Liz Free
Good afternoon students, families, staff, board members, alumni and friends of ISR.
Every year, this moment arrives, and every year it feels uniquely powerful. Today, I look at you, our Class of 2025, and I am filled with pride, warmth, and profound hope.
This is not just a ceremony. It marks a crossroad, a celebration of how far you’ve come and a quiet promise about the journeys ahead.
You are only the second graduating class to walk this campus as ISR students. But how quickly, and how deeply, you have made it your own.
In these corridors and classrooms, on these fields and stages, you have shaped something permanent. You have left a legacy; not of bricks, but of values. You are part of the story that helped bring a bold new vision of ISR to life. One that will serve generations to come.
Global Citizens in a Fragmented World
You graduate at a time of extraordinary complexity. In 2025, the world continues to shift; tectonic changes in geopolitics, climate, identity, and truth.
We have seen elections reshape alliances, witnessed rising nationalism, watched conflict persist in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza, and felt the tremors of economic and technological change far beyond our borders. Even in this corner of the Alpine Rheintal, we feel the ripple effects of a rapidly transforming world.
But here is the truth we live by at ISR: education is not meant to shield you from complexity, it’s meant to equip you to meet it.
And you have met it. Head-on. With intellect, with empathy, with action.
This is what it means to be an International Baccalaureate student. It means taking your knowledge and using it for good. It means living the values of intercultural understanding, critical thinking, and purposeful engagement, not just in theoretical and abstract ways, but in everyday choices.
The IB mission calls you to help create a better, more peaceful world through education. It’s not a slogan. It’s a responsibility. And you have embraced it with courage and compassion.
A Class of Quiet Confidence and Steady Impact
What stands out most about this graduating class is your sense of quiet confidence, your ability to lead with integrity, not noise; to collaborate, not compete. You are a class that understands how to work across differences, how to build community, and how to make space for others without losing yourselves.
You have been quietly effective; thoughtful in your actions, deliberate in your initiatives, generous in your support of others.
You’ve modelled what it means to be principled and open-minded, two of the most vital attributes in a world that increasingly asks young people to choose sides before they’ve had a chance to ask questions.
Your impact is visible across the school: in the way you’ve mentored younger students, helped expand extracurriculars, and elevated events like Model United Nations through strong leadership and inclusivity. You have taken what was good and made it better, and that is no small achievement.
As Coretta Scott King once said:
The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.
Your class has shown that greatness — not in dramatic gestures, but in consistent, thoughtful leadership.
Shaping What Comes Next
You’ve helped shape not just your own futures, but ISR’s future too.
You’ve brought this space to life, not just physically, but culturally. You’ve helped turn classrooms into conversations, spaces into stories. And in doing so, you’ve helped us imagine what this school can continue to become.
When we opened this campus in 2023, I said this would be a campus where dreams take root. Today, I see that promise fulfilled in each of you.
As Kofi Annan reminds us:
Education is, quite simply, peace-building by another name.
You carry this peace-building capacity into a world that sorely needs it. Through your studies, your relationships, your actions — you have shown that education is more than knowledge. It is transformation.
Keep Moving Forward
And so, as we reach the close of this chapter, I offer you the familiar words of Walt Disney:
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.
Let your path be brave. Let it be thoughtful. Let it be guided by the values you nurtured here at ISR.
Wherever your journey takes you — across countries, careers, and causes — ISR walks with you.
Congratulations, Class of 2025.
Liz Free
CEO and Director
4th June 2025
“Great leaders inspire greatness in others” 