As she addressed the 96 young women in the class of 2023 of Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda at the school’s June 8 commencement ceremony, Catherine Ronan Karrels – the Head of School – noted how school officials discussed who would make the perfect graduation speaker to close out Stone Ridge’s centennial year celebration.
“Only one person came to mind – Sister Anne Dyer. With more than 75 years of personal history in various roles in our school community, there simply never has been an individual who has had more of an impact on our school,” Karrels said as she introduced the Religious of the Sacred Heart whose order has sponsored the school since it was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1923.
Anne Dyer arrived at Stone Ridge in 1947 as a 10-year-old student, the same year the school relocated from downtown Washington to Bethesda. After graduating from Stone Ridge in 1955, she entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1959. Sister Dyer returned to Stone Ridge in 1968 as the Upper School Dean of Students and was later appointed Head of the Lower School.
From 1984 to 2006, Sister Dyer served as the Headmistress of Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, and during her leadership there, she supervised the construction of the Upper School building, the swimming pool, playing fields and a modern gymnasium, and the renovation of the school’s chapel and child care facility.
“Most importantly, she shaped the values and nourished the potential of generations of Stone Ridge students,” Karrels said, noting that after Sister Dyer left Stone Ridge, she served for 14 years as an administrator at the Nantucket New School in Massachusetts.
In 2021, the Upper School building at Stone Ridge was renamed the Anne Dyer ‘55, RSCJ Building to recognize and honor the impact she had on the life and growth of the school.
Karrels, a 1986 graduate of Stone Ridge who returned in 2008 to serve as the Head of School for her alma mater, noted that when she attended the school for 12 years, she knew Sister Dyer as the Head of the Lower School and then the Headmistress.
“To students at Stone Ridge, she (Sister Dyer) was known for her deep spirituality, her love of arts and writing, her vision for excellence, and her passion for providing exceptional opportunities for girls,” Karrels said, then jokingly adding, “She was also known as a nun with serious style, with her hair always swept up in a bun, and outfits always pulled together with her signature high-heeled shoes.”
Then Karrels welcomed to the podium the woman she described as “a true Stone Ridge legend, Sister Anne Dyer.”
Wearing a black graduation robe with a cross necklace, Sister Dyer said she was honored to be with the graduates, parents, guests and school community that day. “Stone Ridge has been a part of my life for the last 75 years,” she said. Then she jokingly added, “I don’t know how I got so old, so fast!”
Then holding the microphone, Sister Dyer left the podium set up in front of the school’s Hamilton House, and she stepped down to be in the middle of the graduating seniors seated in rows of chairs on two sides of the lawn. Once again, she was in the heart of Stone Ridge’s campus, surrounded by students.
Sister Dyer said that as a Sacred Heart educator, she was going to offer those graduates perhaps the last class they would have with a Religious of the Sacred Heart, and would ask them two questions and suggest a game they could play later.
“So my talk today is going to be your last class, so pay attention there’s going to be a test afterward,” she said.
The first question Sister Dyer posed to the graduates was, “How do you identify?”
She said that when asked that question today, people might be thinking, “What are my pronouns?”
“That’s only a little bit of who you are… It doesn’t matter what your pronouns are. That’s who you are. God loves you that way, and I love you that way,” she said.
Sister Dyer said that question makes her think of the aria in Les Misérables, when Jean Valjean sings, “Who am I?”
She asked the members of Stone Ridge’s class of 2023 if they will identify as a graduate of a Sacred Heart school when they go on to their next institution of higher learning. She noted that St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, the foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart, said that when students attend a Sacred Heart school and learn the values underlying that education, “you become a child of Sacred Heart, and thus you will always be known by God.”
Sister Dyer said being a graduate of a Sacred Heart school is part of who they are, so when someone asks them the question of how they identify, “Think beyond your pronouns.”
Then for her second question to the graduates, Sister Dyer asked them, “What is your takeaway from your Sacred Heart education?” She noted that as Stone Ridge students, they had learned the five goals of a Sacred Heart education focusing on faith, intellect, social action, community and growth.
“The five of them together really are a roadmap for life,” she said.
Reflecting on the first goal, Sister Dyer asked the graduates, “Are you going to be thinking about a personal and active faith in God?”
“Faith is a gift, and only God can give you faith, and it’s something to be grateful for,” she said, adding, “Faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin...You can also pray, ‘Lord, help me in my unbelief.’”
Commenting on the second goal of a Sacred Heart education – “a deep respect for intellectual values” – Sister Dyer asked the graduates, “When you get on to college… how are you going to deal with chatbot and AI?... Are you going to write those papers yourselves?... When that choice comes, I want you to think about a deep respect for intellectual values.”
Noting the third goal, “a social awareness which impels to action,” Sister Dyer said she has heard Stone Ridge students and graduates say the school’s Social Action Program changed their lives.
“You formed a habit of community service. Will you continue that habit in college and in life?” she asked the graduates.
Sister Dyer then discussed the fourth goal of a Sacred Heart education, “the building of community as a Christian value.”
“The building of community is something you are called to do,” she said. Then she asked, “When you get to college, will you build community, or will you tear it down? That’s what your behavior will do. Think about that when you get onto social media.”
Then the Religious of the Sacred Heart noted the fifth goal for students of schools sponsored by her religious community, “personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom.”
“Will you continue to grow for the rest of your lives?” Sister Dyer asked. “Never stop growing.”
Sister Dyer suggested that Stone Ridge’s centennial class sometimes play “The 100s Game.” Perhaps when they’re riding in the car or going off to beach week, she encouraged them to try to name 100 Stone Ridge students, or 100 teachers, or 100 of their favorite songs, or 100 streets in the Washington area. “I’m going to let you think of the categories,” she said.
Concluding her talk, Sister Dyer again asked the students those two questions, “How do you identify?” and “What is your takeaway from your Sacred Heart education?”
“That’s your last class. You’re done!” she said.
After thanking the school’s faculty and staff and the graduates and their parents, Sister Dyer finished her talk by quoting Psalm 94: “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.”
Earlier as she welcomed the graduates, Catherine Ronan Karrels noted that St. Madeleine Sophie Barat in founding Sacred Heart schools “set out to bring the heart of Christ to our world through the vehicle of education. As a child of Sacred Heart, we are each called to live not only for ourselves, but to make this world a better place.”
She told the Stone Ridge graduates, “This home is your home, not just for today, but for your lifetime.” She added, “We are so proud of you. You will always hold a very special place in our hearts as our centennial class.”
After awards were presented to members of the class of 2023 at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, the graduates were presented with diplomas by Karrels and by Eileen Mayer, a 1970 Stone Ridge graduate and longtime supporter of the school who serves as the chair of its Board of Trustees and who later offered the closing prayer at the ceremony. After all the graduates at the ceremony received their diplomas, they received a long standing ovation.
In her address to classmates as the valedictorian of Stone Ridge’s class of 2023, Eleanor Sun noted the affection that the members of that centennial year class, whom she called “my centies,” had for one another. She said they had been shaped by the Sacred Heart goals “into confident and compassionate young adults.” Sun encouraged her classmates as they go on to college not to be afraid to go into the deep end, whether by diving, jumping, sliding or doing a cannonball, and meet new friends, try new activities, take challenging classes or participate in new volunteer opportunities.
“Go out into the world and embrace the change that faces you. Thank you and go Gators!” Sun said.
Earlier during the commencement ceremony, that year’s salutatorian, Caroline Gallagher, noted that her Stone Ridge class was known for its spirit of gratitude.
“After every single class, my classmates and I always said ‘thank you’ to our teachers,” said Gallagher, who calculated that added up to “about 175,000 thank-yous” during their years at the school.
Near the end of the school’s 95th commencement ceremony, Malcolm McCluskey, Stone Ridge’s Head of Upper School, noted how members of the class of 2023 had provided leadership to the school community after the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown three years earlier caused local schools to close their doors and pivot to online learning.
Addressing the class, McCluskey said, “You made a choice to band together, to pull each other through one of the toughest times that our world has seen.” He said when the school’s students returned that fall to in-person classes, “you emerged with joy and you modeled resilience for all of us, and today you are teaching us a lesson of how good comes from that.”
Thanking Stone Ridge’s class of 2023, McCluskey said, “You have successfully launched us on our next century of Sacred Heart education.”
Then the seniors wearing their long white dresses stood together and sang in French the traditional song for the Network of Sacred Heart School,s “Coeur de Jésus” (“The Heart of Jesus”) and ended the ceremony with another tradition, tossing red roses in the air.
