Honor and Moral Courage in the Age of Anything Goes - The Webb Schools

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HONOR

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MORAL Courage

I N T H E AG E OF A N Y T H I NG G OE S

By Christopher Michno

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Mention the word “honor” in a crowded room

and you are likely to suffer quizzical glances followed by silence. Honor, to many, seems an awkward, unfashionable, even antiquated concept—something to be contemplated in private or through the scrim of heroic fiction, like the blood feuds of the Capulets and Montagues, or the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons.

Yet, Head of Schools Taylor Stockdale contends, there is something important to be gleaned from the discussion of honor, something that has been missing from our cultural climate, broadly, and in education for quite some time—a focus on moral clarity, of discerning, very simply, right from wrong. Stockdale insists such clarity is possible even though it doesn’t always come naturally. “You have to work at it,” but the benefit, he adds, is that moral clarity allows you to make good decisions.

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Eleanor Corbin ’20 It was the Honor Code. That’s what drew her to Webb. “Right when you go on your tour, it becomes obvious,” Eleanor Corbin ‘20 recalls. “You’re walking through campus and people’s bags are left out in front of the dining hall and the library. And they just expect them to be left there and for that to be OK. That was very different from my middle school. You had to know where your stuff was or keep it in your locker. So, of course, I asked questions about it.” As to why she applied for a position on the Honor Cabinet, Corbin says, “I very much believe in doing my best to maintain things that are important to me. I wanted to help make sure that other students after me and other students currently at Webb also will get to experience what it’s like to be part of a community that has such a deep level of trust.”

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“THE CONCEPT OF HONOR

Elena Tiedens ’21 Elena Tiedens ‘21 thinks learning about honor happens in a number of ways at Webb. The faculty’s commitment to academic excellence is exemplary. In every discipline, she says, academic work that honors the principles of the field—and other students as scholars—is highly valued.

Upperclassmen foster learning about honor in another way: they model to underclassmen “how to act in ways that fit with the Honor Code and the general principle of honor.” As a rising junior and a newly elected Vivian Webb School Honor Cabinet member, Tiedens will be one of those modeling honor and moral courage to the rest of the campus. Her motivation for applying to be on Honor Cabinet was based on her interest in preserving the values of justice and ensuring fair treatment to everyone who is part of the Honor Cabinet process. When discussing the concept of honor, Tiedens is careful to note that honor extends beyond personal or individual honor into the community, reflecting the broader values of the community.

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has been with the school since its founding in 1922. It was something that Thompson Webb felt strongly about, especially in terms of character development,” Stockdale points out. Of course, this doesn’t mean looking to the feuding families of the antebellum South or clannish Veronesi as models of moral clarity—though, not to impugn the satirist or the bard, both Huckleberry Finn and Romeo and Juliet, read critically, yield indictments of thuggish and bankrupt honor practices. Rather, Stockdale articulates a vision of honor that values personal integrity and the moral courage of the individual to stand up for what is right, even when others can’t, or won’t.

In Stockdale’s view, the moral instruction of Webb students is just as critical as any academic discipline. “In the early 1990s when I was a faculty member I was the advisor to the Honor Committee and found it to be some of my most challenging and stimulating work, educationally. I was able to see firsthand the power the Honor Code has on in uencing our culture and developing productive and courageous leaders who not only have to be smart but also need to know how to make decisions between right and wrong.”

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WHAT DOES HONOR MEAN AT WEBB? Moral philosophers have spent an extraordinary amount of time exploring the nuances of ethics, the question of evil and arcane hypotheticals that most of us are certain we will never face—Philippa Foot’s famous “Trolley Problem,” for example. But aside from being very compelling thought experiments, these scenarios sometimes seem far removed from real life, which, Stockdale concedes, is complicated, and filled with “many temptations and signals and messages.”

Webb’s vision for developing students into effective leaders rests firmly on the conviction that a strong moral compass is essential.

It is also strongly connected to inclusive engagement around the schools’ values, the Honor Code and the student organizations that work with faculty on Honor Code issues— the Honor Committee and the Honor Cabinet for the boys’ and girls’ schools, respectively.

“I think it’s easy to talk about these virtues and have it be hollow,” says Stockdale. Instead, he thinks it is important to acknowledge that “we all fall down.” The kind of community he and the faculty and staff work every day to foster is one where there is an open and ongoing discussion of moral courage and honor. It is one that “requires a lot of learning” and support for each other.

To that end, conversations about values are integrated into every aspect of Webb’s culture, whether in classroom discussions about academic integrity, thinking about sportsmanship on the fields or engagement with boarding students about norms and expectations.

9 Ethan Caldecott ’21 “I think it’s important for people to start to think about and realize what their own sense of honor means to them,” rising junior Ethan Caldecott ’21 declares.

“That’s when they start to become who they want to be and know how they want to live their life.”

This means moving beyond a literal reading of the rules and guidelines set out in the Student Handbook and really considering your own moral values. “One thing that’s nice about the Webb Honor Code is the broadness of it. It lays the groundwork, not the specifics of what you should do in a particular situation, but in a broad sense it allows you to determine how you should apply it. It helps you start the process.”

“...we all fall down.”

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Tom Jurczak

Michelle Gerken

Physics and chemistry teacher Tom Jurczak is beginning his fourth year as the faculty advisor to the Webb School of California’s Honor Committee this fall. Similar to others profiled in these pages, Jurczak credits the Honor Code with being one of the things that first brought him to Webb. When he interviewed, students showing him the campus quoted Thompson Webb—the same quote Taylor Stockdale frequently mentions: Without honor there can be no trust, and without trust there can be no community. “That resonated with me, even when I was applying,” Jurczak remembers. Jurczak completed his undergraduate education at Caltech, a campus with its own honor code, where he was part of a student organization with a function similar to the Honor Committee and the Vivian Webb School’s Honor Cabinet. He is passionate about expanding the discussion of Webb’s Honor Code into the co-curricular life of the campus: “Every other year the Honor Committee works with the Honor Cabinet to produce an Honor Symposium. It’s a day where we step out of classes and we talk or do things that relate to the Honor Code at Webb and try to really think about what it means as Webb students.”

“In the humanities department we talk about the spirit of attribution,” Michelle Gerken says of teaching her classes about intellectual integrity and appropriate citation.

The academic integrity policy that she and other humanities faculty have all students read and sign at the beginning of each school year—or semester, if it is only a semester-long class—helps frame the discussion of giving credit where it is due. “When you present your ideas, if you’ve gotten any support along the way—if your classmates helped you in a discussion, if you read something that inspired your thinking and that’s why you took that particular analytical framework when you wrote about something—you acknowledge that work because it is coming from somebody else,” Gerken says. “It’s about honoring those who came before you and honoring their ideas. It’s just this habit of citation, this habit of acknowledgment, this habit of attribution.” It is a habit that encourages students to see their scholarship as part of a larger discourse and helps them understand the nuanced ways our ideas are shaped by others.

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onor is written about in the Student Handbook in terms of service, leadership, mutual trust, responsible and caring behavior, support of personal development and self-worth and an appreciation of the common good. As articulated in the Handbook and in the many thoughtful conversations people have about the Honor Code, the Webb community strives to cultivate an environment where individual achievement is valued on equal footing with care for the community. The Deans’ letter appeals to students to treat the campus like their own home and meet their commitments—that is, to take responsibility for both themselves and for the communal good.

At the heart of what is meant by honor in the context of the Webb community is a balanced approach to the rights and the dignity of the individual, and recognition of the importance of the community, which is indeed the soil in which the individual is cultivated. The individual caring for her fellows is as critical to the notion of honor as the idea of personal responsibility.

“Honor extends beyond the individual into the community, connecting everyone in caring for each other and about each o t h e r ’s a c h i e v e m e n t s .”

– ELENA TIEDENS

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Laura Wensley Senior Director of Development and Alumni Relations Laura Wensley is also the parent of two Webb alumnae, Miya ’13 and Dylan ’17. She feels incredibly lucky to have seen how students mature as they move through the Webb community from the example of her own two children. “I think that my kids learned [about honor and moral courage] as student athletes on the field and in their leadership positions on campus,” Wensley says. “I have been able to watch them now after they have graduated from Webb and see how they use these lessons and apply them in adulthood. I think it is second nature for them to call out injustices and to be forthright.

It has helped them to navigate some of their social relationships living in the dorms as young adults and to have the courage to stand up for what they believe is right. I have confidence that when I am not there they know they have a guidepost of how to make right decisions for themselves and those around them.” The values of community and honor that students learn at Webb are ones they carry with them for life, says Wensley. She should know.

She just helped one alumni class celebrate its 70th reunion, and the ties they felt to the school were as strong as ever.

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PARTICIPATORY ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

Euphy Liu ’19 Euphy Liu ’19, originally from Beijing, China, attended a large public school where there was no such thing as an honor code. Teachers dictated wrong and right. “I think the Honor Code at Webb, instead of saying that these are the rules you need to follow, it gives you an idea that you need to make good choices because you are responsible for your decisions,” the international student keenly observes.

And in an environment where teachers aren’t keeping an eye on students 24/7, students have some independence. This can lead to some dilemmas. For example, at mandatory chapel before Sunday formal dinner, “they don’t take attendance.” Inevitably some students skip. “At the beginning of my first year at Webb, I did have the thought—and I did it, I skipped Sunday chapel,” Liu confesses.

“But when people around you are not doing that, your Honor Code gives you a sense of guilt. I ended up pushing myself, thinking, even if I wasn’t interested in the topic, as a Webb student I should be grateful for having this opportunity, having someone outside of school giving a talk. That’s when the Honor Code makes me realize I’m responsible, and I need to be on top of it.”

Early on, Stockdale recognized the importance of what he calls a diffuse structure for leadership “so that the students can play a direct role in the culture of the school. Having an Honor Committee and Cabinet, dorm prefects, peer advisors, and a very active student government, and many other positions—admissions fellows and international coordinators—those are all people who are leaders on the campus and drive the culture of the campus.”

This reflects a keen sense of how culture propagates. “We know that younger students listen to and watch older students in how they model being students.”

In some ways, Stockdale admits, this is harder than addressing disciplinary actions in a top-down manner, where the executive leadership makes administrative decisions based on the school’s handbook, without input from students. But there is little educational value in that. And just as students get smarter by interacting with each other and listening to each other in an academic setting, they get smarter ethically by engaging in conversations as Webb does around the Honor Code.

“Integ r ity, empathy, humility, tru st, respect: all of these are part of h o n o r. W h e n p e o p l e forget about others h o n o r i s l o s t .”

– RICK DUQUE

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ean of aculty and humanities teacher Michelle Gerken echoes Stockdale in describing her work as faculty advisor to the Honor Cabinet as some of the most important work she’s done with students. She says students who serve on the Cabinet take their responsibility seriously. “They don’t see themselves as a disciplinary board, even though that’s what people tend to call it. I think they would say their role is to model and help support students in understanding and living the Honor Code—and when they don’t, to help them in figuring out how and why they didn’t, and how they’re going to be better in the future.”

HONOR SYMPOSIA AND CHAPEL TALKS Presenting real world examples is a practical way to engage the community about honor and moral courage. To facilitate this, Stockdale instituted the Honor Symposium: “Having alumni come back and talk about a moral dilemma they’ve encountered, how they went about it, and how maybe they didn’t do it right the first time. Thinking about these things and making it real for kids, talking about it openly and really challenging them to rise to a different level as a person, that’s a big part of the battle.”

Stockdale talks about the symposia with his signature enthusiasm, conveying a sense of recognition that he includes himself and all of the faculty and staff along with the students in learning about the values of honor and moral courage. “When you have an honor code on campus, the stakes become higher, and you’re holding yourself to a higher standard.”

According to Tom urczak, a science teacher and faculty advisor to the Honor Committee, last year’s Honor Symposium speaker was particularly memorable. It was given by Will Allan ’ , an alumnus and humanities teacher. “Part of the why the boys wanted him

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Rick Duque “Honor was the foundation. Being honorable and having courage. That was important to Thompson Webb,” Dean of Campus Life Rick Duque says as he reflects on the values championed by Webb’s founder. Duque is attuned to how honor is cultivated within a community. The former power forward for Pomona-Pitzer Men’s Basketball started at Webb in 2000 as the athletic director and varsity basketball coach, so he knows a few things about being a team player. As if he’s giving a pregame pep

talk, he continues, “How do we practice honor? We definitely do it on the fields, whether it is in the pool or in the gym or on the soccer field, the football field, or in cross country—those places teach you a lot about being honorable.” Expounding on the importance of community, he adds, “I sometimes say there is a big WE in Webb.” How do we learn?

“From your friends, from your advisor, from your coach: Surround yourself with good people and you’ll probably be OK.”

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“The boundar ies of Stephanie Baron ’96, PA-C When she was a day-student at Webb, Stephanie Baron ‘96 was a leader on the basketball team. But she had another leadership role off the court. She was a member of the Vivian Webb School Honor Cabinet. Like many Webb students, Baron’s older sibling graduated from Webb, so she was already familiar with the Honor Code and the Honor Cabinet. But her sense of ethics and morality also predates her and her brother’s tenures at Webb. “I grew up in a Catholic household that was very religious. That’s kind of where ethics and morality developed for me,” she says. As the director of Webb’s health center, Baron has a unique role. “Kids are going to make mistakes, especially as they are trying to figure out their independence,” she says. Her primary concern for their mental and physical health and safety is coupled with keeping patient confidentiality. Sometimes she has to ask the question: “Do I need to do anything more for them to take care of their health and safety?” The answer depends on the student and the situation. “Is it a chronic problem? Then we would try to get help for them.”

responsibility give students the sense that they should be there f o r e a c h o t h e r.”

– ELENA TIEDENS ’21

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to speak is that when the Honor Committee was re-envisioned in the early 1990s, Allan was part of the group that worked on how it would be part of the community,” Jurczak says. Allan discussed an ethical dilemma he encountered in business right after finishing college. “Will teaches courses in entrepreneurship, and for someone who teaches advanced humanities electives that relate to business, having him talk about his experiences in the business world ties that together nicely [with the curriculum].”

Allan credits senior chapel talks with deepening the campus’ understanding of moral character. Every senior has an opportunity to give a formal chapel talk. It’s a platform where they can say whatever they want, and it tends to create some anxiety.

Allan observes, “A lot of students both faculty and students are kind of cringing, like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s this guy going to say about Webb,’ and Has he been in trouble in the past?’” But in his experience, it’s been a positive thing: “A lot of seniors who have made mistakes have chosen to talk about that and have really bared their souls to their peers and the teachers not every student, but some who have been in trouble have talked about how they have learned from it and re ecting on that, and how they’ve improved as a person.”

“I’m really hear tened that we’re now talking about honor and moral courage as two concepts that are l i n k e d t o g e t h e r.”

– TAYLOR STOCKDALE

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SUSTAINING THE COMMITMENT TO HONOR AND MORAL COURAGE “I look at the Honor Code as, every year we’re starting over. We have new students, new faculty, new staff, and I spend a good part of the year before Thanksgiving focusing and refocusing on the Honor Code, our values and the concept of moral courage,” Stockdale says.

“I spend a lot of time interacting with seniors and anyone who will listen. In order to make this realistic and to make it alive, you have to start from scratch every year.”

World-renown psychologist and writer Carol Gilligan’s ethics of care theory, which has been endlessly critiqued, was meant to be the start of a conversation. It proposes counterbalancing the abstract reasoning and focus on rights and justice (found within her mentor Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory) with understanding ethics within the context of relationships and con icting responsibilities.

This effectively places moral and ethical behavior firmly within the setting of a community.

The appeal of this is to begin to understand our ethical responsibilities in relation to the needs and perspectives of our fellows: how we are judged morally can be observed from how we treat one another. This is one of the triumphs of The Webb Schools’ Honor Code. It is well-integrated within the awareness and consideration of the needs of its community, and seeks to address the rights and needs of individuals. This is not a new strategy, yet the sensitivity with which Webb carries out this mission is remarkable.

Examples of the effect this has on students’ awareness can be found in Gerken’s observations on the growth Webb students experience being on the Honor Cabinet.

“Sitting in conversations where a student’s future could be decided, and having to weigh the balance of the community needs and the

Will Allan ’94 Will Allan ’94 can still remember when he arrived on Webb’s campus in the 1990s. “A long time ago,” he adds. “The Honor Committee at that time, they were like men in my eyes. They were very responsible and well respected. They were almost a little intimidating because they had this position of power. But also they were super friendly and super helpful.” Allan ended up being elected to and serving on the Honor Committee in his senior year. Since that time, he’s seen some perceptions change, while others persist. When people think of the Honor Code, Allan says, they often think about the punitive aspects. But the Honor Code’s role in educating and fostering “a more tight-knit community” tends to get overlooked. “Over the years I think the Honor Code and the Honor Committee have become a little bit more compassionate and empathetic compared to being the strict guardians of the rules. That’s one thing I’m happy to see—that it’s not just about the punitive aspect, that over the years it feels like the Honor Committee has become a little more approachable than when I was a student at Webb.”

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Xander Kong ’22 2018-19 Freshman Class President Xander Kong ’22 knew about the Honor Code long before he got to Webb. He had heard about it from his older sisters Elisa ’15 and Bella ’18 and understood that it made Webb unique as “an environment built on trust.” He also sees that the values one learns from it don’t abruptly end with the final days of high school—that it’s important “to always keep the moral compass active.” Kong is a typical Webb student with a calendar full of co-curricular engagements: debate year-round, theater in the fall and spring and varsity soccer in the winter. He feels that his personal code of ethics and integrity, which governs it all, is formed directly from the Honor Code.

His sense of honor is inseparable from leadership, which he feels the school promotes for all Webb students to grow into during the course of their time at Webb.

safety of the community, and the needs and the safety of the individual,” can be difficult for everyone involved, she acknowledges. But she has seen how students mature during their two-year term on the Honor Cabinet: “They really adjust. They start to see the deeper complexity of the decisions and how they impact people.”

The process is related to the values Gerken fosters in classroom discussions. “So much of what we’re doing in the HC is building a safe community, and a lot of that has to do with honoring people’s voices, respecting diversity and learning how to have a challenging conversation. We don’t have a vote to decide something, we reach consensus. So we avoid terms like debate. We have a discourse where we share our views and our perspectives and our opinions.”

The culture of taking care of your community translates into the smallest of gestures, says Laura Wensley, the senior director of development and alumni relations. She noticed that the schools’ messaging about independence and personal responsibility prompted a virtual campus-wide discussion between students over keeping the dining hall clean and being responsible to clear your own

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dishes. Perhaps the litmus test of an expanding notion of community, students’ sense of care extended beyond the Webb campus to the larger world in the 2017-18 school year when Marina Lesse (VWS ’09) invited the campus to contribute to her relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey. It was an important opportunity for students and alumni to come together to practice generosity.

Is honor an antiquated idea? Far from it, says Wensley—just look at the headlines, where MeToo affected the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. Webb School Dean of Students Ben Farrell used it as a teachable moment, turning it into a discussion on moral courage and honorable leadership. “When alumni hear that these kinds of discussions are happening on campus, it reaffirms for them all of the foundations that they know and cherish about the school,” Wensley concludes.

Students frequently talk about how safe they feel on campus, how they can leave their backpacks sitting out in front of the library, trusting that no one will take their things. It seems like a small thing, but it signals something much greater.

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“ T h e We b b c o m m u n i t y embraces the values of independence and personal responsibility; even when the adults aren’t looking, the students take it upon themselves to take care o f t h e c o m m u n i t y.”

– LAURA WENSLEY

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THOUGHT LE A DER S: A LU M N I S T O R I E S

Trust

Honesty

Integrity

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Community

By John Ferrari

t’s woven into the fabric of Webb, a thread that reaches back to founder Thompson Webb, and touches every member of the Webb community: trust, honor and integrity. It holds the Webb community together. In fact, Thompson Webb held honor to be a requirement for community. “Without honor there can be no trust,” he said. “And without trust there can be no community.” That thread weaves the Webb community together, knitting today’s students and faculty into a community, but also connecting them with Webb alumni.

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and the experiences they had at Webb remain with them. “High school is such a crucial time,” says Head of Schools Taylor Stockdale. “These are the years when people begin creating their adult selves. People continue to develop throughout their lives, but those teenage years are so formative… they really lay the path. That’s why Thompson Webb placed such emphasis on honor and moral courage—those words that remain in our mission statement. They’re absolutely necessary for community, here at Webb and later in life, in every community: where you live, where you work and in your family.”

It’s natural, then, that Webb alumni carry a sense of community and integrity with them throughout their careers. “At alumni gatherings all over the U.S. and around the world, Webb and VWS alumni conversation always comes to the topic of honor” says Director of Institutional Advancement Dutch Barhydt. “WSC alumni who served on the Honor Committee and VWS alumnae who served in the Honor Cabinet invariably refer to this activity as their most meaningful student experience. To be chosen to serve and to be given the authority to exercise judgement over a peer’s actions requires an understanding of morals and values and it requires empathy and responsibility. And, while these lessons are learned during a student’s Webb years, at a time when so much intellectual and emotional growth is occurring, these lessons are lived, many times over, long after the student has graduated.”

“These are the years when people begin creating their

adult selves.”

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hat rings true with Mark Schultz ’93 . Webb’s Honor Code may be the most visible aspect of the school’s commitment to honor, integrity and community, but it’s not meant to stand above or apart from the life of the school— it’s meant to suffuse the community with a fundamental sense of ethics. “I don’t remember ever thinking of the Honor Code as a system of rules or checkboxes,” Schultz recalls. “I remember it more as… an attempt in words to convey something much grander that has to do with human life and its grandeur.” Schultz sees Webb’s emphasis on honor as “an invitation to excellence” rather than as a pressure. “Excellence is something that we work towards as a community,” he explains. Webb’s faculty set high expectations knowing the students could achieve them.

“Humans will take that challenge and run with it,” he says.

Webb helped Schultz develop a moral vision which guides him daily, as an Episcopal priest and also as a playwright. “Works of art always come with a vision of world,” he says. A moral vision can spur creativity, but it doesn’t have to be confined to that elevated realm.

“It can spur us to act in a way that uplifts the human dignity in others or highlights ways in which that dignity is being occluded.”

Cast of Mark Schultz’s ’93 play Evocation to Visible Appearance.

“an invitation to

excellence rather than a pressure”

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Having high

integrity builds reputation and trust.

Adrian Lam ’11, co-founder & CSO of Domio.

Below a Domio property.

That’s a noble vision, but in daily practice honor, integrity and moral courage can take form in something as simple as team-building. That’s the lesson Adrian Lam ’11 learned at Webb. By the time he graduated, Lam had served in leadership roles including dorm prefect, dorm councilor chairman and captain of the triathlon and cross-country teams. His leadership skills didn’t begin with a desire to lead, though; they began with empathy. “It took me a while to get used to the boarding life,” Lam explains. By his junior year, “knowing how it felt to be a freshman in a new environment, I could see that in other freshmen, and I wanted to give back.” Living at Webb created a sense of camaraderie and brotherhood. Lam made friends with whom he’s still close today, and he emphasizes integrity, empathy and moral courage, now as the co-founder of “apartment hotel” hospitality company Domio.

As a teenager, “it’s really hard to see some of the benefits of Webb, and how those can help you down the road,” Lam admits. But the leadership skills he learned—the skills to build a community in which people enjoy working together are invaluable. At his first job, in the finance sector, he had a very different experience. “A lot of the culture was backwards; it wasn’t team-oriented,” he recalls. “I don’t think a lot of people saw a larger purpose.” Now, as a leader of his own company, he’s “constantly looking for the best people… in their skills, but also how collaborative they are; how well they work with people.

“Webb taught me that it’s really important to surround yourself with good people—people that challenge you to be your best.” That’s especially important as a leader, he adds, because “you’re held accountable for everything, and your reputation is really important.” Ultimately, “you have to be able to trust what people say. Reputation is important, for people and for companies, and having high integrity builds reputation and trust.”

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s Thompson Webb said, trust is crucial for community. It’s crucial in every kind of community, everywhere people interact—families, schools, organizations, even between nations. “I can’t tell you how many times trust was the most important factor,” says Wendin Smith ’89 of her time in public service. Smith, who has held several high-level government positions, including Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, recalls negotiating bilateral treaties. When it comes down to it, those negotiations weren’t between nations; they were between individuals. Trust between individuals—the kind of trust fostered at Webb— allows people to work with one another, even when they may have different goals, Smith explains. And after agreement is reached, “if you don’t have trust none of the agreements will be worth anything.”

At Webb, Smith remembers, following the school’s Honor Code could be a simple matter of expediency. “It’s just easier to do the right thing, rather than to worry about getting caught,” she explains. Throughout her time at Webb, though, the core values of honor and integrity became more than just an expediency for her. “I remember seeing and watching and being part of living it… it was part of our DNA,” she says. “I almost feel like some of those values cannot be taught but have to be modeled and demonstrated in the culture. It really was more how we lived than what we were taught.

“The biggest takeaway I’ve carried with me for the rest of my career so far is the premise that you should do right even if nobody’s looking. There were several examples of that at Webb where I saw people living that choice. Now, as a leader, in or out of government, I try to live those values.”

It really was more

Wendin Smith ’89

how we lived than what we were taught.

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In addition to modelling integrity and building trust, Smith says moral courage shouldn’t be minimized, whether at the negotiating table or in the corporate boardroom. Standing up for a conviction, being willing to disagree constructively, is more important now than ever, she says. “In your life, there are turning points, where innate decisions come at a gut level… For me, making those decisions didn’t feel courageous at the moment—it was just the right thing to do—but it was courage to stand there and disagree.”

Juliana Whitney CLASS OF ’07 CANNABIS BUSINESS CONSULTANT FOUNDER, THAT ADOPTED GIRL What do you remember about integrity at Webb? I would say my memory of the Honor Code. You didn’t want to break the Honor Code because you wanted to be part of such a special place… It felt good to have a standard to live up to.

That has carried over to my life a lot.

How does that influence you now? It has helped me mold the culture in my companies. I try to create a community, and hire people who want to be loyal, want to be there… that allows me to trust the people I work with.

What else did Webb give you? It really taught me to be someone who values being a woman… Webb allows you to be female and really good at stuff. I’m comfortably confident.”

Did Webb influence your nonprofit, focusing on foster children? I remember my volunteer service at Webb; that really stayed with me. Webb showed me that I can be creative and myself and a leader, too. I was allowed to be a leader, given that opportunity. Webb gave me that seed that you can be you as you are, and still figuring out how you are, and still be a leader. I do think that being at Webb gave me the bravery to take chances.

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The continuum from responsibility for one’s own actions to responsibility for the community is deliberately modeled at Webb, says Assistant Head of Schools Theresa Smith.

Expectations and leadership roles at the school are designed to explore “boundaries of responsibility.” For freshmen, the emphasis is on considering how their actions affect themselves. By their senior year, students are also considering how their actions affect the community and in uence others. “A large part of being a leader at Webb is about setting an example,” Smith notes.

SETTING AN EXAMPLE— OF HONOR, INTEGRITY, MORAL COURAGE—IS A POWERFUL ACTION.

Some Webb alumni invest in that example, too. Inventor, investor and entrepreneur Jim Demetriades ’80 has made integrity and community responsibility a cornerstone of his philosophy. “The overriding vision for all of my businesses is, will it help humanity?” That’s a moral goal, and, Demetriades says, it also makes good business sense. “If you focus on money, you are following the wrong objective,” he explains. ocus on making your business different from other businesses, he advises, and on having a positive impact. “If you have something new, something that benefits humanity, money will follow.” It’s working for him: his firm, venture capital investment company Kairos Ventures, has funded 85 startups in the last 18 months. And he says Webb was instrumental in giving him the freedom and responsibility to develop the vision that has guided his career.

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“The overriding vision for all of my businesses is,

“I had the opportunity to become a man there,” he remembers. “A man who had the moral fortitude to stand up for what was right.” For Demetriades, developing that fortitude was an imaginative process.

“For me, perhaps one of the most important things was to develop my imagination,” he says. “The ability to have an imagination was really foundational… to my personal success in life. A lot of that has to do with having the vision of helping humanity.”

humanity?”

Demetriades experienced Webb’s “boundaries of responsibility” firsthand. “Webb orchestrated some control when you were 1 and 1 , and by the time you were graduating, you had tremendous freedom.” At the same time, he was developing the ethical values that Webb emphasizes.

“Those are principles that we learned” he says. “They become engrained in your psyche, engrained in the very fiber of your being.”

This is a photo of an implant device from one of Kairos Ventures’ portfolio of companies, Delpor. The device is implanted in a patient suffering from schizophrenia/bipolar disorder and it will deliver medication steadily for six to 12 months. This is life changing for individuals who may have difficulty remembering to take their medication.

Jim Demetriades ’80

will it help

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While Demetriades hopes to boost the scientific and technological start-ups that have the greatest potential to benefit humanity, Samantha Ainsley ’07 is working to make those companies the best they can be today. Today’s tech giants, she reminds, are diverse organizations. Making them communities of trust, honor and integrity is putting Thompson Webb’s value into practice.

Ariel Fan CLASS OF ’10 FOUNDER AND CEO, GREENWEALTH ENERGY SOLUTIONS Looking back, how did Webb influence you? Webb was good soil for my growth as a teenager. Now I’m seeing the fruits of all this early work in the soil. The values I have from Webb kind of act like a ruler.

Is that special to Webb? My friends and I have a different code of ethics than a lot of people. We just have such a rock-solid foundation; we have measurements of integrity. It’s so natural to us: we try to be good to people. We want to really make an impact on the world; that’s rare for other people who are more focused on jobs.

Your company helps commercial properties save energy; were you always interested in environmental issues? As a teenager at Webb I started Project Earth, an environment club.

I held plastic bag recycling drives in front of the dining hall and organized advocacy, like letters for the rainforest. So environmental concerns are very core to me.

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“Webb was a life-changing experience for me,” Ainsley says.

The school taught her the importance of two things: honesty and social contracts, both of which require trust. Webb also gave her the confidence to be herself as a woman interested in math and technology. “I felt strong and confident as a woman I think that was something that was given to me at Webb,” she says. Ainsley recalls her efforts, with a friend, to establish the first BGT advocacy group at Webb. “My friend was planning on coming out” as lesbian, Ainsley recalls. “We were able to go to faculty members, who we knew and trusted, and have conversations about changing a culture… a culture that we loved. Webb let us push the envelope about our female identities There was community support for being vocal and taking risks.”

After Webb, Ainsley had academic and corporate success earning a doctorate in computer science and joining Google but lost the confidence to be herself. “It took years in this industry to be comfortably myself and an engineer,” she says.

“It was more of a reclamation of my identity at Webb.”

As she reclaimed her identity and her confidence, she realized that personal success was not her end goal. “I started examining my life in terms of what I have to give to other people.” ow she’s active in efforts to make the hightech workplace more inclusive, for women and for everyone.

A member of Google’s diversity and inclusion steering committee, her goal isn’t personal success, it’s the success of the community. She has noticed a cultural shift in tech companies towards a realization that profit can’t be the only consideration. People, she says, need to be able to bring their whole selves to work. And, like Adrian am, she feels that working toward a larger purpose motivates people to work together at their best.

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That sense of working for a purpose motivated her and a team of Google engineers to devote six months last year to pro bono work with Thorn, a non-profit devoted to countering online child pornography and trafficking. ike Webb, it was a life-changing experience, Ainsley says, and it showed her that her work could have a real, positive impact. When you’ve achieved your personal goals, Ainsley says, “the best thing you can do is realize maybe you’re finally fulfilled, and help fulfill others.”

Webb alumni living and acting with honor, integrity and moral courage is a constant through the decades, says Theresa Smith. “Alumni from 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 0 years ago… the way they talk about being an honorable person is consistent and a thread. When I listen to alumni, I hear them discussing living a life of meaning and purpose, doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.”

“ONE OF THE GREATEST LIFELONG LESSONS TAUGHT AT WEBB IS THE CONCEPT OF HONOR,” agrees Barhydt. What makes the experiences of Samantha Ainsley, Mark Schultz, Adrian am, Wendin Smith and im emetriades compelling is not that they’re singular it’s that they are shared by so many Webb alumni. In April, Barhydt notes, 20 alumni gathered for the 201 Hong ong Alumni inner, divided into two tables of 10. “Before long,” he says, “one table was actively engaged in a conversation about the Honor Committee, its role, and importantly, who had served in this capacity Those alumni, enjoying a conversation about serving on the Honor Committee, years after they graduated from Webb, is perhaps the very best confirmation that honor is central to Webb’s mission and its culture, intentionally.”

Doug Gregg CLASS OF ’66 DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY, RETIRED Webb was… where I got to test my beliefs and my strengths and my resolve.

How did Webb teach honor, integrity and moral integrity?

Webb is a perfect opportunity to get out and what I call “flex and test.” The entire campus is a classroom. It was a confidence builder. It reaffirmed what I got at home… and reaffirmed the importance of integrity and morality.

Why is that important? You will be tested at some time in your life, if not more than once. It’s a fact of life: you’re going to be tested.

What have you seen since becoming president of the Alumni Council? We have a living legacy of past, present and future and it’s all around us. The lessons and philosophy of Dr. and Mrs. Webb continue; I’ve seen that and I’ve felt that. I continue to support Webb…

Why? Because like other alums I’m so thankful for what I received, but also because it continues.