Dear families
and friends of Veritas Prep,
Summer is for me
an occasion to reflect on the Classical insight that true leisure does not
consist in inactivity but rather in activity that is genuinely recreational—that is to say activity
that is pleasant and delightful for its own sake. I think that truth helps to account for the ubiquity
of the “summer reading lists” we encounter at this time of year.
Notwithstanding
my own occasional frustrations with contemporary mass culture, these lists are for
me sources of real encouragement. The promotion of the latest best sellers and
newest self-help titles are only to be expected, but recommended summer reading
lists are also typically populated with great works of literature. I certainly hope
that this summer finds you well, relaxed, and enjoying an opportunity to immerse
yourself in some great reading—perhaps even reading some of the books our
students enjoy during the school year.
You may be aided
in building your reading list by the summer Cicero Lecture series that we have
been hosting here at Veritas Prep. I was honored to have been asked to present
a lecture in the series, “Where All Geese Are Swans,” which was concerned with
the complexities of the narrative of American Identity and offered some
historical perspective on the American Founding, specifically from the point of
view of Virginia. My thoughts on the subject are deeply indebted to the
marvelous historian David Hackett Fischer of Brandeis University. His
magisterial work Albion’s Seed: Four
British Folkways in America is must reading for anyone interested to enrich
his understanding of the early British settlement of this continent. Other
recommended reading was provided by Dr. Dan Scoggin’s lecture on ghost stories
of the 18th and 19th centuries, which inspired more than
a few of us to seek out Gothic novels and equipped us to reread Frankenstein and A Christmas Carol with new insights. I regret that I had to miss
Dr. Robert Jackson’s lecture on Robert Frost, but I hope many of you were able
to attend. I suspect it will prompt renewed enthusiasm for the poet’s beautiful
work.
Perhaps in part because
such true leisurely activity is at the heart of our educational work as a
school, this summer has seen the staff at Veritas Prep hard at work with the
business of bringing the 2013-14 academic year to a good conclusion and
planning for the new year ahead. We’ve also been engaged with hosting a very
robust summer school program; the more than 120 students in the building have
helped to blunt the impact of the disorienting emptiness that follows the end
of a school year. Their activity has provided a gentle transition from what has
passed to what awaits. But before we turn our attention entirely to what lies
before us, I wanted to reflect with you on how extraordinary this past year has
been.
I am delighted
to report that we had a very strong end to the school year, and we celebrated
the graduation of the largest class in the history of the school. More than
that, the graduating seniors showed themselves to be a class of distinction and
great accomplishment. A list of school-wide Academic and Athletic achievements is featured in Humanitas, but allow me to highlight
some of the accomplishments of the senior class in particular. Not only did
they boast two outstanding National Merit Scholarship Finalists, 3 additional
students received National Merit Commendations, and 2 students received
National Hispanic Scholarship recognition. What’s more, Veritas Prep was one of
only two schools in Arizona that sent two students to United States Service Academies
(Military Academy at West Point, and the Air Force Academy). More than 78% of
our graduating seniors received college scholarship offers, totaling
$8,649,536—an average of $144,158 for each student in the class—and more than
43% of the class was accepted to “more or most selective” institutions of
higher education. These are truly remarkable benchmarks of their success, and a
clear expression of the way that a Classical Liberal Arts education positions
our students to choose the path of continuing education that suits their own aspirations.
Fittingly, at
the commencement ceremony the class Valedictorian Michael Junker and
Salutatorian Sarah Brock offered inspiring remarks that recalled what made the
shared experience of Veritas Prep education so rich, as well as reflecting on
the ways that all of the graduating seniors will forever be shaped by that
experience as they continue in the lifelong pursuit of truth, goodness, and
beauty. Their lovely remarks were well complemented by Dr. Wilfred McClay’s
insightful commencement address that provided an account of the inestimable
worth of a liberal arts education and his anticipation of the way that it had
equipped each of the graduates to live full and satisfying lives.
The end of the
year was notable not only for the activities specific to the senior class, but
for a host of events both traditional and new to the school. These important exercises
included a marvelously poignant Senior Tribute Night, a student-led Spring
Informal dance and performance, parent-organized social events for specific grade
cohorts, a Prom that was held at a new venue and featured high spirits and a
good social and cultural mix, a beautiful and elevated Art Walk that featured not
only countless student artwork, but also our student musicians (and provided an
occasion for the debut of an instrumental ensemble), and a powerfully moving
dedication of the gymnasium to honor Jeff Van Brunt—few of us, including Mr. Van
Brunt, will soon forget the extraordinary show of student and faculty appreciation
for a man who has tirelessly devoted and who continues to devote himself to the
work of Veritas Prep and Great Hearts Academies.
Of course, this successful
homestretch of the end of the year was all the more notable for the extraordinary
difficulties and hardships our community endured during the spring semester. I
remain inspired by the strength and resilience of this community in responding
to those painful events. Quite apart from the informal and invaluable
kindnesses and charitable encouragement extended to one another, students also
applied themselves in organized ways to respond to the hurt in our community: The
senior class organized a car wash to contribute to the fund for the family of
Mr. Octavio Herrera, and in all more than $10,000 was raised in support; and the
school service club, Great Hearts/Great Hands, worked with the student body to
organize a neighborhood clean-up day. Several dozen students, teachers, and
parents turned out to demonstrate the school’s commitment to being a
conscientious member of our Arcadia neighborhood community.
A semester of
outstanding volunteer coordination by the Parent Organization ended with the
seamless transition to a new board of Parent Organization volunteers. Special
thanks are owed to President Dean Miller, Vice President LeeAnne Abel,
Secretary Marcie Meacham, Treasurer Bill Von Kolen, Dad’s Club Chairman Phil
Murphy, and Social Coordinator Debbie Carwitz. They not only helped to support
every school initiative, both large and small, they applied themselves
selflessly to preparing the way for future volunteer leadership to sustain the
important work of the Parent Organization. We are all in their debt, and I know
that the new Parent Organization leadership welcomes any and all to join in
carrying on that hard work and their significant accomplishments. We also welcome Colleen Limpic, incoming
PO President; she can be reached at the following address: psopresident@veritasprepacademy.org.
The conclusion
of the school year was also the sad occasion for bidding farewell to a number
of beloved teachers and staff. We wish them all the very best in their new
adventures in teaching and other careers, and we thank them for their dedicated
and distinguished service to this school and our students. We are all better
for their having shared in the life of Veritas Prep; so much of what we have
learned has been possible not only because of their competence in instruction,
but also because of their conspicuous examples as models of life-long learning
and great heartedness. They have inspired and blessed us, and we will miss them
very much.
We also look
forward to welcoming back the largest class of veteran teachers in the school’s
history. I am sensitive to the fact that while some measure of turnover is
natural, the past several years at Veritas Prep have seen a conspicuous amount
of staffing fluidity. I am very pleased that we will see so many fine teachers
return next year, and am happy to report that this year’s hiring season suggests
that we can expect increasing stability in the coming years. We look forward to
having them with us for quite some time.
In order to
introduce you to our new teachers and reacquaint you with veteran teachers who
may not be new to the school but may be new to you and your students, we are
preparing a biographical snapshot of all of our faculty and staff as a part of
a back-to-school communication for all families. That communication will elaborate
on items we forecasted in the spring, such as structural changes at the school,
including a Lyceum study period, expanded faculty continuing education seminars
and teacher training sessions on early release days, relaxed class section
assignments, and an adjusted schedule to the school day. More details on each
of these items will follow (and our new hours are listed below), but all of
these exciting developments promise to help Veritas Prep find greater stability
and equilibrium after the growth and relocation of recent years. I believe they
will substantially contribute to the maturation and continued development of
the school as a stellar exemplar of Classical Liberal Arts secondary education.
For my part, even
as I eagerly anticipate the year ahead and look forward to welcoming you back
to school, my own plans for the summer take me far from Arizona. I’ve agreed to
deliver a presentation at a conference in Poland on the tensions of Equality
and Egalitarianism in the traditions of American education, in preparation of
which I’ve been reading deeply on the subject. Books from which I have
benefited and that may be of interest to you include:
·
Neil
Postman, The End of Education: Redefining
the Value of School
·
Henry
T. Edmonson, John Dewey and the Decline
of American Education: How the patron saint of schools has corrupted teaching
and learning
·
R.
V. Young, At War with the Word: Literary
Theory and Liberal Education
·
Bradley
Watson (ed.), Civic Education and Culture
And, of course,
if you have not yet read Mortimer Adler’s The
Paideia Proposal, it remains must reading for anyone invested in the work
of Veritas Prep and Great Hearts Academies.
I have also been
preparing to teach a seminar to a group of European graduate students on the
work of Christopher Lasch, a provocative and iconoclastic American political
philosopher of the past century. I commend to you his final book, The Revolt of the Elites: and The Betrayal
of Deomcracy, as well as The Culture
of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations and The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its
Critics, all of which explore the promise and fragility of ordered liberty
in democratic regimes. I am excited to discuss these works with European
students for whom the memory of the betrayal of that promise and the experience
of that fragility is a living concern and not a matter of abstract reflection.
And because the
lecture and seminar will take me to the land of my maternal forebears, I am
indulging myself in the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz and the philosophical
reflections of Leszek Kolakowski (especially his collected essays that appear in
his Modernity on Endless Trial). I
also suspect that when I return to Arizona, I will plan to watch Krzysztof
Kieslowski’s masterful Trois Coleurs
film trilogy: Together, the films are a beautiful, subtle, sophisticated, and at
times stunning cinematic reflection on the themes of Liberty, Equality, and
Fraternity—parents may want to reserve them for a truly high-minded movie
night. If you find yourself able to investigate any or all of these marvelous
works this summer, please let me know; I would certainly enjoy the opportunity
to discuss them with you.
Until we are all
together again, you have my every best wish for a delightful summer of reading,
recreation, and other forms of fruitful time wasting.
Warmly,
Douglas
Minson
