New grades 6 and 9 students enter the Leo and Joan Mahoney Wellness Center in awe as the community gives them a standing ovation. View more photos from the first day of school on SmugMug.
The Prep’s 2024-25 academic year opens with a summons to serve others “by our actions and not by our words”
Head of School Dr. Ed Hardiman P’19 ’21 ’26 needed only a few moments at the podium earlier today to capture the spirit reverberating through more than 1,600 attendees inside Carey Field House at the Mahoney Wellness Center.
“This morning, we come together to welcome new members of the Prep community and to start our academic year in prayer,” he said. “Our action—sustained applause as students new to campus enter—and pausing the regular school day to mark this occasion allows our actions to speak for our intention to build a community in which all are known, loved, and valued.”
Message received. As new sixth grader Edward Yang put it, “That felt good.”
In the simplest terms, a focus of the School community this year is the Xaverian spiritual value of compassion, which calls us to stand with one another through support and encouragement, empowering others to experience and share the love of God with and through us.
Students who experienced the Prep’s school-wide standing ovation for the first time as well as those who’d been welcomed in years past grasped the traditional Day One welcome as symbolic of, as Hardiman put it, “who we are as a community and what we’re trying to accomplish.”
“I remember it felt a little overwhelming, but there was a real presence of welcoming,” said Aidan Hynes ’27. “At this event, I always try to remember what I felt like that day and try to mirror that sense of acceptance.”
“When I first walked through those doors as a freshman, I remember seeing all the older kids in the stands and they looked like adults,” added senior Tyler Spear, a member of the Prep’s Spire Society. “I thought it was wonderful. It was a great welcome to a community that immediately seemed very special.”
TIME-HONORED CUSTOM
After checking in with their first-period class, students made their way to the Leo and Joan Mahoney Wellness Center beneath powder blue skies with temperatures in the low 60s. Then, as the clock struck 8:41 am, returning students, faculty, and staff reveled in a beloved Prep ritual—welcoming this fall’s 346 new students spanning grades 6 through 11 into the service with a standing ovation and cheers that endured for eight minutes and 30 seconds.
By the numbers, the Class of 2025 features 289 members with the total student body numbering 1,459. At the conclusion of the ceremony, members of the Prep’s Spire Society distributed silicon wristbands which were embossed with the word “compassion.” Many Prep students wear multiple bracelets emblazoned with each of the five Xaverian values—simplicity, compassion, humility, trust and zeal—that they collect throughout the course of their time at St. John’s.
Though there was much to absorb, especially for those enjoying their first official day as an Eagle, the critical concept of the prayer service—that students should feel profoundly welcome and free to discover their individual inspiration and celebrate their common origins—clearly resonated. As the familiar buzz of classmates and peers connecting and reconnecting made its way across campus this morning, the goal of living the spiritual value of compassion today and how to better live it tomorrow was alive and well.
A JOYFUL NEW YEAR’S EVE
On the eve of opening day, more than 100 families joined in a virtual, live-streamed prayer service to mark the start of a new academic year on campus. The service underscores the reality that community is the strength of St. John’s and that gathering for prayer deepens our connections.
The Xaverian spiritual value of compassion carried the night as attendees were urged to explore Theodore Ryken’s testimony that through compassion “we serve others to manifest God’s love for those who are separated and estranged, not only from their neighbors, but also from their own uniqueness.”
“When we model the spiritual value of compassion, we can make a difference,” said Dr. Hardiman. “We need to find the time to focus on our call to unconditional love, our call to servant leadership, where we influence any situation we encounter for the good of others, and our call to put our faith into action.”