Thank you to Janet Hartwell, who led our school with such vision for 15 years; to Peter Esty and Jim Coyle, who preceded Mrs. Hartwell. I offer my respect, admiration, and gratitude. We promise to build upon their exceptional work.
I’m deeply grateful to my parents, my wife Annie, our kids, and to all of my teachers and coaches who inspired and encouraged me.
Thank you to our Board of Trustees, for your stewardship and deep commitment to Greens Farms Academy. To serve as GFA’s Head of School is an honor of a lifetime, and I thank you for entrusting me with the responsibility and challenge of leading and caring for this wonderful community.
To our alumni, whose spirit echoes in our buildings: your stories fill our archives and help to define us. I’m eager to hear and learn from your stories, and we’ll endeavor to honor your legacy.
Thank you to GFA parents and the greater community for the warm welcome you’ve given my family and me — you’ve begun to teach me what matters at GFA. Your support for our students and our teachers makes such a profound difference in their lives.
To our faculty and staff. You support, coach, challenge, nurture, inspire, and celebrate our students every day. Your unwavering belief in our kids will carry them forward. I’m incredibly grateful to each one of you.
To the students of Greens Farms Academy, you are the real reason we are all here this morning.
Now I’m quite certain I’m not the only one who’s observed that an installation is something one does both with an incoming head of school and, also, with cable television. With that in mind, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that the success of either of those events be judged, in part, by how long they take.
The roots of the word “install” mean “into place.” GFA is a place that fundamentally has always been about relationships; between people and with ideas — where passion, integrity, empathy, curiosity, excellence, and kindness matter.
Today’s gathering is also about our collective place in GFA’s 93-year history, and the moments in time that we’ll occupy together: this morning, this afternoon, and in the weeks, months, and years to come. It’s a tradition that requires that we pause and take a moment to notice that we are part of something larger than ourselves.
Our school’s motto, Quisque Pro Omnibus, means “Each for All” — the idea that we are connected; to one another, to those who have come before us at GFA, and to those who will follow. The concept that: “I am who I am because of who we all are,” is an idea that I find both humbling and inspiring.
I love stories. As human beings, it’s where so much of our learning develops. And I am always up for a good time travel story: Back to the Future, Stephen King’s 11/22/63, or, fittingly, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. As most of you know, there’s a standard convention in time-travel stories, namely, when the protagonist journeys to the past, they are warned not to have an impact on anything in any meaningful way lest somehow the future might be forever altered.
And yet, that’s not the GFA way. Yes, we are committed to the development of keen observation and listening skills (we know those are invaluable), but we build a program around the very idea that students should be true partners in their learning, have agency; that you roll up your sleeves and make meaning of the experience yourselves — with passion and purpose — in our art studios, on theater stages, on lacrosse and soccer fields, in the Lower School assembly room, at recess, around a Harkness table, in the Forum, in science labs, and on our courts. We are actually counting on you to live lives where you engage meaningfully with the world around you, to indeed have an impact on the future.
Schools serve as a time machine of sorts. And, as present as each of us may be in this particular moment here in the Coyle Gym, we are already building on the past. The students who just got up and presented — beautifully communicating ideas and visions that they created or interpreted — going forward, they will build on the confidence developed from that experience.
The very exercise of communicating an idea in front of this impeccably dressed assemblage of several hundred people has allowed those students to strengthen their sense of confidence in their abilities and themselves. They have also inspired others in the room, who may already be thinking about presenting an idea in a future setting such as this.
It’s these student stories that are of most interest to me, and I want to tell you a story about something I saw in this very room, just last week when our girls’ varsity volleyball team altered the future.
The girls were playing a talented opponent that had had our number for the last few years. And while the matches had become increasingly competitive over the years, our girls just couldn’t quite kick the door down. And in a two-hour match last week that went into the fifth and deciding game, our heroes were up against it.
Down 14-13, a mere point away from a painful loss, our girls huddled together in front of the net. And as artful as Coach Groves had been throughout the match, he knew full well that it was entirely up to the kids at this point. For those of us who were in the gym that afternoon, when the girls huddled together, looking one another in the eye, there was a sense of conviction on their faces that was unmistakable.
The opponent’s serve came across the net like a rocket. I remember thinking that just getting a hand on it would be difficult, and yet Leah Attai deflected it, beautifully. All of a sudden, we had a chance. The ball was now moving rapidly toward the back wall. And yet there was a moment where it felt almost as if time stood still. Alex Nason launched herself, and I swear to you, she was parallel to the floor. She dug the ball with her outstretched hand just before it hit the hardwood, and Kirwan Carey, crushed it over the net — these Dragons won the point, and the Coyle gymnasium erupted!
Now in that split second where the ball hung in the air, there was a story that our girls could readily have accepted. They had played beautifully, and there would have been no shame in having lost to such a worthy opponent. But instead, these young women were determined to tell a different story — one that reflected their hard work, persistence, joy, laughter, blood, sweat, and tears. What stood out most to me was what they managed to achieve together; the strength of each individual, in concert with the collective power of the team, each for all, that was what allowed them to write a dramatically different story that day.
Our girls went on to win the match, and I promise you that that moment will have an impact well beyond the sport of volleyball for those young women. In the future, there will be moments, personally and professionally, where they will face disappointment and struggle, where it might feel as if their best is not enough. Yet what they created together will remain an authentic and enduring experience to draw upon; one rooted in connections with teammates, classmates, teachers, coaches, parents, and a community that cares deeply about them — which will propel them forward into the future.
So, in keeping with the GFA spirit of doing more than just listening and observing, I’d love to have us demonstrate something to each other. Can our girls' varsity volleyball team please stand up? And can the members of our girls' junior varsity volleyball team, already a force to be reckoned with in their own right, who helped push these varsity players in preseason, please stand up?
Lower School students, faculty, and staff — many of these girls began their GFA journey in Lower School not so long ago, and all of them were representing all of us here last week — can you please stand up?
Middle School students, faculty, and staff you know that it was just a couple of years ago that many of these kids were meeting in the forum, eating the food at Alton Jones — this team was repping you and you are repping them as well. Can you please stand up?
Upper School students and teachers, you know these Dragons well — they’re your people, they’re our people, please stand up. And anyone who has ever coached, taught, admitted, volunteered, supported, cheered for, or is in any way connected with GFA, please stand up.
It means the world to me that it was the voices of our students that ushered me in today and that it will be the voices of the Beachers who will close this out in just a moment.
GFA students, you tell our school’s story so beautifully. To paraphrase Neil Postman, you will be the living messages that your teachers, your parents, and I hope to send to a time in the future one day that we will not see. You are the reason that we are inspired to be here.
I am deeply honored to serve as GFA’s eighth Head of School. I am who I am because of who we all are — each for all. Together, let’s make a positive difference in the world. Thank you so much.