Our Best Today and Our New Frontier: A Centennial Milestone

Head of School Dr. Peter Folan’s Remarks, Academic Convocation 2026

This morning, we began with three acts.

We pledged allegiance to our country.

We listened to the words of two former Dexter students—Ben Bradlee, Class of 1933, and John F. Kennedy, Class of 1929.

And we stood together and listened to our School Declarations. In this Centennial year, those words carry extra meaning.

Those three acts belong together and have meaning.

The Pledge reminds us that we are citizens of a 250-year-old democratic tradition larger than ourselves.

Bradlee and Kennedy show us what a life shaped by courage and character can become.

Our School Declarations remind us lives are built through daily choices.

As Dexter boys, Bradlee and Kennedy gathered in school assemblies. They listened to Miss Fiske, our founding headmistress, speak about character, effort, and responsibility. A hundred years later, you gather in Fiske Hall and recite the same Declarations:

“Let us have clean hands, clean words, and clean thoughts.”

“Let us stand for the hard right against the easy wrong.”

“Let us stay ready to help others at some cost to ourselves.”

A hundred years later, Miss Fiske’s motto also remains: “Our Best Today, Better Tomorrow.”

In this Centennial year, those words carry extra meaning as we strive to live out that promise in all that we do.

Dexter opened in 1926 because a group of parents believed a school should also form the character of its students. Joseph P. Kennedy was among its founding trustees, and his sons Joseph Jr. and Jack were among its first sixty-five students.

We begin our Centennial year grateful for the teachers, families, and students who built this School. For one hundred years, our community has remained devoted to the belief that character, effort, intellectual growth, and service to others were virtues to be championed.

The first voice we heard today belonged to Dexter graduate Ben Bradlee, who led The Washington Post during a period that tested its courage, judgment, and commitment to the truth.

In 1972, two young Post reporters began investigating a break-in at the Watergate Hotel. Their work revealed that powerful people were trying to conceal what had happened. Bradlee was their Editor.

He challenged the reporters, tested their evidence, and decided what the newspaper could publish. When powerful people attacked the reporting, Bradlee stood behind the work.

He understood that courage did not mean publishing what he wanted to believe. It meant doing the difficult work: asking hard questions, checking sources, correcting what was wrong, and refusing to allow pressure to determine what was true.

Over his career, Bradlee returned often to our School motto. His approach was straightforward: put out the best and most honest newspaper you can today, and then put out a better one tomorrow.

We now live in a different world where information can reach millions of people with the touch of a screen. Something false can travel just as quickly as something true, which makes Bradlee’s standard even more important.

We are a school that prides itself on teaching students how to think, not what to think. And with that comes a responsibility: to pursue the truth and to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

The second voice we heard belonged to President John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy was nine years old when Dexter opened. His life would take him from a small school in Brookline to the Pacific Ocean as a Naval officer, and ultimately to the United States Presidency.

During the Second World War, a Japanese destroyer struck Kennedy’s patrol boat, the PT-109. Two members of the crew perished, but Kennedy never quit.

Although injured, he towed a badly injured sailor through miles of open water and eventually led the surviving crew to safety. Kennedy understood that it was his responsibility to lead in the hardest moments.

Years later, Kennedy accepted his party’s nomination for United States President and described challenges that would test the nation’s imagination and courage.

“The New Frontier,” he said, “is not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges.” His words still echo in 2026.

In 1960, human beings had not yet traveled into space. This year, for the first time in more than half a century, human beings traveled around the Moon.

Today, we face new frontiers in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and medicine. These advances offer breathtaking possibilities, but they also raise difficult questions:

What should we create, and what should we protect?

Kennedy also spoke of peace and war, ignorance and prejudice, poverty and surplus. Those challenges remain. Members of our armed services still serve far from home and are at great risk. Many people still live without adequate food, shelter, education, or security.

The frontiers of 2026 are not identical to those of 1960, but the question remains the same:

Will we retreat into what Kennedy called “the safe mediocrity of the past”? Or will we move forward with invention, imagination, courage, and decision?

For the Dexter Southfield students, both big or small, gathered here today, your frontier must be this school year and what is right in front of you.

Your frontier could be learning to tie your skates or riding a bike. It could be the subject you find challenging, the role in the play you are afraid to pursue, or the idea you don’t have the confidence to share.

Sometimes, your frontier might be visible to everyone. More often, it will be known only to you.

In those moments, remember our School Declaration:

“Let us work as hard and play as fair when we are alone as if all the world saw.”

Character is not created in a single dramatic moment. It is built in the smaller moments: when you choose honesty over convenience, effort over excuse, and the hard right over the easy wrong. Those small choices prepare us for the larger frontiers we cannot yet see.

At our Academic Convocation, we celebrate learning. Learning is not simply the answers needed for a test. Transformative learning must begin in wonder. It grows as you find your voice. And, at its best, leads toward a purpose or service to something larger than yourself.

In 1967, Dexter’s second headmaster, Francis Caswell, wrote that our School would strive to help its students develop the skills needed to make “positive contributions as a member of our democratic society.”

We affirmed that civic responsibility this morning when we began with the Pledge of Allegiance. That aspiration has not grown old.

As we look toward Dexter Southfield’s next century, let us remember that each of us is called to greatness. I do not mean greatness measured by fame or recognition.

I mean the greatness found in using our gifts fully in service to others. President Kennedy once invoked an ancient truth that I hold dear: “Those to whom much is given, much is required.”

Much has been given to us here in 2026. The gift of this amazing School, the sacrifices of those who built it, and the devotion of generations of teachers and families.

Those gifts also come with responsibility. The leaders who preceded me—Myra Fiske, Francis Caswell, Bill Phinney, and Todd Vincent—each carried that responsibility.

Now, it belongs to all of us. We will honor those who built our first century not by standing still, but by carrying their work forward. Class of 2027, that responsibility rests with you.

Do not rush past the days between now and graduation.

Each night, name one thing from the day for which you are grateful—and pause long enough to give thanks.

Gratitude teaches us to recognize what we have received.

Humility reminds us that we did not receive it alone.

Wisdom asks what we will now give in return.

As the leaders of this School; ask yourself what do you plan to give? Younger students are watching. Set a high standard.

Show them how to meet a new frontier—with courage, humility, and a willingness to serve.

I am deeply proud to lead this School into its second century and to undertake this work alongside our faculty, staff, parents, and students.

Let us look toward our New Frontier with hope. Let us meet the work ahead with courage.

And let us begin this School’s second century with humble hearts, courageous minds, and the determination to give our best today—and to build something even better tomorrow.