This morning (April 28, 2011), in The Hill’s Alumni Memorial Chapel, Headmaster David R. Dougherty announced that he and his wife, Kay, will retire on June 30, 2012, after he has completed his nineteenth year as Hill’s Headmaster. Mr. Dougherty is the 10th headmaster in the School’s 160-year-old history.
Here in their entirety are his remarks, which were delivered to students and teachers during a regularly scheduled Chapel service (you may also listen to his talk): Over eighteen years ago, on January 22, 1993, I stood for the first time in this pulpit, introducing myself to this community as the newly appointed headmaster of The Hill School, having been officially elected by the Board of Trustees that morning.
Mrs. Dougherty and I had several weeks earlier decided that we would leave a wonderfully fulfilling and secure post at a school in the beautiful, carefree Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia; depart the state where we’d lived as students and teachers for much of our lives; move to a town, Pottstown, that we knew not at all; and accept the call of one of the most distinguished schools in America, with then almost 150 years of tradition, 8,000 alumni world-wide, and a name that resonated greatness, The Hill. And I can tell you now, with even greater sureness than I sensed then, that I swelled with pride, confidence – and fear.
Thus conflicted, I spoke that day to students and faculty about a greeting card I had received from a friend years earlier, a time for me of similar opportunity, similar risk, similar anxiety. On the cover, a comic combat: an enormous though rather silly green dragon, breathing halitosis, not fire; baring two goofy teeth, not fangs; towering over a diminutive young knight, clad in over-sized armor, helmet askew, knees clanking together as he stared up plaintively at his goofy foe. The knight, brandishing a small but earnest sword, was terrified.
The inscription on the card said it all: “No guts, no glory.” You’ve heard that line, or something like it: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” “You’ve got to play to win.” Or the best, a favorite of Teddy Roosevelt's, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
And beginning then and continuing to this day, I’ve displayed that greeting card on a shelf in my office. I look at it daily, laugh always, then feel its power. “No guts, no glory.” Big decisions, life-changing ones, can unsettle and frighten us, expose our greatest fears and uncertainties. But, if we step forward, test our greatest hopes and dreams, call on our greatest strengths, our guts, and tackle the challenge with hard work, we can win, win big.
And I can tell you now that over the last eighteen years I have won, won big. I won the greatest job in the world. That is my greatest victory. I love what I do. I work every day at a place with high ideals and principles, an institution that for 160 years has aspired to “mighty visions.” I work side-by-side with an incredible wife who with love, patience, and her own tireless commitment to this place has supported me and
you in all that we do here. Her own leadership -- she established Career Day, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the Student Philanthropy Council, and the Host Family Program -- argues that she should have been a school head herself. Instead she has helped me be the best one I could be. I serve too with colleagues -- great teachers, staff, trustees (most notably Charlie Frank and Tom Millhiser, the chairs, who have supported my leadership steadfastly) -- all of whom I admire enormously, and each year 500 young people whom I respect and love. For the longest time I had a hard time saying that, thought it was sappy or unmanly, but the more strongly I felt it, the more I thought I should
say so, all the more so because I really think that you are terrific, in your genuineness, your sincerity, your hopefulness, your earnest work, your good fun. I love you for that.
And so because I feel all of these things, I have come also to realize the need for me to summon a great deal of courage, guts, to tell you that Mrs. Dougherty and I have decided that next year, our nineteenth at the school, will be our last at The Hill. We will retire on June 30, 2012, after I’ve completed my forty-fourth year as a teacher, she her forty-sixth. I have come to believe that for us, for me, and for the School, this is the right time.
And so, because I am first of all a teacher, the head master, I want now to teach, to explain to you why we are making this decision now:
First, I still have a million ideas that I believe would make The Hill even better, and I still have as much enthusiasm and stamina as ever. I scare myself sometimes with my energy. I often wonder what I’m going to do when I grow up. Like a kid, I wake up every morning eager to go to school; I walk up the hill from Feroe House and gaze always with awe and humility at the Alumni Memorial Chapel, Upper School, the Ryan Library, the Academic Building, and the Dining Hall; and I remind myself, "I am so lucky." And frankly, I want to depart next June with that same vision and excitement. I would not want one student, one teacher ever to see me otherwise. I’ve never been 66 before, let alone 67 (my age next June); feel great now; and hope to then. I want to depart feeling great.
I should declare in that spirit now that I do not know the “lame duck,” those months, even years, in some places when everything slows down or stops, awaiting new leadership. No institution, certainly not a school, can throttle back for one year, then slowly gear up again in the next, as one leader departs and another arrives. In 2011-12, we have as a school much to look forward to and much to do. And we will do it.
Next, I believe that other people, the next head of The Hill School for sure, have a million ideas too to make The Hill even better, and that it’s time to give him or her that opportunity. The Hill rightly prides itself on the longevity and stability of its leadership. There have been only ten of us headmasters in 160 years. But after a while stability could become a rut, and I don’t want that to happen. It’s time for a change, and I for one can’t wait to meet and welcome the new head of The Hill School. Great schools, preparing young people for change in their own lives, must from time to time change leaders. On the occasion of his first inauguration, President Clinton said it best, declaring that “the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy.” We must look to shape change, lest it engulf us. For 160 years The Hill has proudly prepared young people for the uncertainties of the future, not by trying to outguess or outrun those uncertainties, but by girding students with a core of skills and a foundation of knowledge, experience, and values that in their basic simplicity assure those students confidence and serenity for the rest of their lives. A new leader will certainly protect that enduring, traditional mission but breathe new, vibrant life into it.
Furthermore, Mrs. Dougherty and I want to find and travel other paths ourselves, together, but elsewhere. We realize that we get only one crack at “life,” and as much as we have loved it here, we want to see if there’s even more to it. We know there is. What will it be? We don’t know yet – we have a million ideas – but realize that they will likely not take full shape until now, with this decision. Years ago, when we departed North Cross, a pre-Kindergarten through twelfth grade school in Virginia, I was summoned after my announcement by a teacher to meet with our fifth graders, who were very upset that we were leaving. “Don’t you love us anymore?” one asked. “Why go to a school where you have to live?” said another. And the most touching, “If it doesn’t work out at The Hill, will you come back here?” You bet, I wanted to say, but I knew that with my “gutsy” decision to go elsewhere, I couldn’t turn back, no more than you Sixth Formers can return here if your first month of college isn't perfect. That’s scary, but it’s also exciting – no guarantees – and Mrs. Dougherty and I both are ready for that excitement. No guts, no glory.
Although I shared with members of the Board of Trustees in October our final decision to retire – indeed, twice in the last three years with their encouragement changed my mind, but not this time – I asked them to let me tell you first – here in this beautiful chapel – of that decision. I didn’t want you to hear it second-hand, in a formal written announcement or on our Web site. Our most important times here at The Hill are together, as a community and family, and so this is where and how I wanted to tell you, the most important people in my life, of what we’re planning to do. In a few hours, everybody else will hear.
Finally, I am looking forward more than I can say to the next fourteen months – during which of course a formal search for a new head, already begun by the Board of Trustees, will take place – mostly because I want to make next year (our final year together) and the following one (your first with a new head) two of the best ever here. Mrs. D and I are genuinely excited about those special times with you, and we’re committed to preparing you well for welcoming to the school our new leader.
I promise all of you – faculty and students – all of my attention, my energy, and my passion – as always, until the final day, and final minute of my tenure. I will be in my office -- and Mrs. D. will be in hers -- on June 30, 2012 at 4:00 p.m. – and it’s a Saturday – serving you, serving the School, and serving all that it stands for, what we call “Whatsoever Things Are True.” We'll do that at 4:01 p.m. that day as well, next day too, but then in support of the eleventh headmaster of The Hill School, who, like me, will have the greatest job in the world.
Let us pray. And this, as many of you know, is my favorite prayer:
In response to what we have heard and seen, what we know ourselves to be, and what we hope to become, let us pray.
We thank you, God, for life –
For giving us different ways of seeing all that we encounter,
For allowing us to reflect upon and, in some measure, to find ourselves,
For the joys and sorrows which bind us together,
For all the things that make us know that “All this gift is pilgrimage.”
And in this life, make us instruments of peace –
By remembering that we must understand in order to be understood,
By making forgiveness a permanent attitude, not merely an occasional act,
By seeking to build a humanity that transcends all barriers,
By living peace, not merely speaking of it.
And on this day make us aware
That “We are part of all that we have met.”
And give us strength to believe
That “If our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.” Amen.