To begin, I would like to thank everyone here who has worked so hard since the first day of the school year to get us off to such an energized and exciting start. To all of you who gave of yourselves or participated in making Convocation, the Parents Nights in the Middle and Upper School, Grandparents’ Day, all of the events around Homecoming and now, this Installation possible, a heartfelt thank you. I especially want to thank Rick, Eric, Katherine, Nate and Katie for their thoughtful speeches today and for giving us much to think about and celebrate.

And of course, I would like to welcome Candy Dale to NYA and thank her for coming east from Concord, NH, where she teaches humanities at St. Paul’s School. I first met Candy a little more than 10 years ago when she was Dean of Faculty at SPS. She has the distinction in my mind of being the best boss I’ve ever had. By that I mean she had a way of leading by gentle but forceful example, of being simultaneously honest, supportive, and authentic in a way that empowered and guided all of us who were lucky enough to work for her. A light touch, a sense of humor, and deep thoughtfulness mark not only Candy’s work, but her way of being in the world.

Finally, I’d like to single out two of the slightly older gentlemen in the crowd. My father-in-law, James Bacon, who shares Ian Ramsey’s Scottish heritage as well as a certain fondness for kilts. In fact, Jim wore one to my wedding to his daughter. Ian, thank you for wearing your kilt today. And Jim, thank you for not wearing yours on this occasion. But please know you have my gratitude for all your support over the years and for being one of those who raised my beloved wife, Charlotte.

I would also like to thank my father, Merv, for making the trip here with his wife, Ruthanne. My dad, who turned 90 the same day last summer that President Obama turned 50, is a WWII veteran; a man who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King; and a person who was deeply active in the civil rights movement that transformed our country in the 1960s. His commitment to justice and freedom and his profound work ethic have helped me carve out my own professional and moral identity over the years. Dad, thank you for your inspiration, your guidance, and especially for the blessing of your longevity.

Now I have a confession to make. When I heard the word installation used to describe this event as early as last spring, my mind first flew to images of new applications on my iPhone, the latest updates to Microsoft Word, or as one of my colleagues recently reflected, to a flat-screen TV. I also thought about more 20th-century connotations having to do with light bulbs, dishwashers, and stoves. We did, in fact, install new heating pipes in Curtis Hall this summer.

But this connotation begged a truly troubling question: Could you really install a person? I would hope not. It sounds sort of uncomfortable, for one, something that requires a lot of hardware and manuals in at least six languages. Perhaps a hybrid surgeon-plumber would be required?

And more seriously, there is an edge to the word that implies something or someone being fixed in placed, bolted to a particular structure, that does not match what I believe is needed here in the years ahead. When I addressed the community at Convocation, I referred to our school’s impressive history and the continuity of traditions, its emphasis on excellence in academics, athletics, and the arts. I also talked to you about my desire to listen carefully before helping us to embark on the transitions that will help our school to grow and prosper.

Today, I would like to discuss with you the spirit with which I hope to begin to make those transitions. One of the themes that has emerged from conversations with students, parents, trustees, faculty and staff is that you would like a leader who is willing to wade right to the heart of what makes NYA wonderful as well as what’s holding it back. You have asked for someone to be hands on, involved, visible, open to new ideas and possibilities. In short, someone who’s not fixed in place, not anchored to one way of looking at how to handle serious challenges. It is my joy and my privilege to take on this task and to embrace broad notions to help us make NYA an even stronger, better defined and more vigorous school.

To arrive at this next step of our evolution, however, I would like to make a deal with you today. I will agree to be installed as your Head of School now if you agree with me, fifth graders through the senior class, faculty and staff along with trustees, parents and grandparents along with other family members, and many other friends of NYA, that you will be invested alongside me as people who are equally flexible, energized, and engaged in the school’s success. That does not mean that I abdicate responsibility for leading the school. Far from it. I fully intend to model the ability to learn and to effect change in everything I do from interacting with the community to the way I run a meeting, from supporting faculty and staff to the way I make strategic decisions. And this promise goes beyond school: I also model learning in how I help my one-year-old to walk, my kindergartner to read, or my 6th grader to, ahem, to clean up his locker.

Yet I also want to lead with this idea in mind, a perception gleaned from social scientists who study the intersection of ecology with human behavior. Margaret Wheatley, a leading thinker in this field, has written, “We never succeed in directing or telling people how they must change. We don’t succeed by handing them a plan, or pestering them with our interpretations, or relentlessly pressing forward with our agenda, believing that volume and intensity will convince them to see it our way.” In other words, if leaders are to be effective, they must facilitate change in a system by giving up the illusion that they can direct that change. I believe leaders are most effective when the individuals they serve feel both responsible and empowered to make a difference. And as I steer the school, I hope all of us will experience these feelings of empowerment and collective responsibility. I hope, too, that through the years, these feelings will resonate more and more strongly among us.

So how do we achieve this hope? What model for collaboration will maximize our chances of success? Here are a couple of strategies: Let’s all make an effort to nurture networks of communication and connection so that we create avenues for ideas to flow and be understood, and for action to take place when it is needed. Let’s all make an effort to create microclimates of trust and mutual support where motivations are clear and respected, even when we may not agree on the method. And let’s all make an effort to encourage questioning and reward innovation not only in our one-on-one interactions, but also as we think about our own school’s essential eco-system: its curriculum and pedagogy.

The reason to commit to each of these strategies and to collaborate at a deeper level isn’t only that I believe in the individual potential of all of you here. And it’s not only humility about the skills and strengths I have to offer. It’s also about an awareness of two important ideas. First, we must keep in mind that the future of our school and our culture is tremendously exciting but also uncertain. We do not know the names much less the actual content of most of the careers that you students sitting here today will commit to as you become adults. Our world is simply changing so fast that we must value not only knowledge, but the ability to work across disciplines, the ability to solve problems as people who are able to be scientists, athletes, philosophers, artists, historians and engineers in many different languages and all at once. Second, we must also be able to navigate what’s next with a notion of intelligence that includes the capacity to work well with others though heightened emotional awareness and to embrace teamwork with selflessness.

This is real effort that requires sacrifice, humor, and resilience. In the words of one of the people whom I referenced at the start of this talk, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” Dr. King knew the truth of that statement as a man who gave his life to bring basic human rights to the disenfranchised of our country. We can also recognize the value of his statement within the context of a future whose parameters are shifting even as we speak.

If I were fixed to a wall or if you were, if any of us had our feet or hands bolted into place on any practical or metaphorical level, we wouldn’t be able to provide what NYA has asked for: the courage and consciousness to make the choices that will extend its distinctive history in truly fruitful directions for another two centuries. Today, I’m only asking you to give me a hand for the next several years, with the full acknowledgement that even this request is asking a lot. But as Dr. King also said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

Please join me on that adventure. I promise I won’t ask you to wear a kilt, unless you want to. And I certainly promise not to wear one myself. Regardless where we ascend and in what attire, I believe that it will be an experience that will stretch us, move us and yield rewards we can only now imagine. Thank you.