Message from the Headmaster

WE PAID EXTRA attention to our beautiful Circle in April, when Groton joined other institutions designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to commemorate the 200thanniversary of the renowned landscape architect’s birth.

Mr. Olmsted intentionally designed our Circle to be open, with a broad vista to the west. Every day that we walk out of Chapel, we see mountains in the distance and can feel, intuitively, a sense of limitless opportunity, just as the Groton boys did after a service with Endicott Peabody. The Circle’s brilliant design remains an apt metaphor for Groton’s mission, even after all these years.

The Groton Circle is open—as our minds and our sensibilities must be. At recent Groton gatherings in New York, San Francisco, and London, I spoke to alumni, parents, and recently admitted families about three “I’s”—Inclusion, Impact, and Individuals. Inclusion is the school’s ethos and mantra. Intentionally teaching inclusion and offering an inclusive experience make an impact on the malleable minds of our teenagers, imparting lessons that students carry well beyond Groton. Intrinsic to the idea of inclusion is a desire to honor each and every individual, to celebrate and take pride in our individuality, in our unique stories.

These three “I’s” serve as the precursor to a sense of belonging, a key element in the school’s new strategic framework and an ideal to which every Groton headmaster strived in one way or another. At Groton today, we are committed to creating an environment in which every person feels a sense of belonging; only with that foundation might they fulfill their true potential.

The symbolism of the Groton Circle, the unifying nucleus at the center of campus, has not changed substantially since the late nineteenth century. There are infinite pointson a circle’s circumference, and there are infinite possibilities for connection around our Circle.The fact that a tangent can pass through any one of these points and connect with both the center and with any other point demonstrates how well Groton’s Circle represents a sense of belonging. And how appropriate that each of these points is equidistant to the center of the Circle—a fact for all circles and a symbol of equal opportunity for ours.

At our New York reception, graduates from 1950 through 2021 attended, eager to reconnect for the first time since 2019. I spoke to them about our open Circle (including that Groton was open, quite literally, in the fall of 2020, when many schools remained closed).

These gatherings were a reminder that, despite challenges that we face globally and locally, the Groton family remains intact. On our beloved and purposefully designed campus, we continue to prepare future leaders for all kinds of challenges— geopolitical, environmental, economic, social—so they will be driven to tackle them and improve our world. Our new strategic framework, focused on inclusion and belonging, provides the road map as well as the call to action that will keep Groton relevant, and the Circle open, well into the twenty-first century and beyond.

Temba Maqubela Headmaster

Gail Friedman

Irene HL Chu

Elizabeth Wray Lawrence ‘82

Jessica M. Hart

Christopher Temerson

Amily E. Dunlap Kimberly A. Gerighty Allison S. MacBride John D. MacEachern P’10, ‘14,’16 Kathleen M. Machan

The Schoolhouse Groton School Groton, MA 01450 978-448-7506

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Groton School publishes the Groton School Quarterly three times a year, in late summer, winter, and spring, and the Annual Report once a year, in the fall.