V Form Pinning Ceremony

 As part of a new tradition, the Office of Alumni and Development is combining the Pinning Ceremony this year with the V Form dinner. The event will take place on May 14, where Kyle Park ’23 will address the Class of 2023 in the Abbott Dining Room—this will be the first time a student is selected to speak at the event. Director of Alumni Engagement Maria Bolis, Alumni Engagement Coordinator Nick Carnesale, and V Form Level Director Etienne Bilodeau will be overseeing the new program.
The V Form Pinning Ceremony has been a long tradition sponsored by the alumni association, in which V Formers are pinned with a Rosetta by a faculty member or alum. “The Rosetta symbolizes prosperity and good fortune, so it is the alumni association to wish the graduating class the strength to succeed in their respective paths,” Bolis explained. While students traditionally had an alum pin them, in recent years, many students have been pinned by teachers and other faculty members.
This year, the alumni office and Bilodeau hoped to “really make an event for the [V Form] instead of something mostly for the alumni”according to Bolis by combining the pinning ceremony and the V Form dinner, which adds “formality to the [V Form] dinner [and] really lend itself to a nice accumulating event,” Bilodeau added.
The Open Door Society, a group of IV and V Formers who help the alumni office with planning events, wanted to develop a pinning ceremony that would be “more meaningful to the graduating class,” Bolis said. “We want them to figure out what they want the ceremony to be while still keeping the long tradition alive,” Carnesale elaborated, which is how the Open Door Society and alumni office came to the idea of having a student speaker at the event.
Bolis, Carnesale, and the Open Door Society decided that Park, a close runner-up for Aurelian Speaker, should be given the opportunity to address the Class of 2023. By having a student speak at the ceremony, their hope is that there is more of a “shift from the focus being on alumni to the focus being on the students.” Though the speaker at this ceremony will not be entirely different from the Valedictorian or Aurelian Speaker, Bilodeau was excited at the prospect of “a student being able to stand up at this important event and convey a message to their class.”
Park was “very excited” when he received the news from Bilodeau. “The transition from student to alum is a big one, so I’m grateful for this opportunity to address the class and reflect on some of the things we’ve accomplished here,” he elaborated. While Park is still unsure of what his finalized speech might look like, he wants his message to be centered around “embracing uncertainty” and the “change in expectations when one goes from being a student to being an alum.”
By featuring a student speaker in this year’s pinning ceremony, Bolis and Carnesale are redefining the tradition to be more student-centered. Additionally, V Formers Alexandra Schmidt, Lilly Gessner, Grant Shueh, and Ashley Wang will be presenting a check to Head of School Stephen Murray H’54 ‘55 ‘65 ‘16 P’16 ‘21 at the dinner. The check will reflect the amount of money the Class of 2023 has accumulated with their 72 percent participation donation towards their Class Gift. “The event really helps students embrace the connections with alumni, because you never know what doors you could open or what you might learn from even the oldest alums,” Carnesale said. Their goal for the ceremony is to give graduating students the opportunity to connect with alumni while celebrating their accomplishments and their time at Lawrenceville.