Spence News
Commencement 2014: Stepping Out, Up and In
Spence celebrated its 117th Commencement on June 13, at the Church of the Heavenly Rest.
“Spence for me, has been more than an education, more than an experience,” said senior speaker Ana Camila Legaspi ’14 to an audience of over 700 gathered to celebrate the graduation of the Class of 2014. “It has been a family.”
Legaspi was one of 56 seniors to graduate at The Spence School’s 117th Commencement on June 13, at the Church of the Heavenly Rest. The ceremony was presided over by Head of School Bodie Brizendine and President of the Board of Trustees Gregg Polle P’11, ’13, both of whom made brief opening addresses to the Class of 2014, joined by families, trustees, faculty and friends.
Polle, who is finishing a long tenure as a Trustee, praised members of the Class of 2014 for their distinguished academic and extracurricular work, noting that the class was also exceptionally “spirited and diverse.”
Bookended by performances of “You Are the New Day” by Select Choir and “Landslide” by the Glee Club, Legaspi’s senior address reflected on her Spence experience.
Described by Brizendine as “resolute, resilient and resolved,” Legaspi discussed how Spence supported her in a time of need and credited Spence as “a place where all of us have learned to be ourselves.”
Further, Legaspi stressed how the grade is made up of diverse individuals, all with the mark of “confident and ambitious young women” that Spence has molded them to be.
“Spence has taught us that we are not just a single self, a single story, or a single label,” she said. “We are an endless, dazzling collection of selves.”
Duane Litchfield, retired teacher, head of the Math Department and dean, invited by the Class of 2014 as the ceremony’s featured speaker, delivered the Commencement address, in which he drew on the opening procession of the day and presented a parade of teachers from “all the world and all human history…processing in a grand celebration.”
Litchfield shared images from his parade, full of teachers from the ancient world including Plato and Aristotle, his own teachers from all levels of education, his peers from throughout his career and many of his close friends from high school who also became teachers.
Litchfield lauded four teachers—a priest from the University of Notre Dame, Dr. David Purple of UNC, the author Margaret Mead and teacher of woodworking and French Michael Dunbar—all bearing messages that have “forced [him] to think differently, to identify and reconsider some assumptions, and prodded [him] to probe more deeply,” and shared these ideas “in the hopes that you might find guidance in them as you begin preparations for your own parade in celebration of your own career.”
Closing with the image of his first department head, Dom Andrew Jens, a mentor and “the teacher and person [he has] strived most to emulate,” Litchfield left the graduates with the wishes that they continue their love of learning and someday be “marching in your own parade, following whatever path you have chosen.” Finally, he encouraged the graduates, as they would recess out of the church, to “look ahead and witness the hundreds of women who have come before you and are also part of the recession” with “Clara Spence, herself, leading all of you on, triumphantly waving her banner.”
Academic Dean Douglas Brophy and Head of Upper School Michèle Krauthamer joined Brizendine for the presentation of diplomas, each diploma exchanged with a hug from the Head of School. Inspired by the words of Clara Spence in 1920, Brizendine’s closing remarks extended a wish for the Class of 2014 to step “out, up and in” as alumnae of the School.
Brizendine urged the graduates to absorb “three rather simple understandings in this lifelong quest of trying to get it right in the world.” She encouraged the young women to “remember that your lives constitute a moral enterprise,” to develop “the extraordinary awareness of being” and finally to “understand your power and the power that has been given to you through an extraordinary education.” She saluted the parents and guardians of the Class of 2014, reciting a short poem by Robert Hershon illustrating the enduring nature of parental love, and asked the graduates to “come back, and come back often.”
View Spence’s College Matriculation List to see where these seniors have gone to continue their academic journeys.
View Spence’s College Matriculation List to see where these seniors have gone to continue their academic journeys.
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A K-12 independent school in New York city, The Spence School prepares a diverse community of girls and young women for the demands of academic excellence and responsible citizenship.
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© 2023 Spence School
212-289-5940
© 2023 Spence School
