News Detail

Convocation - The School Year Begins

After a weekend of orientation activities for our Wildcats, Sunday’s Convocation ceremony officially marked the beginning of the 2026–27 academic year.

Gathering in the Nita Choukas Theater in Horowitz Performing Arts Hall, students and faculty came together to welcome new members of the Vermont Academy community, celebrate academic achievement, recommit to the school’s Honor Code, and look ahead to the year ahead.
Head of School Mike Peller opened Convocation by sharing Wendell Berry’s poem, “The Vacation”. The poem tells the story of a man so focused on recording his vacation that he fails to actually experience it. Mike returned to the poem throughout his address, highlighting Berry’s closing lines:
“But he would not be in it. He would never be in it.”

Mike connected the poem to the experience of being a Vermont Academy student and to the importance of being fully present in the year ahead. Reflecting on his own summer, he spoke about planting a garden and apple trees whose fruit he may not live to enjoy, as well as discovering a peach tree planted by someone else that was overflowing with fruit.

He shared a line from Elton Trueblood: “A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.”

For 150 years, people have been planting trees at Vermont Academy, Mike reminded us. “We are sitting in their shade.” From that idea came the central question of his address: What will we plant? Mike encouraged students to think about that question through three commitments: take healthy risks, show up for others, and leave this place better than you found it.

He reminded students that becoming is rarely a smooth process. “You can have the best class discussion of your life and then bomb a quiz,” he said. “You can score the winning goal and then say something completely awkward at dinner.” Those moments, he explained, are not evidence that the process is failing. “That’s the process working.”

Students were encouraged to raise their hands when they are unsure, audition, challenge themselves academically, talk to someone new, try something they might initially be terrible at, ask for help, and sometimes fail.

Mike also spoke about the responsibility of the adults at Vermont Academy to provide both high expectations and high support. “Pushing and holding,” he described it. “When a teacher or coach or director expects more from you than you think you have to give, that is them believing in you, respecting you.”

Connecting his second charge, showing up for others, to a book he read over the summer, Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose by Jennifer Breheny Wallace, Mike emphasized that every person needs to know that they matter and that they have something of value to contribute.
“I want every person in this room to know that you matter here,” he said. “Not because of your grades. Not because of how many goals you score. Not because you can land a trick nobody else can. You matter because you are you. Period. Full stop.”

He challenged students to make that same feeling possible for those around them. Learn people’s names. Say hello on Long Walk. Watch a roommate’s game. Attend the play. Listen to someone with whom you disagree. Notice someone who needs to be noticed.

And when someone is being diminished or made to feel as though they do not belong, Mike urged students not to be spectators or complicit. “Step in. Stand beside them. Get help. Do something.” One question, he said, should become part of the community’s vocabulary this year: What can I do to help?

The final charge was to leave Vermont Academy better than we found it. Mike reminded students that, for a short time, the dorms, classrooms, fields, trails, traditions, land, and community are ours to care for, but that we are ultimately stewards, not owners. “There is a covenant between generations in a school like this,” he said. “We inherit it. We shape it. And then we pass it on.”

Students were encouraged to make their dorm, team, classroom, and community better; to care for the land; to start something new; to improve something old; to protect traditions worth protecting and question those that need questioning.

Mike returned to the theme of “The Vacation” as he encouraged students to be fully present in their time at Vermont Academy.

“I don’t want you to spend your time at Vermont Academy recording a life you forgot to live,” he said. “I don’t want you to get to graduation with thousands of pictures of Vermont Academy and realize that somehow you missed being here.”

He reminded students that the moments they remember years from now may be the seemingly ordinary ones: a ridiculous late-night conversation, a bus ride, a practice in terrible weather, a meal in Shep when everyone laughed until they could not breathe, making s’mores at the Nick Grout ’03 Memorial  Firepit, watching a sunrise, swimming in the river, or the moment someone stood beside them when they needed it.
“Don’t just preserve it,” Mike said. “Put the phone down and be in it.” He closed with the same question that will guide the year ahead: What are we planting? “Take the risks. Show up for others. Leave this place better.”
“The year is ours. Be here. Make it matter. Let’s get to work. And let’s plant something.”

Following Mike’s address, VASA co-presidents Maya Carbone and Trey Abrozich, along with VASA treasurer Jack Morley, welcomed the student body. The student leaders encouraged Wildcats to make the most of their time at Vermont Academy, step outside their comfort zones, try something new, talk to someone they might not normally talk to, and say yes to opportunities.

They also emphasized the importance of looking out for one another and respecting the campus, peers, faculty, and staff who make the community possible. “Make someone feel included. Show up for your friends. Celebrate each other’s accomplishments,” Jack encouraged students, reminding them that when things become stressful, there are people in the community ready to offer support.

The officers closed their welcome with a message of excitement for the year ahead and a spirited “Go VA!”
As is tradition at Vermont Academy, Convocation also provided an opportunity to recognize academic achievement from the prior school year. Students who earned High Honors, defined as a GPA of 3.67 or above, were recognized by class.

The Anna Mae D. Fenney Awards were also presented. These awards are given annually to students who maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.67 and achieve High Honors during each trimester of the academic year.

The Harvard Book Prize, awarded to a rising senior whose achievements in academics, extracurricular activities, and citizenship have been exemplary, was presented to Elizabeth Thompson.
The Class of 1892 Award, given to the returning senior who earned the highest GPA during their junior year, was presented to Nik Dunbar.

The next portion of Convocation focused on one of Vermont Academy’s most important traditions: the signing of the Honor Code.

One of Vermont Academy’s Core Beliefs states that “each member of the Vermont Academy community acts with the highest level of honesty and integrity.” This belief serves as the foundation of the school’s Honor Code, which is built around four principles: Honesty, Trust, Respect, and Responsibility.
New students, as well as faculty and staff members who had joined the community within the past year and had not previously signed the Honor Code, came forward by class to sign the Honor Code books.

By signing, members of the community commit to the following: “As a member of the Vermont Academy community, I commit my honesty, trust, respect, and responsibility to uphold the core beliefs of this institution.”

The ceremony concluded with the Vermont Academy Evening Song. Maddelena Dimayuga ’28 and Casey Rhodes ’27 led the community in the beloved school song.

Achieving High Honors

Awarded to students with a GPA of 3.67 or above for the Spring 2025–26 academic year.

Class of 2029
Raven Annson
Keegan Berdortha
Lorenza Davis-Barcenas
Olivia Dimayuga
Madeleine Halsted
Zane Hoey
Wyatt Honig
Spencer Jones
Asher Joseph
Quinci Kennedy
Chenjia Li
Chenkai Li
James Macri
Willow Norkun
David Roberts
Sloane Trachtenberg

Class of 2028
Louis Alden
Caliegh Daley
Maddalena Dimayuga
Haoxuan Guo
Vaihere Gurion
Sandrine Lau
Cooper Leary
Arabelle Louissaint
Kai Price
Alek Salzman
Angela Shi
Makena Simonds
Ethan Stark
Jacob Studin
Lyla Whigham

Class of 2027
Richard Berkfield
Lincoln Bernardin
Martin Boua
Maya Carbone
Yundi Chen
Nik Dunbar
Talia Engel
Marcos Gomez Gonzalez
Alejandro Gonzalez Bonet
Duoyue Hu
Hale Hurwitz
Matthew Jernigan
Marco Losada Barreira
Erika Matsumura
Adleigh Norman
Isabella Pascali
Rebecca Sadlon
William Schlomm
Elizabeth Thompson
Aspen Whidden

Anna Mae D. Fenney Awards

The Anna Mae D. Fenney Awards are given annually to students who maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.67 and achieve High Honors for each trimester during the academic year.

Class of 2029
Raven Annson
Keegan Bedortha
Lorenza Davis-Barcenas
Olivia Dimayuga
Madeleine Halsted
Zane Hoey
Wyatt Honig
Spencer Jones
Asher Joseph
Quinci Kennedy
James Macri
Willow Norkun
David Roberts
Sloane Trachtenberg

Class of 2028
Ryan Guo
Vai Gurion
Sandrine Lau
Alek Salzman
Angela Shi
Lyla Whigham

Class of 2027
Richard Berkfield
Lincoln Bernardin
Martin Boua
Maya Carbone
Yundi Chen
Nik Dunbar
Talia Engel
Alejandro Gonzalez Bonet
Duoyue Hu
Adleigh Norman
Aspen Whidden

Harvard Book Prize

The Harvard Book Prize is awarded annually to a rising senior whose achievement in academic, extracurricular, and citizenship areas has been exemplary, a student of high personal standards who gives the promise of sound leadership in later life.
Elizabeth Thompson ’27

Class of 1892 Award

The Class of 1892 Award is awarded to the returning senior who earned the highest GPA during their junior year.
Nik Dunbar ’27

The Vacation

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch, there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.
Back
10 Long Walk, PO Box 500
Saxtons River, VT 05154
802-869-6200
Vermont Academy is a coed college preparatory boarding and day school in southern Vermont, serving grades 9-12 plus a postgraduate year.