Headmaster Clement's Remarks

You are fortunate in life to find work you love, and for the last 28 years I have loved almost every aspect of my work at The Browning School: with the boys and their teachers, with parents and alums, with colleagues and other professionals. People are asking me what I am doing next, and my answer is simple: I am taking a year’s sabbatical. Since my first year of teaching in 1968 in a sixth grade homeroom at P.S. 36/125 on West 121st St., I have been in schools: as a teacher, a graduate student, an administrator. My first job was the hardest, and my last job was the best. Sigmund Freud’s definition of a full life is the ability to love and to work, and increasingly philosophers are adding an additional component: the ability to have fun. Maybe that’s my third chapter.

Timing is everything, and I have always believed you both have to do your homework, and be prepared for luck. In almost three decades at Browning, I have been blessed with consistency: one board president for 15 years, 10 years as a team leader with the same three division heads, three directors of development, and two business managers. I also look back on the Bloomberg terms as a time in our city when spirits soared, and institutions like Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum and Randall's Island were nurtured and supported. It was a good time for our city’s independent and private schools. And I am also proud to have been Head during the Obama presidency; there is still so much work to be done.

In my family for the last 28 years there has been a standing joke: on the street whenever we run into a student, or a parent or an alum, I always say afterwards, “What a great boy!”/”What a nice family!” And Sally and Ted and Winston always say: “You always say that.” And I always mean it. Serendipity has smiled on me, and I’m proud that the Browning board picked me in 1988. You may know that one of my heroes is Winston Churchill. At the risk of pomposity and with fear of hurting the feelings of the Browning Panther, let me end this talk quoting Sir Winston himself: “I was not the lion... but I was privileged to give the roar.”

Steve Clement Salute

Good evening, I’m Bodie Brizendine, Head of The Spence School, and it is my distinct honor to speak on behalf of all my fellow heads for our dear friend, Steve Clement. 

There’re no two ways about it; Steve is one of the good guys, a go-to friend, a stand up colleague, and a mensch. And there’s a huge part of me that thinks that all along he’s really been the mayor of our fair city, artfully disguised as a Head of School. His touch is golden, and his reach is very far indeed. He gives what poet Jane Hirshfield calls “contemplative attention” to all to which he attends, and honesty, integrity and just plain old gladness are just some of his well-known trademarks.

There’s immediacy about Steve that you can’t miss, and always and in all ways, while he celebrates a rich and deep humanist tradition, he celebrates you, no matter who you are. For Steve, every door is an opening, and every young boy is a promise, made and kept. 

Recently Steve shared with me that Edes Gilbert, one of my illustrious predecessors, once said that were she ever stuck in an elevator, that above all else, she would want to be stuck with a Browning boy. And, of course, that well-deserved salute to Browning is a direct result of Steve Clement, your capable, beloved and humble Head who leads by example and by great intentionality. He’s been a voice, a direction and a guide to us all in the independent school world of NYC and beyond.

Steve and I share an affinity for literature and poetry, and he was once amused by a pantoum I wrote as an initiation into an organization to which we both belong. A pantoum is an early Malaysian poetic structure built upon repeated phrases, which, heard all together, make a wonderful whole. Well, Steve, this time I wrote one for you, and the whole it makes is, indeed, powerful and replete with Steve-isms. I call it, “Echoes of Steve,” or “What Would Stephen Clement Say?”

“Echoes of Steve”

It’s important that we come together.

Whatever is best for the boys and for the learning. 

Schools are places of hope and promise.

Sally and I would love to host it at our home.

Whatever is best for the boys and for the learning. 

I can do that for you.

Sally and I would love to host it at our home.

For 28 years, I’ve had the best job in town.

I can do that for you.

Every single graduate makes me proud.

For 28 years, I’ve had the best job in town.

Can I be of help to you?

Thank you, Steve, for all that you have done for your families, students and the community, and particularly what you have done for your fellow heads of school. And as you all know, Steve never works on a scale of one. That would be an anathema to him. By his side, always, stands his family, and they, too, have made a colossal difference to him and to his leadership. Sally and sons, Winston and Ted, are absolutely part of what has made the difference in Steve’s leadership, day in and day out, and I invite you to join me in enjoying this video in salute of Steve and his family.  Enjoy the show, and enjoy the evening.   

SO, IT'S TIME                  

         (To the tune of "Summertime" - George Gershwin / Words rewritten by Lucy A. Warner)

Your legacy is strong and true

And our hearts won't forget you.

Each Mama, each Daddy, each Browning boy

Feels the pride.

So, it's time.

Thank  you, thank you, Steve

For an incredible ride.