Friday kicked off our Alumnae Reunion Weekend in an exceptionally upbeat way. The morning started with breakfast for our current Grade 12s and their mothers to celebrate them and also to highlight the bridge between our current Clementines and our Alumnae. While we still have a month and a half together, our girls are ready to take that next step- and what a great metaphor in light of our Alumnae Speaker’s words that morning.
Christy Cronin ’00 spoke in assembly about taking steps, but specifically about what shoes our Clementines wear as they take their journeys beyond SCS. Christy works in construction in Dallas, Texas, and captured our girls’ interest immediately as she placed her work boots, hard hat and neon safety vest on the podium. She told the story of having to park a very large boom lift behind a Ferrari in the valet parking area of a five star hotel in the Cayman Islands while many onlookers gawked. More importantly, Christy reminded our girls that there is no need to follow traditional tracks of employment, and that we all must try on a variety of different shoes as we seek our vocations. She also wisely reminded our girls that while women in construction do deal with judgement from others, so, too, do men, and that we must be mindful that common respect of all individuals, regardless of what shoes they wear is the most important thing to consider. As Christy pointed out, our shoes get scuffed, reflecting experience and complexities along the way, and this is a good thing.
Our girls, staff and parents talked a lot about Christy’s talk throughout the day. It is my hope that our Grade 12s keep it front of mind as they begin to walk across the bridge from Clementine to Alumnae.
