by Michael LiVigni

The end of the school year is always bittersweet for teachers. As final grades are entered and the final goodbyes said to ones colleagues and students, a strange relief settles over you. There is the knowledge that another group of students has learned and grown with you and acknowledgement that you have learned and grown with them as well. This is a satisfying and wonderful feeling that I believe only teachers can understand in its entirety. There is, however, a little bit of sadness with the understanding that many of the students that you taught will be very different when they return in the fall. They will mature physically and mentally and they will come back very different men, ready for new challenges. So much change in them, but very little change in us! A Jesuit that I worked with at Canisius High School, Fr. Richard Zanoni, S.J., once told me that this was the beauty of being a teacher. “You get old and they stay the same age but we both keep learning” he said, “isn’t that amazing!” These words have stayed with me since I was a young teacher, this idea that I have as much to learn from my students as they do from me.

Seniors present a different feeling entirely. As an administrator and teacher of seniors here at Xavier, I can say with certainty that the graduating class is made up the students that we all know the best. These are the boys that we watched grow into men for four years; these are the people whose unique personalities, quirks, sense of humor and learning habits we have come to know, appreciate, and sometimes get annoyed by. These are the Sons of Xavier that we have helped mold and shape and, much like their parents, we watch them on graduation night transform. The shy boy who came to us for years ago is gone. In his place there is a confident young man who we send out into the world. As I look out from the altar of Riverside Church this year, and from the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in past years, I always take a moment to look out at these men and try to see each of their faces. I know that I will not see many of these faces again for quite some time. Some I won’t see ever again. So, I like to take it all in. I say a prayer that Xavier and I have done all that we could to prepare them. Certainly many will come back for young alumni events, and as the years go by other alumni events, but most will go on to college and begin to lead lives that take them far from 16th Street. This is exactly what we want; to go forth and set the world on fire in the words of Ignatius. Although this is our mission as a school, and it is what we want as an institution, as a teacher there is that twinge of sadness on graduation night when the moment comes to say goodbye to them. Even with this sadness, there is no moment that can compare with the look of absolute joy on the faces of our newest Sons of Xavier when they are proclaimed graduates. The bittersweet fades to just sweet.

Every school year seems to begin with someone firing a starter’s pistol as you would to begin a race. Graduation is that last part of the race when eyes are set on the finish line, but you still take a moment to look around and enjoy the moment before you finish. Xavier’s graduation is filled with happiness and joy; excitement and tears. It is a collective sigh of relief and a new beginning. It truly is a magical evening and I relish each graduation that I have been privileged to be a part of. Still, the teacher in me prefers the firing of starter’s pistol and the work that will get us to the finish line.