Presented by Head of School Robert W. Hill III in the Williston Theatre on June 9, 2012 during Reunion.
Before I begin, I’d like to give a warm welcome to all alumni: NSFG alumni, Williston alumni, and of course, Williston Northampton School alumni. As I was considering remarks for today, I was thinking about how schools change, but also how they stay the same. Emblematic of this duality is the ceremony that we will hold later this afternoon; the dedication of the newly installed Angelus on the terrace behind 194 Main Street.
The Angelus was the bell which called NSFG students to a moment of daily reflection, a practice that we have memorialized and adapted to Williston Northampton’s convocation and commencement exercises. I invite all of you who are interested in this NSFG symbol to come to the dedication at 4 pm.
Being head of school in the 21st century presents some unique challenges relative to other distinct periods of recent history. While we can look to the past for direction, it also appears that we are in a period of flux every bit as dramatic as that of the late 1960s and early 1970s when we experienced landscape-shifting changes. It is not a surprise to me, looking back as a quasi-historian, that coeducation for schools and colleges took hold during the social upheavals of the Vietnam era.