In his speech to the Class of 2017, Guilford High School (GHS) Valedictorian Josh Stern talked about having the courage to work for change—to be bold enough to try to make the world a better place.

“First, I wanted to be clear I wasn’t preaching to anyone—don’t hold my worth above anyone else’s,” says Josh of his speech.

He also used his time at the podium to help his classmates realize, “we’re going into this uncertain world where we have no idea what’s going to happen, and everyone I talk to is really excited about this.

“That’s what inspired me to my third point, which is I think this is a time in our lives that embodies having the courage to make our world a better place,” he says.

In addition to being at the top of his class and heading for Harvard in the fall, Josh leaves a legacy of someone who boldly worked for change during his years at GHS. In the spring of 2015, as a sophomore, Josh initiated a community conversation that’s still going on.

After realizing “no one else was doing anything about it,” Josh asked whether GHS should replace its long-held “Indians” mascot and name—considered an offense to Native Americans—with something more representative of the town and its public schools.

While the issue has yet to be resolved, Josh is still active in working toward the change, noting, “we’re trying to take it pretty slowly.”

Still, he isn’t sorry he undertook the challenge of asking for change for the better, despite what he knew would be an unpopular cause with some.

“It’s something I believed in,” says Josh. “I think part of it was I thought it was a local issue where I could make a difference. No one was getting out there and getting it done. There a lot of people that believe in it.”

Josh backed up his challenge to the GHS community with presentations, including one to his peers showing psychological evidence he’d accrued on the negative impacts of the mascot name.

Josh has also spent the last two years helping to better his community as a member of the Guilford Fund for Education Grants Committee and through actively working in the community as co-chair of the Youth Advisory Group (YAG) for the Guilford Foundation. Josh helped increase YAG fundraising efforts as well as assisting YAG with input when awarding Guilford youth-focused grant allocations to support efforts of local non-profits.

Through YAG, he spearheaded a collaboration with Guilford Agricultural Society to fundraise through annual poster sales, helped create a fundraising luminaria event on the town green, and helped establish an annual standardized test prep book drive to get books into the hands of disadvantaged teens.

“I was happy I had that opportunity to give back to the community in that way,” says Josh of his many efforts with YAG.

His work as a student advisory volunteer also took place at the state level: Josh was a 2016-’17 member of the Connecticut State Student Advisory Council on Education, meeting monthly with the state board of education.

At GHS, he was co-president of GHS Senate (2016-’17) and was president of the GHS Class of 2017 from 2013 to 2015. Speaking of politics, Josh volunteered with the successful 2014 campaigns of State Representative Sean Scanlon (D-98) and State Senator Ted Kennedy, Jr. (D-12). He said he was the Kennedy campaign’s youngest volunteer.

Between his own activism as a citizen, his studies and his community advocacy work, Josh also found time get involved in sports and the arts at GHS. He excelled during four years as a three-season track/cross country athlete. His GHS music career allowed him to become one of the school’s leading cellists.

As co-captain of the GHS varsity cross country/indoor and outdoor track teams, Josh earned All State honors in 2016 and helped the team finish first in the 2015 Connecticut Class MM race.

Josh was principal cellist of the pit orchestra for GHS’s West Side Story 2016 production, which earned the Connecticut High School Musical Theater Award for best pit orchestra. He was GHS Symphony Orchestra’s first chair (2016-’17) and first stand (2015).

Throughout his high school year, a love of learning helped Josh rise to the top of his class, buoyed by teachers and subject matter he found inspiring.

“I just really loved what we were doing academically,” he says of his GHS classes. “Guilford High School is highly ranked and the teachers are great, so I was always able find something in the work that I enjoyed a lot. I didn’t think I was going to be valedictorian until much later in my school career; I just enjoyed what I was doing and tried to do my best.”

That said, Josh admits, “I worked really hard!”

He also thanks he parents for inspiring him to fall in love with learning.

“My parents were super important for my academics,” he says. “They were always talking to me about what I learned in school at the dinner table. They pushed me when I needed it, but mostly just told me to have fun with it.”

One of the academic pursuits Josh enjoys most are projects involving research.

“I like following research and learning things from it,” he says.

In 2015 and 2016, Josh completed back-to-back, seven-week fulltime summer internships in the laboratory of Professor Anthony J. Koleske at Yale University School of Medicine. The work involved engineering and expressing mutant forms of TRIO gene found in patients with disorders such as schizophrenia.

“It was really interesting molecular research to help learn more about the basis of psychological phenomena—basically, understanding how the brain works,” Josh explains.

Being a valedictorian is the definition of a brain brilliantly at work, and Josh’s impressive resume shares a long list of academic awards he’s earned. They include Southern Connecticut Conference Scholar-Leader, National Merit Scholarship finalist, GHS Harvard Book Award, GHS Excellence in AP US History, GHS Student-Athlete Award, Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership Seminar, Rotary Youth Leadership Award, GHS Excellence in World Humanities English, Honors Chemistry, World Civilization, and Arabic I. As a member of the GHS National Honor Society, Josh also served as a peer tutor (2015-’17).

Josh is looking forward to beginning the demanding work of a Harvard undergrad and discovering what direction it will give his life and career.

“I don’t have my major figured out yet,” Josh says. “I like microbiology, but I also like public policy.”

Before his work begins, Josh will join several of his new Harvard classmates for a school-arranged backpacking trip in mid-August.

When he packs his bags to head off to Cambridge, he’ll pack his cello, which he’s been playing since 6th grade. While he won’t be pursuing music studies at Harvard, “I might look into chamber groups,” says Josh, whose current private study work includes Popper Hungarian Rhapsody and Haydn Cello Concerto Movements One and Three.

Although he earned a weighted 4.57 GPA at one of the top academically rated public high schools on the east coast—and beyond—Josh says he’ll no doubt feel a bit “intimidated” when he enters the storied academic environs of Harvard for the first time.

“It’s definitely impossible not to be intimidated,” he says, laughing. “But I just think about how cool it’s going to be working with all these really dedicated people. At the same time, I love Guilford and the people here, and I’m really going to miss it.”