Kairui Sun

Shreyas Chakravarty delivers a speech warning against blind competitiveness and for greater focus on values. “And you cannot connect your values to your actions without understanding the value of your actions, the input that you put into the world,” Shreyas said. “And the way to do that is through service.”

Upperclassmen, faculty and parents gathered at the Baccalaureate ceremony to celebrate the conclusion of high school for the Class of 2025 and the Class of 2026’s ascension to their role as seniors on May 16 in the quad.

Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs Jennifer Gargano welcomed all participants to the ceremony by congratulating the senior class and their unique contributions. Honor Council members Naiya Daswani (12) and Yash Greene (11) directed the Continuation of Honor ceremony, where Yash promised on behalf of the junior class to uphold the Harker values and the Honor Code.

Head of the Upper School Paul Barsky introduced this year’s senior-chosen Baccalaureate faculty speaker: math teacher Caren Furtado. Furtado centered her talk around how to get into “the Ivy League of life,” paralleling life’s journey to the college admissions process in a positive and humorous way. Throughout the speech, she celebrated all the accomplishments of the seniors throughout their high school career, like consecutively winning the tug-of-war three times.

“I was really nervous [to give this speech] because the Class of ’25 is well and truly amazing,” Furtado said. “They’re a phenomenal bunch, so I definitely felt some pressure to do justice to them in remembering them and honoring them and in really recognizing how wonderful they are. I wanted to talk about all the things that [the seniors] are good at, and community building is definitely by far their biggest strength.”

Student speaker Shreyas Chakravarty (12), who was chosen after presenting his speech to a student panel, took the stage after Furtado. In his address, he stressed the importance of using actions to express principles in each student’s daily life. As president of Green Team, Shreyas sees how people sometimes fail to uphold their belief through their behavior even if they believe in something.

“I thought the ceremony was really beautiful, especially the speech and message about connecting value to your actions — that’s a really powerful takeaway,” junior Maryanne Davies said. “It’s also definitely surreal that I’m almost a senior. It’ll be a big responsibility to be leading the rest of the student body, but I’m also excited because that just shows how far we’ve come as a class.”

Head of School Brian Yager ended the ceremony with the poem “Nobility” by Alice Carey. He emphasized how the Class of 2026 now had to lead the school and how they should strive to uphold values of integrity and kindness.

“I’m one hundred percent going to cry next year when my advisees are the ones being recognized,” junior adviser Patrick Kelly said. “This was the passing of the torch, and I’m so proud of the Class of 2026. These events are why teachers are teachers — to get to see our students celebrated and parents be proud of them.”

Students also enjoyed musical performances. Senior violinists Andre Lu and Alex Zhong, violist David Tang (10), cellist Aya Sugaya (11) and pianist Iris Cai (12) played “Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major” by Schumann, and Capriccio delivered a rendition of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

“It’s a wonderful way to acknowledge the graduating class and to conclude their last day of classes here as they transition to alumni,” Barsky said. “Concurrently, it’s a great time to have the Class of ’26, the next class, come into a place of leadership on campus to become seniors and to gradually transition into their new roles.”