindness.”