Friday’s Ring Ceremony will mark the third time that speeches are filmed ahead of time, following a joint administrative-student committee decision in 2021.
In a 2021 Gator article, Upper School Head Joshua Neudel said, “Over the past number of years, students have been given guidelines for speeches, asked to submit drafts in advance, Senate leaders have helped match up 11th and 12th graders, and speeches have been printed in advance. Through all of this work, there have still been speeches that have fallen short of our core values.”
Dating back to the School’s founding in 1880, seniors have figuratively passed down the torch by presenting School rings to juniors through live remarks.
Like the previous two years, this year, seniors have instead filmed 10-15 second prerecorded videos, edited by Kyle Terino ’24.
“I definitely think I agree with the reason we do Ring Ceremony in a video now, because it’s just a lot more predictable to have all the speeches decided on beforehand so no one’s improvising.” Terino said.
After videos feature about five students, a pause invites individuals to the stage to receive a gift bag.
In part, live speeches were originally halted due to the COVID pandemic, according to Director of Alumni Affairs Amanda Eppers.
“This [videos] gave us the ability to still have the seniors talk about each student and still have an element of surprise,” Eppers said.
In-person speeches for ring ceremony felt more personal, according to Eppers, but it is easier for the seniors to record themselves talking than to write a speech.
Upper School Senate President Baden Howard ’24 also says that changes to the event allow students to speak more confidently.
“There’s also a lot of students that maybe aren’t the best public speakers, but by being able to record it, they are really able to speak more confidently,” Howard said. “I think it just improves the ceremony for everyone.”
Howard also said that in planning for the event, the School and the graduating class do their best to make appropriate matches.
“For example, let’s say you play soccer, but you’re also in the play, we try to get one senior from soccer and one senior from the play to speak, to show how well rounded that [junior] is,” Howard said.
Despite the changes, Eppers still looks forward to the annual event.
“It’s still a wonderful tradition to have because the older kids are talking about the younger kids and saying, ‘you’ll be in our space next year,’” Eppers said.
