Prize Day praises the 'witty gritty’ Form of 2024

Under a picture-perfect spring sky, members of Groton School’s Form of 2024 were praised for their resilience and challenged to become civil, unifying leaders at the school’s 139th Prize Day on June 2. 

Following a morning service in St. John’s Chapel, the community gathered for remarks from Board of Trustees President Ben Pyne ’77, P’12, ’15, Headmaster Temba Maqubela, student speaker Arjun Ray ’24, and the event’s keynote speaker, CNN host Van Jones.

Mr. Pyne greeted the form and its families, faculty, staff, and students with a welcome from the entire Board of Trustees. Reflecting on his own Prize Day forty-seven years ago, he called to mind the four aspects of this Groton experience he still carries: curiosity, values, self confidence, and friendship. 

“Groton instilled in me a set of core values that I live by to this day: honesty and integrity, knowing right from wrong, respect, serving others, and the basics on how to behave in a community like this one, which is a preview for the much larger community you are about to enter beyond the Circle,” said Mr. Pyne. “Please don’t take this lightly, as you will find in life that the values you learned here will stand you in good stead, especially in tough times or in making difficult decisions.”

Mr. Maqubela hailed the “witty gritty” Form of 2024 for refusing to wallow in self pity during the COVID-19 pandemic that marred their first years at Groton.

“They refreshed and rekindled the school’s traditions that had gone by the wayside due to strict restrictions around social distancing,” he said. “Simply put, they awakened to their responsibilities. They saw challenges as opportunities and tackled them head on.”

Graduate Arjun Ray was elected by his fellow Sixth Formers to represent them as class speaker. He pressed his formmates to strip the word “elite” of its snobbishness and negative connotations of social superiority, and to think of it as standing only for the true best.

“Here, in this final emotion-filled hour, as we turn the page and look ahead, you are—in every sense of the word as I define it—elite,” said Arjun. “But not in the way that any ranking or other metric can capture. The things that I’ve seen you do when you come together are astounding, and they have motivated me to continue having faith that greater things await down the road for all of us.” 

Mr. Jones began his remarks with a salute to the form’s parents, grandparents, and other caretakers.

“These are some smart kids, and they know a lot of stuff,” he said. “But they don’t know how hard this was for you. They don’t remember the nights when there was a fever and you didn’t know if it was going to break. They don’t remember the heartbreak you went through privately and had to shield them from. They don’t remember the scrapes and scuffles and the parent-teacher conferences, when you weren’t sure if they were going to make it. But you kept it together. And they’re here because of their own effort and their own genius and their own destiny, and because of you. You done good.”

Turning to the students, Mr. Jones promised to skip the baby talk. 

“You are clearly a special generation, mainly because you’ve had some bad times,” he said. “You’ve gone through some stuff. You came into a world that was upside down and on fire and it’s not changing soon. I want to say, good. I’m glad you had it tough. I’m glad you had it tough, because you’re going into a tough century, and no pressure, no diamonds. We need diamonds in this century. And so the challenges you’ve faced? More to come. We are betting on you to do better than my generation did.”

Mr. Jones told the students they would be leaders in a new human civilization, one that utilizes artificial intelligence and robotics like never before. What they make of that new world depends on how they meet what he considered their generation’s biggest assignment.

“You deconstruct everything so beautifully,” he said. “But that is not your assignment only. The assignment isn’t just to deconstruct everything you see. It’s, can you reconstruct something better?”

In today’s world of chasing viral content, Mr. Jones told the students it was easier to put people down than lift people up. But, he said, working to find common ground and keeping the civility in civilization were paramount if the next generation is to do better than his. Citing bipartisan prison reform legislation he passed with the Trump administration—and the blowback he got from his Democratic friends for working with Republicans, despite the bill’s historic impact—Mr. Jones urged the Form of 2024 to take a long view of how they’ll make their world.

“The dividers win in the short term,” he said. “The uniters win in the long term. The destroyers win in the short term. The builders win in the long term. The haters and the harmers win in the short term, but the lovers and the healers win in the long term. 

“So choose to be a healer,” Mr. Jones concluded. “Choose to be a uniter, even when it’s not popular. Choose to be a builder. And, as you construct this new human civilization, stay human, stay civilized, and build something beautiful.”    

Special guests included Groton’s sixth headmaster Bill Polk ’58, FTR ’78–’03, former trustees president Gordon Gund ’57, P’86, ’89, GP’19, ’19, ’23, ’24, ’28, FTR ’76–’89, and past and present members of the Board of Trustees. 

In sending the graduates out into their new world, Mr. Maqubela implored them to seek positivity before invoking the Zulu phrase first used by Mr. Polk that now closes Prize Day.

“As we say in chemistry: Go and become nucleophiles,” he said. “The world needs you to do the greater good. Humanity needs you. Go in peace, nucleophiles. Go well!”