Annual Dinner: Afloat on the Open Sea

Brunswick School welcomed more than 850 parents and faculty — a record turnout — to its Annual Dinner on Thursday, September 17.

 

Greg Hartch (P ’19), newly named Chairman of the Board of Trustees, began the evening by honoring his predecessor, Sanjeev Mehra (P ’10, ’12, ’13, ’20), who completed a three-year term as Chairman in June.

 

“Under Sanjeev’s leadership, we embarked on the most ambitious capital campaign in the School’s history,” Hartch said. “As a result of that and so many other efforts, our faculty is stronger, our stock of faculty housing is greater, our endowment has grown significantly, and our boys are thriving.”

 

Hartch, however, saved the best for last.

 

“In gratitude and recognition for all Sanjeev and his family have done for Brunswick, I am very pleased to announce that the Board of Trustees has voted to name our new natatorium the Mehra Natatorium.”

 

After Tom O’Malley ’85 (P ’12, ’15, ’21) provided an update on the Above All Else: Courage, Honor, Truth Capital Campaign — setting a goal to complete the landmark effort in May, two years ahead of schedule — Headmaster Thomas W. Philip took to the podium to discuss a big topic.

 

Philip cited Brunswick’s core beliefs, which, taken together, serve to govern and guide its boys as they develop into young men of strong character.

 

 

 

All Upper School students and their parents, along with the entire faculty, read the national bestseller this summer as part of the Brunswick Trust — the School’s new broad-based initiative for character and leadership education.

 

The story, Philp said, has somewhat of an ominous message for Brunswick boys.

 

“When our boys venture forward, the unsettling truth is that they must navigate in a world in which there are many more life stories of struggle like those of the boys in the University of Washington boat than there are stories like their own,” Philip said.

 

“How, in such a uniquely privileged place, do we instill the strength of character that often only comes as a result of experience with great struggle? How do we make our boys hungry for all that life can offer them when so often they’re entirely satiated?” he asked.

 

“How do we make them care for others when there are so many caring for them? How do we make them resilient when they are so rarely offered the opportunity to fail?”

 

Philip, fittingly, referred to a famous quotation — “Boats are safe in harbor, but that’s not what boats were made for” — to offer a resolution.

 

“Fundamentally, if we’re being honest with our boys and ourselves, we know that harbors are not what we’re obligated to prepare them for,” he said.

 

“Side by side, we share the noblest of causes. We are preparing young men for life — for the open sea, not for the safe harbors. And there’s no better way to prepare our sons than to set them afloat armed and infused with the strength of character that’s embedded in the words Courage, Honor, and Truth.”