By Andy King, Director of the Upper School, Hackley School
As Hackley School celebrates an extraordinary 125 years, we find ourselves reflecting not just on this milestone, but also on the traditions that have shaped our history, culture and community.
Having been part of this community for 26 years, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing and participating in many meaningful school traditions. When I started thinking about Hackley’s traditions for the purposes of writing this piece, my list quickly grew. It included signature events that you can find each year on the school calendar and have been part of the Hackley experience for generations of alums. It also included some rites that are much newer to our school community. Candidly, the relative “age” of any tradition is not what gives it relevance. Rather, what makes these traditions powerful are how they align with and affirm Hackley’s core values, bring members of our community together and, in many cases, bring joy to the participants.
As I reviewed my list of Hackley traditions, two of my personal favorites are First Friday’s ninth grade cardboard boat building extravaganza and the Senior Graduation Walk.
Ninth grade advisory teams prepare to launch their cardboard boats into the Johnson Center pool.
What better way to “Enter here to be and find a friend” than to spend a day with your ninth grade advisory building a boat out of cardboard and duct tape that probably will not stay afloat very long in the pool while your classmates, advisors and teachers cheer you on? Boat building as a marquee event for ninth graders on First Friday dates back to the fall of 2012.
You know a tradition has relevance for students when they can talk about it years later.
In fact, one of my current eleventh grade advisees still laments, two years later, that our group did not build a better paddle for our boat and how that “probably cost us the victory.”
While the boat race occurs on one of the first days of school, the Senior Graduation Walk takes place on the year’s final Monday. This is a very new Hackley tradition, dating back to June 2023. On this day, seniors return to the divisions where their Hackley journeys began. Our Lifers, those who started at Hackley in Kindergarten, lead the procession, walking through the Lower School and Middle School corridors and finally the Upper School, eventually gathering all members of the graduating class along the route.
For seniors about to graduate and “Go forth and spread beauty and light,” the chance to retrace their years as Hackley students reminds them of the powerful connections they made during their time on the Hilltop.
Wide smiles, a few tears and waves of nostalgia for our seniors mix with the resounding applause and enthusiastic fist bumps, high fives and hugs they receive from former teachers and younger students along the route.
Hackley’s Class of 2023 (left) and Class of 2024 (middle, right) participate in one of Hackley’s newest traditions, the Senior Graduation Walk.
While those traditions stand out for me, I wanted to know what current Upper School students deem the most meaningful traditions, so I interviewed a series of Upper School students across grade levels and simply asked, “What are your favorite Hackley traditions?” For current students, Convocation, First Friday, the Fall/Winter/Spring Stings, Coffeehouses, Pre-Prom in the Johnson Courtyard, Prom and Class Day were their favorites. The list looked slightly different depending on when students joined Hackley. For those who started in Lower School, they spoke affectionately about Character Education assemblies in the All-Purpose Room, the Halloween Parade, the Winter Concert, classes where they partnered with Upper School buddies, STEM Night, Trip Around the World and Field Day. Students who attended Hackley for Middle School think of the grade-level trips (namely the overnight trips), Hive competitions and activity nights (especially Chopped!) as some of their favorite traditions.
If traditions are meant to evoke joy, it was powerful to observe how answering this simple question brought smiles to the faces of all the students I interviewed.
After asking current students about traditions, I reached out to a few alums from earlier in my career to ask them the same question. Alumni from the Classes of 2000 to 2003 offered up a slightly different list of favorite Hackley traditions. Yes, they spoke of Convocation, Field Day, Prom and Class Day as well. But in contrast to today’s students, these alums cited memories of the Community Council’s mini-marathon, touch football on the “old” Lower School playground with Mr. DiVirgilio and the Turkey Bowl — traditions unknown to today’s Hackley students. Just as conversations with current students about traditions brought them joy, asking alumni this same question did the same, transporting them back to fond memories of their days on the Hilltop.
Upper School Coffeehouses are a favorite tradition for many students and alumni.
For current students and alumni, Hackley is their common bond, even if they don’t necessarily have the same experiences and traditions. Key elements of the Hackley experience transcend the particularities of a given rite. It does not matter whether Coffeehouse takes place in the Dining Room, Allen Memorial Hall, Bridges Theater, Akin Common or in the soon-to-open Diller Hall in the Center for the Creative Arts and Technology. What makes Coffeehouse a powerful tradition is its popularity, its energy, how it showcases the staggering and diverse talents of our students, and the level of peer support for the performers. Similarly, whether Class Day occurs in the Zetkov gym, on Akin Common, on Pickert Field or inside the Johnson Center for Health and Wellness ultimately matters very little. What makes Class Day a potent tradition is its electricity, how service to the School and “character, scholarship and accomplishment” are recognized and raucously applauded.
The people participating in these traditions will change. The venues where these rites occur may also change as the campus evolves. What does not change is how these traditions celebrate and elevate Hackley’s core values and culture and bring joy and connection to our community.
With the opening of Diller Hall later this fall, the Upper School will have a place where we can regularly gather as a full division. Though we have a long tradition of grade-level meetings run by the deans and Chapel homerooms with two grades in attendance, the Upper School has not had a tradition of regular divisional assemblies. When Diller Hall opens, the Upper School will hold weekly assemblies in the space. We imagine assemblies run primarily by the student leaders on Community Council, regular opportunities for other students to share out information and invitations to participate in clubs, community engagement work and other student activities. We imagine performances by our musicians and actors. We envision guest speakers addressing our students on a range of topics. This assembly curriculum will take shape over this year and will evolve as we grow into the space and the tradition. If an article like this one is written to commemorate Hackley’s 150th year, I hope future Upper School students will look back and cite these weekly assemblies as one of their favorite Hackley traditions.
Rendering of Diller Hall in the Center for the Creative Arts and Technology, courtesy of Pelli Clarke & Partners.
Now having celebrated the adaptive nature of many of Hackley’s memorable traditions, there is one tradition that I hope will never change and will persist for the next 125 years or more — the “thank you” tradition. I wrote about this tradition in a 2018 Hackley Perspectives blog post and still believe that it is the most culturally significant rite within our school community. What do I mean by the “thank you” tradition? It’s when students say “thank you” to their teachers at the end of a class. This simple, consistent expression of thanks demonstrates the centrality of gratitude in our school culture. Author and columnist David Brooks characterizes gratitude as “a form of social glue,” and I think this tradition at Hackley helps to keep us together as a community. One of the hallmarks of our School is how powerful relationships form between students and teachers. Certainly the mutual respect and appreciation reflected in this enduring “thank you” tradition nourish these connections and contribute to the overall health of our school culture.
Our many and varied traditions are also a “form of social glue” for our Hackley Community. Traditions that celebrate the essence of Hackley — a community grounded in connection, curiosity, kindness, civility and joy — will always be a part of our school day, even if they shift and evolve for Hackley’s next 125 years. Traditions should evolve, just as our School should.
About the author: Andy King has been a member of the Hackley faculty since 1998. Since 2008, he has served as Hackley’s Director of the Upper School. Prior to taking on this administrative role, Andy was an Upper School history teacher, advisor, dean and coach. He is also the proud parent of Henry, a member of Hackley’s Class of 2030.
