Back-to-School Address 2026

“For your consideration.”

This phrase began to accompany advertisements in Hollywood trade publications in the 1940s.  It was meant to generate so-called “Oscar buzz.” The effort has grown in the years since. Today, studios and distributors may well spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the hopes of increasing the odds of their movies winning Academy Awards. 

As any film lover knows, the year’s “best” are not necessarily those that walk away with statuettes. Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, among other titans of cinema, never won Oscars for directing.  Outcomes may be the results of split-votes, sentiment or nostalgia, or simply more effective marketing.

Insiders refer to the acronym FYC in describing these campaigns. In the case of one recent Best Picture winner, its distributor spent three times the film’s production budget to market it for Oscar glory. Yet the phrase offers a polite nudge or encouragement: “Consider” something maybe you would not have otherwise. “For your consideration.”

Were I to ask the boys of the US Lower School, they could likely explain what it means to be “considerate” (and likely with even more precision and conviction than they could describe being “responsible” or “loyal”). They might describe holding a door for someone, helping someone up when he has fallen, or sympathizing with him when he is down. In this understanding, and in these examples, to be “considerate” is to be kind and thoughtful.

As we begin the year, I encourage us to be more expansive in our understanding of this part of the University School motto, lest it be the last – and the least – of the three terms we know so well.  

One of my heroes is the late Dr. Jane Goodall, who passed away last year but left us all with an extraordinary legacy. For me, Dr. Goodall’s example is one of “consideration” in the broadest and deepest senses.

At the height of her fame, Dr. Goodall was synonymous with chimpanzee research. Her fieldwork in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in the 1960s and 70s revolutionized our understanding of the primates. She showed the complexity of their relationships, the range of their emotions, and their ability to use tools, once thought the province of human beings alone. Goodall called her time in East Africa the happiest years of her life.

In the late 1980s, however, her mindset changed. She realized that she could not work to save the chimpanzees solely by working on the ground with and for them. Energizing and satisfying as that work might be, to make real progress she had to leave Gombe. She had to learn more. She had to do more.

Goodall’s move from scientist to activist came through her own continued growth. She learned about policy and politics, about education and economics.  

“Once you realize the interconnectedness of things,” she said, “you see that you cannot just think about one problem, but you must think holistically.”

What had changed? What changed was what Goodall had to consider in service of her ultimate goals. She realized if she knew more, she could do more.

What consideration looks like every day here at US is similarly expansive. All of the examples our youngest learners at the Shaker Campus might cite still hold true. You should be respectful and gracious in all the ways they would recognize. Common courtesy is not that common, unfortunately, and we must all work to set high behavioral standards at the School.

As Harvard Business School professor Anthony Badaracco points out, sometimes we are not choosing between right and wrong, but rather “between right and right.” He outlines decision making in three ways: end-based thinking, a utilitarian striving for the greatest good for the greatest number of people; rule-based thinking, in which core principles and tenets are applied with consistency and integrity; and care-based thinking, the golden rule, doing unto others as you would have done to you.  

Is one approach always best? No. All deserve consideration.

Goodall staying in Gombe would have been a fine decision – but not the very best she could have made.

As we begin this year, I encourage you to reflect on the importance of our motto, in general, and consideration, in particular.

Consider… your sources. We are living in a time of instant, explosive, and ubiquitous information. Yet, with disinformation and misinformation rampant, the content at your fingertips is not reliable. Your capacity for critical thinking is your greatest gift. Use it.

Consider… your opportunities. Never before have US students had the number of choices in and out of the classroom that you have. Give thought and care to all you take on this year and where you might contribute most meaningfully and productively.

Consider… one another. The US community is remarkable. For all of us in this room, whether it is your first year or your forty-fifth year, this is a uniquely challenging, stimulating, and fulfilling environment in which to grow. Appreciate all we are and all we can be.

Jane Goodall never won an Academy Award but she collected more than a few honors in her lifetime, including being named a Dame Commander of the British Empire and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the United States. She passed away last year while on a speaking tour. She was still working at 91 years old.

In closing, for your consideration, I share once again her words.

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Thank you.