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Canterbury Begins New Tradition of Senior Investiture
On Wednesday, August 21, 2024, Canterbury School began a new tradition of holding a Senior Investiture to kick off the new school year. This event formally recognizes seniors as campus leaders. The Class of 2025 enjoyed lunch and officially received their senior shirts. To conclude the event, Canterbury alumna and Middle School History Teacher, Kim West ’87, shared a special message with the graduating class.
A full transcript is shared below:
Thank you, Mr. Kirschner, Mrs. DiBenedetto, and Mr. Walters for inviting me to speak today. What an honor it is to be here in front of all of you at your senior investiture.
Mr. Kirschner assured me that I have sufficient ethos for this occasion having once been a senior at Canterbury School and having just ushered another Canterbury senior off to college a week ago. However, I did my due diligence and I researched the symbolism of an investiture. I learned that we are here to formally confer rank, authority, and power to the senior class.
By walking into school last Thursday, you assumed your rank and authority. You are the senior class and everyone knows that.
So I want to talk with you a little bit about your power. As Mr. Kirschner reminds us, comparison is the thief of joy. Despite this, people will inevitably compare your class to others. Well, I have been in the midst of your power for the past six years, and I know that it is a superpower that no other class past and present can match. This senior class has the ability to form a pleasing and consistent whole. In simpler terms, your class has the extraordinary ability to harmonize.
Some of you might remember the study skills class in sixth grade in which we spent extra time at the end of class singing with bongo drums, ukuleles, and guitars. We became the study skills school of rock. That was an unexpected unscripted musical harmony.
In the seventh grade - what I call the Lord of the Flies year, you had an unprecedented inclusive coed group chat… in seventh grade. Collaboratively, you planned group dinners, and you would discuss projects - especially the ones that I assigned much to your collected chagrin during our online Covid year together. This was incongruous social harmony.
On the athletic fields, you have earned state titles, individual and team medals, and postseason victories. You have continuously triumphed above expectations. Your grace and athleticism and teamwork are displays of harmony on the court, field, and track. The passing of the baton during the girls 4 x 100 relay in the state championship meet is one such display of athletic harmony that comes to mind.
On the stage, I have been moved to tears watching the harmony of thespians and musicians in productions such as Mean Girls, The Diary of Anne Frank, and The Wizard of Oz to name a few.
Joseph Campbell, a renowned scholar of mythology spent his life researching and writing about the stories that recur throughout history. He wrote extensively about the hero’s journey. Basically, he found that humans have told the same story over and over throughout millennia because it helps us understand our lives.
According to Campbell, all would-be heroes are called to accept a challenge. All must find the courage within to move forward in life. The potential heroes are met with extreme trials along the way that help them find their innate power and accept their true identity. They emerge from the journey changed and victorious, earning the title of hero.
By now, you have encountered this story countless times throughout your lives in books, plays, and movies. For example, you know about Dorothy’s struggles to find her way home. She faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but she makes friends along the way that sustain her and together they recognize that they had possessed their superpowers all along.
So, this year, like Dorothy, take this journey with your friends. Trust me when I tell you that you will need these people throughout your life because they know your parents, your siblings, your alma mater, your teachers, your hometown, and this whole scene. You will make new friends, perhaps find partners and have kids, but you will need the people who are here with you right now to remind you who you are. Go to all of the things with these people--the sunrise, the lunches, the beach days, the games, homecoming and proms, Club Nine—even if you think that they will be lame. If the events are lame, you will have great stories to tell about their lameness. Recognize that your friends are a source of your power.
Another story you know is that of Luke Skywalker. He answers his challenge and like Dorothy, he has to persevere in the face of excruciating obstacles. For you, these are your essays, applications, AP tests, the SAT ACT one more time, relationships, injury, pressure of acceptance and rejections, and final decisions. Luke learns how to face these challenges with the help of his mentors - Yoda and Obi-Wan-Kenobi. Like Luke, you have your teachers, advisors, and coaches. Lean on them. They will refuel your power when you feel it starts to wane.
So, as power has been formally conferred on you, I urge you to decide to use your power for good. Because, you know, you can do that here. Love your home and appreciate it like Dorothy learned to do. Like Luke, acknowledge that you can be a vector for good.
Choose to lift someone up by saying hello. Give a pat on the back and advice to forget that last play. Choose not to spread a rumor or engage in gossip. Exercise your power to do good at least once a day. The best decision I ever made in high school was to be kind. In conclusion, I urge you to use your senior powers to extend love, goodwill, and trust and to make our torch burn bright.
Class of 2025 - Goodspeed on your senior year journey!
