Tea Time: Graduating seniors experience first ceremony

May 28, 2013

Seventy-three years of tradition continued May 2 with the annual Senior Tea. This year, 39 young women lined the Main Hall in white dresses holding pink peonies and daisies as they introduced themselves to over 200 family members and friends attending the event.

“Senior Tea for me was actually one of the highlights of my year because it really felt like a great start to saying goodbye to Convent,” Brooke Thomas (’12), who attends the University of Denver, said. “There’s something really special about putting your dress on and shaking hands with your teachers that makes you feel like an adult and that you’re ready to leave.”

Senior Tea was instituted by the Religious of the Sacred Heart as way to recognize members of the graduating class, according to Dean Rachel Simpson.

The sisters once prepared and served the entire tea, but the absence of active RSCJ members on campus has left the task of serving to parents of the graduating class.

“Serving at Senior Tea was a nice way for a parent to participate in such a rich tradition,” George Borges, father of graduate Isabella, said. “I personally enjoyed being able to serve so many faculty members and thank them in that way for their tremendous work with my daughter.”

Administrative assistant Jeanne Asadorian and members of the Junior Class were responsible for moving the flow of the line and keeping movement at a steady pace.

“The people who experience going through the line are always struck by how poised and gratuitous each senior is in line,” school counselor Annie Egan said. “I see it as wonderful tradition with a great deal of potential in highlighting a graduate-to-be’s intellectual imprint on the school.”

The tradition of Senior Tea can be seen as outdated and unnecessary, but Simpson views the tea in another way.

“The skills of being able to shake hands, meet someone face-to-face, particularly someone you haven’t met before, introduce yourself and introduce your neighbor all of little used skills that count for some social currency of our world,” Simpson said.

Simpson summed up the Class of 2013 at Senior Tea as, “Ready.”