HGSE One Community Day Marks the Start of Fall Semester

New traditions and a renewed sense of community marked the start of the fall semester as the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) gathered on Monday to welcome its newest students.

Incoming students, faculty, and staff marched together from Appian Way and assembled at Harvard’s famed Sanders Theatre for One Community Day, with the school’s online master’s students enjoying the festivities remotely as music and messages of hope marked the beginning of a new semester.  

Dean Nonie Lesaux welcomed HGSE’s incoming class of students, who join the nearly 1,500 who make up the school’s collective community. She noted the event was one of just two times every academic year that the entire school gathered in one place. The other, graduation festivities in May, serves as the culmination of the school’s shared commitment to education and improving outcomes in classrooms and communities far beyond Appian Way.

“Everything that happens between those two moments — the teaching, the research, the late nights, the hard-won learning breakthroughs and insights, the difficult conversations, the small kindnesses, the celebrations — that’s the real work of building community,” said Lesaux.

Lesaux’s welcome speech highlighted the impact HGSE’s faculty make on the educational landscape, the expertise and skills the school’s staff brings to campus, and the many different journeys incoming students have taken to join the Ed School community.  

“We have students for whom this is the first chapter after college, and others in their 70s for whom this may be what the esteemed Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, professor emerita and beloved colleague, refers to as 'The Third Chapter,'” said Lesaux.

The dean also noted the diverse backgrounds and experiences of HGSE’s incoming class – 55 percent are first-generation graduate students, a third were first-generation undergraduates, and the class boasts students from across the United States and 60 different countries.

“That kind of geographical, linguistic, and cultural range, that is the very essence of HGSE,” she said. “You have traveled far and wide and that is wonderful. A warm welcome to each of you.”

Lesaux laid out the year ahead for students and staff, including a number of events such as the Askwith Education Forum, a continuation of HGSE’s Dialogue Across Differences initiative, and opportunities for connection for students, faculty, and staff in the months ahead. She noted these community-building efforts are intentional, and part of the school’s collective core values moving forward.

“You might reasonably ask why at a moment when so much can happen over a screen, our community is doubling down on presence. None of this is about nostalgia for an easier past or a rejection of our technological reality in the future,” said Lesaux. “Instead, it is a bet that in this era of AI and acceleration, the schools that combine cutting edge tools with an unshakable commitment to the humans in the room will be the ones that lead in what comes next.”

A trio of performances also featured on Monday, showcasing unique talents of staff, alumni, and incoming students. Soprano Janet Ross, senior coordinator of HGSE Career Services, performed a soaring rendition of the nursery rhyme "Old Mother Hubbard," set in the manner of Handel. Impressively filling Sanders Theatre with her voice, Ross’ rendition was juxtaposed by a spoken word performance from Trey Baker, Ed.M.’26, which punctuated a meditation on education with silences so heavy that creaks of movement on the well-worn wooden benches became part of the performance.

Both earned standing ovations from the assembled crowds, as did a performance from one of the newest members of the HGSE community. The event program closed with a jazz quartet performance led by incoming Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship student Jonathan Dely before the assembled community journeyed back to Radcliffe Yard for a celebratory barbeque.

One Community Day also featured four HGSE faculty members each delivering brief talks about their work, spending seven minutes each to address a subject they hope will inspire incoming students to make the most of their time on Appian Way.

Professor Nadine Gaab advocated for a preventative education mindset to help support learners before they begin struggling to read, while Professor Tom Kane shared insights from the Education Scorecard. Assistant Professor Ying Xu shared findings from her Child-Centered AI Lab, which detailed research on the relationship children have with artificial intelligence. Professor Shawn Ginwright, meanwhile, shared a message of hope inspired by his research into healing-centered leadership. Recalling a friend’s story about a trip to Europe where he toured cathedrals that took centuries to build, Ginwright reminded those assembled in Sanders, a cathedral of learning, that their work will have an impact experienced long after they’ve left HGSE as students.

“We’re all cathedral builders,” said Ginwright. “Each conversation we have this year, each relationship you have with your faculty and students and colleagues: We’re all trying to create this cathedral of hope, and that each conversation that you have and everything you do is contributing to that.”