Another school year is coming to a close, and soon-to-be Léman Manhattan graduates have racked up an impressive list of top university admissions. Léman alumni will be joining the class of ’26 at Boston University, Stanford, Rice, Duke, Villanova, and Harvard, among others.

Russian invasion of Ukraine casts a long shadow over an otherwise happy end of year. As an international community representing more than 50 nationalities living and studying together in vibrant and cosmopolitan downtown Manhattan, we are committed to inclusivity and to ensuring safety and security of all our students and their families. So we speak to politicians when we say that Léman stands against the brutality committed on the soil of Ukraine, and ask for an immediate cessation of violent conflict.

In parting, I want to share with you news of a digital art project created with participation of Arsenii, a boarding student at Léman Manhattan. The collection, Voice of Taras Shevchenko, features recordings — coded as NFTs — of verses from the iconic Ukrainian poet’s work, voiced by an AI reconstruction of Shevchenko’s own voice. Shevchenko died in 1861, so these works are in effect a time-spanning call to arms and to freedom.