The Exeter Bulletin, spring 2015

The Exeter Bulletin SPRING 2015

T H E E X E T E R B U L L E T I N

The Gift of Goodness P R I N C I PA L TO M H A S SA N RETIRES

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ALSO: • Instructors who teach by day and jam by night • Climate Action Day kicks off waste reduction efforts • Table Talk with Raphi Frankfurter ’09 on his work in Sierra Leone

THIS CLASSROOM IS FULL OF OPPORTUNITY… THANKS TO YOU. These are just a few areas each gift to The Exeter Fund helps support: Access to the Exeter experience by keeping tuition rates below the cost of education and offering financial aid to as many families as possible New challenges through continually evolving course offerings Unforgettable dorm activities that build lifelong relationships Leadership skills through 90 student clubs and service organizations

Healthy bodies and athletic achievement in 22 varsity sports Modernization of Exeter’s buildings and classroom spaces World exploration through 17 off-campus locations Even some Harkness tables — centers for eye-opening conversations

HELP PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES LIKE THESE AND MORE. PLEASE MAKE A GIFT — OF ANY AMOUNT — NOW AT WWW.EXETER.EDU/GIVE1.

The Exeter Bulletin Principal Thomas E. Hassan ’56, ’66, ’70, ’06 (Hon.); P’11 Director of ­Communications Robin Giampa

SPRING

Editor Karen Ingraham Staff Writers Mike Catano Nicole Pellaton Class Notes Editor Janice M. Reiter Contributing Editors Edouard L. Desrochers­­ Karen Stewart Creative Director/Design David Nelson, Nelson Design Editorial Assistant Susan Goraczkowski Communications Advisory Committee Daniel G. Brown ’82, Robert C. Burtman ’74, Dorinda Elliott ’76, Alison Freeland ’72, Keith Johnson ’52, Yvonne M. Lopez ’93 Trustees President G. Thompson Hutton ’73 Vice President Eunice Johnson Panetta ’84 Mitchell J. Bradbury ’78, Wole C. Coaxum ’88, Flobelle Burden Davis ’87, Marc C. de La Bruyère ’77, Walter C. Donovan ’81, John A. Downer ’75, Mark A. Edwards ’78, Jonathan W. Galassi ’67, David E. Goel ’89, Thomas E. Hassan, Jennifer P. Holleran ’86, Deidre O’Byrne ’84, William K. Rawson ’71, Kerry Landreth Reed ’91, Dr. Nina D. Russell ’82, J. Douglas Smith ’83, Morgan C. Sze ’83, and Remy White Trafelet ’88 The Exeter Bulletin (ISSN No. 0195-0207) is published four times each year: fall, winter, spring, and summer,

by Phillips Exeter Academy 20 Main Street, Exeter NH 03833-2460 Telephone 603-772-4311 Periodicals postage paid at Exeter, NH, and at additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA by Cummings Printing.

The Exeter Bulletin is printed on recycled paper and sent free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, friends, and educational institutions by Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH. Communications may be addressed to the editor; email bulletin@exeter.edu.

Copyright 2015 by the Trustees of Phillips Exeter Academy.

ISSN-0195-0207 Postmasters: Send address changes to: Phillips Exeter Academy Records Office 20 Main Street Exeter, NH 03833-2460

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“TOM LIVES THE GOODNESS PART OF THE EQUATION EVERY DAY.”

—page 28

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IN THIS ISSUE

Volume CXX, Number 3

Features

28 Goodness Defined

Tom Hassan’s enduring impact on Exeter

By Katherine Towler

36 Pennywhistle Physics

Meet the instructors who teach by day and jam by night

By Sarah Zobel

44 Big Red Gets a Little More Green

PEA debuts Climate Action Day

By Karen Stewart

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Around the Table: Q&A with Principal-elect Lisa MacFarlane, the backpack brigade, faculty appointments, and more.

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Table Talk with Raphi Frankfurter ’09

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Inside the Writing Life: A Conversation with Alex Crowley ’86 and Scott Russell Sanders

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Sports: NFL Eyes Exeter Alumnus Zachary Hodges ’11. Plus, winter sports roundup.

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Connections: News and Notes from the Alumni Community

Departments

48 Profiles: Peter Sears ’55, Ulysses Grant Dietz ’73 and Laura Callanan ’83 104 Finis Origine Pendet: My PEA Family, by Raymond Braun ’08 —Cover photograph by Cheryl Senter

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AROUND THE TABLE

What’s new and notable at the Academy

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Beginnings

By Principal Thomas E. Hassan ’56, ’66, ’70, ’06 (Hon.); P’11

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s I prepared to write my last Bulletin column

— the one that caps my 26 years at Exeter — I intended for it to focus on endings. Instead, as I put fingers to keyboard I find myself drawn to the excitement of beginnings. That is likely because I’ve experienced several beginnings during my tenure at the Academy, and each was the launching pad to another important role here. Prior to becoming Exeter’s 14th principal, I held roles in college counseling and admissions, even doing both for a time. I’ve been a math teacher, adviser, dorm affiliate, assistant principal and acting principal, and, for four years, an Exeter parent. One thing that has become clear to me is that even though job titles may change, I have been fortunate in that every responsibility has brought with it the excitement of working with talented and promising students and peers.

As I have moved through the administration at Exeter, I have kept in mind how best to encourage our students to pursue their current interests and potential talents.

Whether the focus was in finding the right students who would thrive at a place like Exeter or helping Exonians find the colleges best suited for them, the mission of serving youth from, for and in every quarter has always been top of mind.

I am certain that beacon will remain true as I step back from Exeter and increase my duties as New Hampshire’s first gentleman upon retirement. I won’t ever stop being a mentor and teacher, and I won’t stop insisting that we

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encourage today’s youth to be curious and kind and meet their highest potential.

Maggie and Tom Hassan at the In fact, I am already Boston alumni reception writing a book for elementary school students about our state’s history that I plan to use as a tool to engage with early learners and encourage the continued building of reading skills. Trading my seat at the Harkness table for a classroom reading rug is one way I will continue supporting my wife, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, in her work, and I will continue to draw on my many Exeter experiences to provide as much support to our state’s schoolchildren as I can.

Alumni know better than anyone the value of the special connections fostered at Exeter. You also remember the bittersweet moments of a senior spring when students say goodbye to their teachers and one another.

This is my senior spring, and I take with me all the joy of learning and working alongside students and the enduring friendships we have forged. I thank you for your friendship and partnership, and I know that Principalelect Lisa MacFarlane will quickly find the same warmth, connection and friendship with you all. She is lucky to be in your good hands and I know you will welcome her as she transitions into the role that has been such a source of inspiration and satisfaction for me. E

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NON SIBI IN A MINUTE T H E B AC K PAC K B R I GA D E TO E N D CHILDHOOD HUNGER

By Mike Catano A group of PEA employees are working together to help address an often hidden need within the greater Exeter community: ensuring dozens of elementary school–aged children have enough food to eat on weekends.

These volunteers contribute their time to Exeter’s branch of End 68 Hours of Hunger — a New Hampshire–based nonprofit established in 2011 with a mission of putting nourishing food into the hands of eligible local children between the free lunch they receive at school on Friday and the free breakfast they are eligible for when they return to school on Monday.

Food is purchased and packed into backpacks by volunteers and then delivered to elementary schools, which distribute the bags to children.

“The need for this food is what shocked me,” says PEA IT Specialist Marilee Tuomanen. “That here in a relatively affluent area these children don’t Volunteers with PEA’s End have enough food on the weekend. The regional school district, SAU 16, has one of the larg68 Hours team include, est groups of children in the state who lack adequate food resources.” clockwise, Linda Safford Tuomanen and her colleagues work as a team four times during the school year. Reli(front) Christine Utter, Karen gious Services Staff Assistant Linda Safford P’12, P’14 acts as team leader and has recruited Clarke, Donna Archambault, PEA community members in the past two years, including Donna Archambault and Kathy Harvey Shepherd and Kathy Pottle, from IT Services, and Vira I. Heinz Professor and Religion Instructor Kathy BrownBrownback. back P’08. In their second year, the group — along with other volunteer teams — now pack, on average, 100 backpacks a week for distribution throughout the SAU 16 school system.

“I couldn’t ask for a better team of dedicated people,” Safford says. “When scheduled, we pack all the backpacks on Wednesday with the food items, and deliver the packs on Friday so the students can take the bags home that afternoon. We then pick up the packs on the following Tuesday and bring them back to the food locker.” The cycle restarts every week, with other volunteer teams pitching in.

The food comes from a variety of sources, including donations to individual schools and purchases made possible by fundraising events held throughout the year. Archambault, for example, has participated in a pumpkin patch event sponsored by a local church, which donated proceeds from the sale of pumpkins to End 68 Hours. Safford has done food drives in her neighborhood and sent out emails requesting slightly used backpacks. She is also a member of the local Festival of Trees charitable organization, which has donated food and partners with the Chamber Children’s Fund in Exeter to donate about $1,000 each year. Stafford also teamed with Community Service Coordinator Liz Reyes to gain ESSO’s help to collect food this past December.

It’s the children who motivate all of these efforts. “I love when I walk into a school to drop off the backpacks, and there is a large collection of food that families in the school have donated to fill the empty backpacks,” says Archambault. “It is truly a community effort.”

Safford adds, “When I drop off the packs to the school, the nurses always have a wonderful story to tell me about how the kids are so happy to get their ‘special’ backpack and know there is food inside.

It feels so good to know that what we are doing is helping a child and their family here in our area.

I also love explaining the program to people. It’s amazing how much they want to help either with donated food, backpacks or money.”

“It’s a big task with a really great result, and everyone does their little piece,” Pottle concludes.

“That is what makes it so powerful.” E

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A Shared Vision of Leadership

By Tony Downer ’75; P’06, P’06, P’07, Principal Search Committee Co-chair

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ith Tom Hassan bringing his successful principalship to a close this year, our community received a call to action.

Over the past 234 years, while the United States has had 44 presidents and 17 chief justices of the Supreme Court, Phillips Exeter Academy has had only 14

Principal Search Committee

principals, making the search for a new principal a most uncommon event. What the PEA community may have lacked in frequency of practice and experience, its DNA more than compensated for, defining the search process in striking ways: • Passion. The community — staff, faculty, students, parents, alums — cared deeply about the opportunity associated with a new principalship and the challenges associated with finding the right individual.

• Selflessness (non sibi). Whether in person at the numerous listening events or via email, Exeter family members in significant numbers devoted meaningful time to share their concerns, their guidance and their aspirations for the community they love.

• A Commitment to Excellence. Infused in every communication was an unwavering insistence that Exeter aim for, and aspire to be, the best — to be the secondary school that provides an unsurpassed education and experience for its students. Just as the community would not compromise its ambitions, it would not entertain compromising the quality of the 15th principal.

• Core Values. In each gathering and from each group, the same requirements for our next leader were voiced: a grounding in the classroom, sterling academic credentials, proven leadership capability in a complex and

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challenging setting, outstanding communication skills, a passion for educating youth, a commitment to the environment and an ability to inspire.

Not surprisingly, the search’s seven-month journey spawned an array of authentic Exeter moments: • A Harkness session in the science building attended by half a dozen staff members, a like number of faculty and one prep, with that prep, all of two months into her life at the Academy, delivering an unforgettable comment.

• A listening event in New York City during which a recent grad responded to a remark from an alum from the 1940s by standing up and shouting, “You are the man!”

• Custodians, department chairs and uppers in a circle, contributing their perspectives, building on one another’s ideas and forming a common vision of the desired next leader.

• A filled-to-capacity Student Council meeting with enough energy, imagination and determination to make the walls bulge.

• A current parent traveling to a listening event to share with the attending alums her heartfelt appreciation for the remarkable experience her child is having at Exeter, an experience made possible thanks to the Academy’s generous financial aid.

And naturally, the Principal Search Committee’s deliberations resembled a prototypical Harkness class (similar to the one you may have had with Emeritus History Instructor Jack Herney, who, in fact, was a member of the search committee). Each of the 13 members, comprising staff, faculty and trustees, wove the community’s input with his or her own perspective, listened respectfully and advocated vigorously on the issue of the Academy’s future direction and the question of which candidate could best realize that vision. To Anita Bailey, Barbara Desmond, Mark Edwards, Jack Herney, Jen Holleran, Tom Hutton, Ron Kim, Nicie Panetta, Ted Probert, Anne Rankin, Russell Weatherspoon and, particularly, to committee co-chair Belle Burden Davis, we all owe a debt of gratitude for the hours, commitment and judgment you devoted to the task.

Together, we will all celebrate this September the arrival of Lisa MacFarlane as the Academy’s 15th principal. E

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Getting to Know #15 A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H P R I N C I P A L - E L E C T L I S A M A C F A R L A N E

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questions to Principal-elect Lisa MacFarlane to introduce the Academy’s 15th principal to our readers. Currently the provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of New Hampshire, MacFarlane’s contributions to the field of education are numerous, and details of her professional accomplishments can be found at www.exeter.edu/bulletinextras. In the meantime, this Q&A begins a dialogue with MacFarlane that we will continue in the summer issue of the Bulletin as we profile her in greater detail.

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he Exeter Bulletin posed a few

Q: How has being a parent of two Exonians informed your perspective of Exeter and influenced your decision to seek the principalship?

Exeter was genuinely transformative for my children: They were surrounded by passionate, smart and idealistic classmates who wanted to make a difference in the world, and by thoughtful, smart, caring adults who believed they would. The mutual respect, collaboration and generosity inspired by the Harkness table shapes the experience for every member of the community — at the table certainly, but more importantly in the way everyone aspires to treat each other, in dormitories, clubs, on campus and beyond. As an educator, this is irresistible!

Q: Who or what has impacted your philosophy on education and why you ultimately chose a career in this field?

I come from a family that honors teachers and the power of education. My grandmother was a normal school teacher who taught in a one-room schoolhouse in rural upstate New York in the 1920s, and she believed that a great education should be available for every student with talent and desire.

My grandfather was an Italian immigrant who left school at the age of 12 and became fluent in three languages, and he believed that education was vital not only for individual success but for the health of the larger society. When I read Exeter’s Deed of Gift, it resonates with my family’s history and values: youth from every quarter, seeking both goodness and knowledge, so as to build the surest foundation for human progress.

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Lisa MacFarlane with newly-admitted Exonians.

Q: What was the first day on campus as principal-elect like?

What are you looking forward to in upcoming visits this spring and summer?

I was so moved by the warm welcome! Holly ’16 and Cesar ’16 gave me a wonderful tour; I had lunch with English Department colleagues; hung out in the Grill; met the awesome Exonian editors and head of WPEA; and chatted with faculty, students and staff. A couple of weeks later, I got to have lunch with the Quiz Bowl team, visit with the girls in Langdell, cheer on Big Red at swimming and hockey and basketball, and enjoy tremendous performances from the Concert Choir, the Chamber Orchestra, and the cast of Once on This Island, the winter mainstage production. It was such fun to meet so many Exonians and to feel the energy and joy of the campus, even in the midst of a long New Hampshire winter. I can’t wait to come back!

Q: What’s one piece of advice as an educator and parent that you might offer to incoming students?

In the words of Ms. Frizzle from “The Magic Schoolbus”: “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!” Seriously! Be open to the unexpected, embrace serendipity, know that you will discover passions and activities that you might never have considered, and trust that your friends and teachers will be there with you. (And get enough sleep!) E

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Improving Health Care in Sierra Leone TA B L E TA L K W I T H R A P H I F R A N K F U R T E R ’0 9

By Daneet Steffens ’82

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hen Raphael “Raphi” Frankfurter ’09 took on the position

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of executive director at the Wellbody Alliance in 2013, he had no idea to what extent his role — and the organization — would change. Frankfurter had been working with the Sierra Leone–based health organization on and off since engaging in a medical anthropology research internship with the nonprofit between his freshman and sophomore years of college.

“That was my first summer,” says Frankfurter, who graduated from Princeton with a degree in anthropology and a certificate in global health and health policy. “I was working in these camps that were set up for people who had been wounded and amputated during Sierra Leone’s civil war. I was trying to understand their lives — the poverty, the suffering, the maiming — and that experience was both intellectually fascinating and emotionally incredibly difficult.” The work and the country clearly got under his skin: He returned every summer to continue his research and volunteer for Wellbody, filling in organizational holes; as Wellbody thrived, so did Frankfurter’s relationship with the nonprofit.

Wellbody Alliance was co-founded — with the core belief that high-quality health care is a human right — in 2006 by Dan Kelly, an American medical student, and Mohamed Bailor Barrie, a Sierra Leonean physician, in Sierra Leone’s Kono District, an area in the country’s eastern region that is rich in diamonds and war-related devastation, but poor in health care access. For most of the 540,000-strong population, the Wellbody clinic is their only source of nontraditional health care. Since its inception, the organization has worked with community members as partners rather than just patients, developing a trusted position within Kono. “We have a unique relationship with this incredibly complicated community,” says Frankfurter. “The people have been exploited and hurt and are very poor, but because of our community-focused approach, they’ve grown to trust our medical center.”

Wellbody’s commitment to community came even more fully into its own during last year’s Ebola outbreak. “To expand our reach, we joined

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forces with Partners In Health, a big international NGO,” explains Frankfurter, noting that it was Wellbody’s integrated presence within Kono that piqued PIH’s interest. “This partnership has enabled us to grow exponentially. It means more staff, which means more programs: We’re in three different districts now, instead of one.

Before Ebola, I spent about 40 percent of my time fundraising; now I can focus on our programs. We’re actually doing Ebola treatment, something we’d not have been able to do just under my direction.

Our presence in the country with PIH has grown to create one of the major NGOs in Sierra Leone.”

Frankfurter, currently exploring M.D./Ph.D. programs for the fall, plans to combine an academic career with his international work, and has a particular interest in what he sees as a transformative opportunity for first-world universities to play a bigger role in global health. “I think the arguments that NGOs contribute to Africa’s lack of development are oversimplistic,” he says, “But ultimately a health care system cannot be run by NGOs; a health care system needs to be run by the government. Universities are pockets of incredible resources: They could work with governments to develop long-term, formal training and education programs to build up health care courses and systems, coupling that with research on how to do it well. PIH is currently innovating this approach with Harvard. It’s about building up medical schools overseas, bringing in academic clinicians, both to stock the health care system and to train local people in specialty care. It can be very different from the way NGOs can operate, which are often much more transient and less invested than this type of university partnership can be.”

For now, though, Frankfurter appreciates Wellbody’s community-driven work as true, effective dedication: “You know how English classes at Exeter taught us to think about individuals in their complexity, to talk about them respectfully as people? That’s a mental process that I use all the time. When there’s an Ebola patient who’s run away from their quarantined home and we need to go find them in the forest, that’s about knowing that they’re not ignorant — they’re afraid. We need to understand them and their family and their lives in order to understand what will draw them back for proper care.”

It’s taken Frankfurter time to gain that understanding, but that process has been one of the pleasures of his working experience.

“I’m feeling more comfortable in Sierra Leone, beginning to get a sense of how to interact with people in a context so different to my own,” he says. “I think back to the first year I arrived, looking around and thinking, ‘What is this place?’ Now there’s a deep comfort I feel, knowing how to eat the food, how to joke with people — there’s a lot of ways in which I can connect better. But I’m still confronted every day with realms I don’t understand.” Despite such challenges, Frankfurter professes palpable admiration for Sierra Leone’s resilience. “It came out of this horrible civil war,” he says. “There’s a certain pride in the country and readiness to move on and a real aversion to violence that is extremely refreshing and inspiring.” E

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“THERE’S A CERTAIN PRIDE IN THE COUNTRY AND READINESS TO MOVE ON AND A REAL AVERSION TO VIOLENCE THAT IS EXTREMELY REFRESHING AND INSPIRING.”

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LIBRARY COMMONS OPENS When students returned from spring break last month, they had the opportunity to do something once frowned upon in the Academy Library: drink coffee, tea and other refreshments.

They filled their reusable mugs at a reception to celebrate the opening of the Library Commons — renovated space on the library’s ground floor designed to offer students a modern, flexible place in which to socialize, study or simply relax. In addition to a café area that will provide food and drink self-service options, the space features comfortable, movable furniture for individual use or group collaborations, as well as a new Harkness classroom. New lighting also gives the room a livelier feel, and the space serves as a dedicated area for student-managed tablet support, with ample power outlets and printing access on hand.

Described by Academy Librarian Gail Scanlon as a “transformative space” designed to provide options “all in support of the creative process,” the Library Commons renovation is the first phase in the Class of ’45 Library Renewal Project, which aims to ensure programming is “future-oriented,” says Scanlon, with updates intended “to be progressive and responsive in support of the Academy community’s needs.” E

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New York Artist Will Cotton Visits 3-D Design Classes

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umptuous confectionary is the hallmark

of New York City–based artist Will Cotton, known for paintings and photographs that use candy as clothing, adornment and landscape.

He’s also a director and set designer, responsible for singer-songwriter Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” music video — an out-of-this-world rendition of Candy Land — and for a staging of Peter and the Wolf at the Guggenheim Museum, in collaboration with fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi.

This master of sweet surprise came to Exeter for a two-day residency in February, sponsored by the Michael Rockefeller ’56 Visiting Artists Fund. The timing couldn’t have been better. He arrived just as the two sections of ART201: 3-D DESIGN: TECH + FORM + FASHION were starting concept designs for their Print to Fit garments, a special wearable art project that serves as a final exam for the term-long class.

Smiles abounded as Cotton consulted with students — some working in small groups, others individually — on construction, materials and process.

Sugar helped keep spirits upbeat as candy wrappers were a required material for the garments, which included everything from dresses — made from wrappers for York Peppermint Patties, Pop Rocks strawberry and Riesen chocolate — to wallets and ties.

This is the first year for the redesigned Art 201 class, which now combines studio projects in 3-D design, architecture, contemporary sculpture and apparel. Students tackle a variety of challenges, including sneaker/shoe models, font design, dwelling models and site-specific installations, using both traditional and nontraditional materials.

“Making functional pieces of apparel that people can actually wear isn’t as easy as it looks,” explains Sammie Weaver ’18, one of the creators of the York Peppermint Pattie dress. “It’s a lot like designing a house: You have to start with the foundation, make the skeleton, and then you can finish with the detail.”

This is a return trip for the artist, who first came to Exeter in 2010. During his recent residency, Cotton visited printmaking, painting and design classes, gave a public slide talk, and had lunch with advanced art students. E

(Above) Will Cotton critiques the York Peppermint Pattie dress with designers Ivy Tran ‘18 and Sammie Weaver ‘18.

(Right) A dress made of Riesen chocolate and gold metallic candy wrappers by Millie Dunstan ‘15.

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Faculty Wire LEADERSHIP APPOINTMENTS ANNOUNCED FOR 2015-16

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everal senior leadership appointments were announced during the winter, as the five-year terms for these administrative positions conclude at the end of the 2014–15 academic year. In addition, Principal Tom Hassan appointed current Dean of Faculty and History Instructor Ron Kim as interim assistant principal for 2015–16 to aid Principal-elect Lisa MacFarlane in her first year. Kim fills a position that had been vacant since Hassan was appointed principal, and MacFarlane will decide whether to continue the position.

Three professorships were also announced during faculty meetings. A list of all the appointees and their backgrounds follows.

Ron Kim, Interim Assistant Principal Instructor in History; Dean of Faculty, 2011-15 B.A., University of CaliforniaBerkeley; M.A., ABD, University of Chicago; Appointed 1994

In addition to teaching the United States History sequence and several courses on the history of modern and pre-modern Asian nations, Kim chaired the departmental committee that created the non-Western history requirement. He was the recipient of the Rupert Radford Faculty Fellowship in 2009 and the Charles E. Ryberg Teaching Award in 1998. As associate dean of faculty from 2004–09, Kim implemented new strategies for recruitment that resulted in doubling the number of people of color on the faculty in just two years. He oversaw the school’s 12 domestic and international off-campus programs and the Academy’s adult and student summer programs. “The people who most influenced me at Exeter — Steve Smith, Bruce Pruitt, Jack Herney, Rick Mahoney, and others — were all committed to serving the school and did whatever was asked of them,” Kim says. “Their service shaped the Exeter that I have known and have benefited from, and thus it seemed only fitting that I do the same.”

Ethan Shapiro, Dean of Faculty Instructor in Modern Languages; Director of Summer School, 2007-14 B.A., Colby College; M.A., Middlebury College; Appointed 1988

As Summer School director, Shapiro has introduced innovative curricula and outreach programs, both on campus and off. One

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notable example is PEA’s unique collaboration to bring Harkness-based instruction to The Noble Academy, a charter high school that opened in August 2014 with 200 students in downtown Chicago. “This is a two-way street,” Shapiro says. “Our mentoring teachers find this work to be really rewarding, challenging and invigorating, as much as the Noble teachers do on their end. The partnerships, the friendships, the respect . . . have been one of the greatest aspects of the project.” Previously, Shapiro worked in the Dean of Students Office, first as associate dean and later as dean from 2001 to 2007.

Shapiro joined the Exeter faculty as a Russian-language instructor and helped launch the Academy’s Russian exchange program. As a wrestling coach since 1988, Shapiro, along with coach Dave Hudson, has been instrumental in Exeter’s winning 13 Class A championships and nine New England titles.

ADDITIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE APPOINTMENTS Gordon Coole, Dean of Student Health and Wellness Director of Athletic Training B.S., University of New Hampshire; M.Ed., University of Virginia; Appointed 1993

Coole is a nationally certified and state-licensed athletic trainer and has directed the Academy’s sports medicine program for 28 years. He is also a certified strength and conditioning specialist and is professionally trained in massage therapy. Coole actively participates in the residential life program, formerly living in Wentworth, Gould and Browning dormitories and now as a day student adviser. As the dean of students for health and wellness, he supports both programs and personnel responsible for teaching, maintaining and intervening in all matters of student health and wellness. He has served as president of both the New Hampshire Athletic Trainers’ Association and the Independent School Health Association and was a founding member of the NEPSAC Sports Medicine Advisory Council. Coole says one of his goals is to “use a collaborative approach to incorporate a proactive ‘wellness’ attitude to supporting healthy lifestyles, in addition to the ongoing intervention work of helping students with their wellness issues. . . . To be an agent for positive change is so satisfying.”

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Spotlight on Performing Arts VIETNAM TOUR MAKES HISTORY

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(Top) Rehearsal at Hue Academy of Music. (Middle) In Hanoi, on stage at the Vietnam National Academy of Music.

(Bottom) An outdoor concert in Hoi An.

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ver spring break PEA’s two premier ensembles — Concert Choir and Chamber Orchestra — traveled the length of Vietnam, from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, performing concerts of classical Western music and Vietnamese folk songs.

Their first concert, held at the Hanoi Cheo Theatre on March 10, garnered rave reviews: “The Vietnamese music was a revelation, and the Phillips Exeter Academy pupils were performing at a level — both orchestrally and vocally — that was beyond imagination, not only for its disciplined skill but its completely sensitive engagement with the music,” wrote one concertgoer.

During the 14-day tour, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, the ensembles partnered with musicians and vocalists from the Vietnam National Academy of Music and from the Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory of Music.

The 28-voice Concert Choir, under the direction of Kristofer Johnson, and the 24-person Chamber Orchestra, with conductors Peter Schultz and Rohan Smith, performed American and To watch video highlights from the trip and view more photos, go to European selections www.exeter.edu/bulletinextras. by composers that included Leonard Bernstein, John Philip Sousa, Dolly Parton, Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Gabriel Fauré, and more. They also prepared two Vietnamese folk songs, “Trong Com” and “Lý Kéo Chài,” arranged especially for the tour

by Vietnamese musician and composer Vân-Ánh Võ, who did a two-day residency at PEA in February, where she performed a free concert and introduced music students to traditional Vietnamese instruments.

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A TROPICAL TALE OF LOVE DEBUTS

C

ast and crew celebrated the power

of love at Fisher Theater as Once on This Island debuted in mid-February. A cast of 28, under the direction of Dance Instructor Sarah Duclos, told the story of Ti Moune, an orphaned peasant girl in the French Antilles who falls in love with Daniel, a wealthy islander. Their passion — aided by tropical storms and acts of gods — sparks a tale of love that brings people together across social divides. Based on the 1985 novel My Love, My Love: Or The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy, the Tony Award-winning, one-act musical features book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by Stephen Flaherty.

Adjunct Music Instructor Jean Strazdes led a fiveperson orchestra of students and faculty to provide the musical backdrop, which paired well with vibrant costumes and scenery.

PERFORMING ARTS CREATED FROM THE FINE ARTS

W

ith Greco-Roman sculpture, cubism

and modern abstract art serving, among other genres, as inspiration for students, February’s Winter Dance Concert created new interpretations of the fine arts, expressed through choreography, lighting and costumes.

Students worked with the Director of Dance Allison Duke, Dance Instructor Amberlee Darling, costume designer Lorissa Summermatter and lighting designer Jamie Gresens to explore the characteristics of individual works and develop dance concepts. In preparation, they visited Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Lamont Gallery, with guidance provided by Lamont Gallery staff and former PEA Art Instructor Becky Barsi. Students enrolled in Lighting Design developed and programmed lights for the performance.

Works that served as inspiration included “Starry Night Over the Rhone” by Vincent Van Gogh, “The Raft of the Medusa” by Théodore Géricault and “Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia” by Thomas Moran. E

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THANKFULNESS It’s been a season of appreciation on social channels, as Exeter’s Giving Thanks Club, an arm of the Exeter Social Service Organization (ESSO), has taken to the airwaves to encourage current students and alumni to share what they are most thankful for regarding their time at Exeter.

From dorm mates to teammates to world travel, Exonians paint a rich mosaic of community life at Exeter and beyond. Enjoy those highlighted here, and read more at www.exeter.edu/bulletinextras.

“I’m thankful for every one of the families I’ve found at Exeter. Whether it’s this group of crown-wearing nerds, the lovely ladies of Wheelwright, my friends over in Ewald, the dedicated Dramat board or the Concert Choir kids, I’m grateful every day for the wonderful people I’ve gotten to share my four years with. Nowhere else would I have been able to meet such diverse and talented people. Thanks Exeter!”

Hoover 1 8 • T H E E X —Liz E T E R B’15U L L E T I N

“Exeter’s been really kind to me. I wouldn’t have the resources to make art; to travel to LA, Japan, and England within the span of 9 months; and to meet some of the most important people I’ve ever met, if it weren’t for my four years at this school. I just wish they let me keep lizards in my dorm, but maybe that’ll come eventually.”

—Hannah Sessler ’15 “Before Exeter my family has never lived in one location for over a year. Finances always forced us to move frequently, forcing me to attend multiple schools during elementary years. As a result of that, stability was something hard to find as a child.

After 4 years here at the Academy and living in the same dorm, Phillips Exeter Academy feels more like a home than any other place in the world. This school is my ground, my foundation, and my home base. It brings stability into my life because once the year starts, I know exactly where I’m going to be and I know that I don’t have to move. Even after I graduate I’ll always be grateful for the sense of consistency and warmth Exeter has given me. I’m thankful for Exeter because it’s given me a place to call my home.”

—Lazaro Cesar Jr. ’15

“I am thankful towards Exeter for providing me the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone. The amazing experiences that Exeter has made way for are more than I would have ever imagined back home. From spending 9 days in the canyons of Utah with Mr. BreMiller, to teaching English to underprivileged children in rural China, and even spending a term halfway around the globe in Taiwan, I will be forever in debt toward Exeter for exposing me to the world outside my own.”

—Luis Verdi ’15

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REFLECTIONS ON A REVOLUTION In his foreword to Exeter’s newest publication A Classroom Revolution: Reflections on Harkness Teaching and Learning, Principal Tom Hassan says he has been asked this question on countless occasions, “Is there a book that will tell me how to be a Harkness teacher?’” He CHERYL SENTER

says, “The reply has always been ‘No’ and that answer will not change with the publication of this collecA

tion of essays.”

C L A S S R O O M

rEVoLUTI oN:

While this

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new book doesn’t

L E A R N I N G

provide specific

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instructions on how to succeed in a Harkness classroom, the col-

With a Forew

lection of more

Decision Day EXETER WELCOMES ITS NEWEST STUDENTS

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ith the arrival of April

came more than 300 future Exonians and their families, who visited campus during the Academy’s annual “Experience Exeter” week — an opportunity for admitted students to attend classes, eat in the dining halls and go to special seminars. For many new Exonians, this is their first visit to campus.

In addition to a welcome address from Principal Hassan, the program includes a Q&A panel with current students and pairing with an Exonian host for students, while family members join a Harkness class and attend a faculty panel and afternoon workshops. Everyone was treated to closing remarks by Principal-elect Lisa MacFarlane. E

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s 14th Princ

E. HAssan

i pa l

than 30 essays and

BY THE NUMBERS Applicants:

2,346 Accepted:

340

35 26 From:

states and

countries

Financial aid awarded:

$6.1 million

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ord b y Exet er’

THomAs

graphic art does afford a unique opportunity to hear from contemporary teachers who are practicing Exeter’s hallmark pedagogy. It becomes evident that there is no one way to teach a Harkness class. Approaches to teaching and learning differ from discipline to discipline, class to class and person to person.

Indeed, the essays are as varied as Exeter’s classrooms. Several are highly philosophical while others take a nuts and bolts approach.

Hassan says in his foreword, “When I conceived the idea of this collection of reflections, I did not intend it to be a primer on Harkness teaching.”

These contributions from veteran faculty members, newer teachers, alums and those who have taken the Harkness pedagogy to other institutions, however, do offer a look into the dynamic that is at the heart of the Academy. Teachers talk about their early days in the classroom, and how they have learned from their students. They reveal their stumbles and their triumphs.

But even as the differences in technique and approach are revealed, themes familiar to Exeter alums of every generation permeate the pieces: respect for the pupil, preparation and collaboration.

The hardcover 200-plus page edition of A Classroom Revolution: Reflections on Harkness Teaching and Learning will be available in mid-May. It will be for sale at the Academy bookstore and online at http://exeter. bkstore.com.

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EXETER DECONSTRUCTED T H E S C H O O L W E L O V E I N D E TA I L

PHILLIPS CHURCH The Kendra Stearns O’Donnell window on Tan Lane uses nearly

2,500

pieces of glass to depict artist Michelle Honig-Szwarc’s vision of “light emerging from the very back reaches of time.”

In 2011, PEA carpenters built an ark in the Stuckey Room to properly house the school’s two torahs.

10 FOUNDATION STONES

contain the names of the 10 institutions that subscribed to the building fund as a way to honor John Phillips, to whom

The church interior was used extensively in the filming of A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles ’45. The front of the main church was the setting for the tense trial scene.

each institution owed a great deal of gratitude: Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, Andover and Lawrenceville.

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student-led religious organizations

SEVEN different spiritual services offered each week

Princeton, Brown,

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RALPH ADAMS CRAM

designed the building in 1896. Cram, a native of the area (Hampton Falls, New Hampshire), later designed the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.

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Inside the Writing Life A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H A L E X C R O W L E Y ‘ 8 6 AND SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS

By Daneet Steffens ’82

A

lex Crowley ’86 is a Bloomington, Indiana-based composer and songwriter who composed and staged his first musical, Home Sweet Home (book and lyrics by Steve Mounkhall), in New York in 1990. Fellow Bloomingtonian Scott Russell Sanders is an award-winning writer of books for children and adults, a distinguished professor emeritus of English at Indiana University, and was Exeter’s George E. Bennett Fellow in Creative Writing, 1974-75.

They were introduced to each other last year by local theater company Cardinal Stage, which commissioned them to create a musical for kids as part of Indiana University’s College of Arts and Sciences’ Themester 2014: “Eat, Drink, Think: Food from Art to Science.” With music by Crowley and a libretto by Sanders, The Birthday Feast follows 10-yearold Maddie as, aided by neighborhood buddies, she sets out to provide the happiest birthday for her mother. The play had its world premiere in October 2014 and ran for 24 performances. The CD was released in December, and Crowley and Sanders are preparing the show for distribution to other theater companies.

Alex Crowley ‘86 and Scott Russell Sanders have released a CD for children.

Q: Which came first, the libretto or the music?

Scott: I wrote the libretto first, including lyrics for the

songs. Then Alex composed the music. But his lively musical ideas led me to revise many lyrics, and he also inspired me to write three new songs. So there was a vigorous give-and-take between words and music, right up to opening night.

Alex: We realized well into rehearsals that we needed an opening number to get the show going, which ended up being the song “I Love to Eat.” We agreed to add it late on a Thursday night: Scott delivered lyrics by noon on Friday, I wrote the music that night and Saturday at noon the song was onstage in rehearsal.

Q: Maddie and her posse visit a farmers’ market, go on a “crazy, scary” turkey hunt, dig fresh garden veggies, keep hot sauce on their list, and gain a delicious soup recipe. Did you ever feel constricted by the parameters of what you’d set out to do, or did you find some sort of unexpected liberty in the paths you could pursue?

Scott: I knew from the outset that the play would focus on food. We wanted to explore how food is grown, the pleasures of gardening, the value of local foods, the importance of understanding ingredients in packaged food, and the costs and sources of quality food. While these concerns shaped the play, I felt energized rather than constrained by them.

Q: The songs are entertaining as well as educational, the nutritional awareness information leavened by fun rhymes and wordplay, the music matching that playfulness. There’s a whimsy and silliness — and even elements of suspense — to your approach that reminded me variously of Quentin Blake, Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl, The Wizard of Oz, Pippi Longstocking and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Who were each of your actual inspirations?

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Scott: I’ve certainly been influenced by writers such as Dr. Seuss, but also by American and British poetry, and especially by folk song, jump rope chants, hymns and musical theater.

Alex: I wanted to echo the innocence, optimism and joy of the story and lyrics in the music. I looked to more-traditional composers and songwriters for inspiration, including Richard Rodgers, Frederick Loewe and the Sherman Brothers, and to today’s masters of children’s songs, including Michael Ford, Sandra Boynton’s collaborator, and Dan Zanes. There are also nods to the music of my childhood, including Free to Be ... You and Me.

White, during a rehearsal: “We’re magically moving through space and time; I’m not even remotely interested in realism. ... This should be magical. There’s no reason it can’t be fun!” How did you each make sure that your work stayed fun?

Scott: Every adult was once a child, but most adults forget or lose touch with that younger self. I have never lost touch with the child inside me. My wife, my children and my five grandchildren will tell you that my playfulness, goofiness and wacky imagination are only too evident! It was natural for me to draw on these qualities.

Alex: Like Scott, I am often called a goofball by my children. I wanted the music to have staying power; I also wanted it to be silly and fun so kids and adults would internalize it and want to keep singing along long after the curtain fell. So putting in a pirate song made perfect sense, as did Mrs. Allegri’s spoof of Italian opera in the “Birthday Soup” song.

Q: What do you like most about telling a story through songs?

Scott: Music expresses emotions directly, without needing words; but when words are added, you can weave emotion together with ideas and characters and narrative. In a musical, songs should carry the story forward while revealing aspects of character and relationships. Achieving all of that in the few words of a libretto is difficult but tremendously rewarding when you pull it off.

Q: From the time you were first approached by Cardinal Stage for this commission, Alex, what’s been the easiest aspect of creating this musical?

Alex: The easiest part of creating the musical was the generous exchange of ideas within the artistic team, including Scott and me, director Randy White, music director and orchestrator Robert Cruz, and the actors and crew. When you create something new, great ideas for improvement come from everywhere, and without exception the group was focused on turning out a terrific show. What took me by surprise was what children told us they loved most in letters after seeing the show. Even the youngest understood the themes and story and were able to make connections with their own lives. And like some of them, my favorite part in the show may be when Mutt the dog drinks the soup with too much hot sauce and performs a show-stopping aria, “Mutt’s Lament,” that sent audiences into fits of laughter and cheers every time. Although there’s a special place in my heart for the song “Mama Says to Me.”

EVERY ADULT WAS ONCE A CHILD, BUT MOST ADULTS FORGET OR LOSE TOUCH WITH THAT YOUNGER SELF. I HAVE NEVER LOST TOUCH WITH THE CHILD INSIDE ME.

Q: At what stage of working together did you realize you had an Exeter connection?

Alex: It was well into the project that we made the connection. I went online to research something about Scott’s background and fell upon his Wikipedia entry, which mentioned Exeter. We had a great conversation the next day about our respective Exeter experiences; it gave me an opportunity to recall Exeter’s amazing theater and music facilities and teachers. While I never participated directly in the theater program, I did spend a lot of time in the music building, struggling to improve my oboe playing for the orchestra. Having returned for a number of reunions, I know the music program has only improved. But even back then, it was remarkable and a central part of my wonderful Exeter education.

Q: There’s a great quote by your director, Randy

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Q: Finally, just for the record, what’s your favorite vegetable?

Scott: Oh, that’s a tough question. I’ve never met a vegetable I didn’t like! But if I had to name a favorite, I would say sweet corn: I love watching the plant grow, harvesting the ripe ears, pulling off the husks and silks, slathering on butter, and munching away.

Alex: I would have to say green beans . . . especially the way they were prepared in the Wetherell Dining Hall! E

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Alumni are urged to advise the Exonians in Review editor of their own publications, recordings, films, etc., in any field, and those of classmates. Whenever possible, authors and composers are encouraged to send one copy of their work and original copies of articles to Edouard Desrochers ’45, ’62 (Hon.); P’94, P’97, Phillips Exeter Academy, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833.

ALUMNI 1953—Lee Ann P. Etscovitz.

An Inner Roadmap of Gender Transformation.

(CreateSpace, 2014)

1968—Neal Delmonico, translator/editor. On Associating with Great Ones. [Based on lectures collected and edited in Bengali by Kānupriya Gosvāmī’s]. (Blazing Sapphire Press, 2014) 1969—W. Reed Moran. Why Plot Never Matters: Telling the Screen Stories in Your Heart.

(Kendall Hunt Publishing Co., 2015)

1979—Kevin Boileau. A Game Theory Approach to Meditation. (EPIS Press, 2015) — Vivantonomy’s Noetic: A Trans-Humanist Phenomenology of the Self. (EPIS Press, 2015) 1989—Jacob T. Levy. Rationalism, Pluralism, & Freedom.

(Oxford University Press, 2015)

1973—Anthony P. Robinson.

High Performance Buildings: A Guide for Owners & Managers. (Fairmont Press, 2013)

1958—Carlson Chambliss and Gene Hessler. The Comprehensive Catalog of U.S. Federal Large-Size Notes, 1861-1929. (Speckles Press, 2014)

1964—Russell McGuirk. Light Car Patrols 1916-19: War and Exploration in Egypt and Libya with the Model T. Ford.

(Silphium Press, 2014)

1974—Betsy LeondarWright. Missing Class: Strengthening Social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures. (ILR Press, 2014)

1990—John Palfrey. Biblio Tech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google. (Basic Books, 2015) 1993—Gregory W. Brown.

Moonstrung Air: Choral and Vocal Music of Gregory W. Brown [CD]. (Navona, 2015) 1994—Toby Jayne. King Arthur’s Court: A Walk Around Cornwall. (CreateSpace, 2015)

1966—Peter Thompson, translator. Exile and Helplessness, by Nabile Farès.

(Diálogos Books, 2014)

1994—Brian Staveley. The Providence of Fire. [Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, book 2]. (Tor Books, 2015)

1967—Pauli Järvenpää and Ann-Sofie Dahl, editors.

Northern Security and Global Politics: Nordic-Baltic strategic influence in a post-unipolar world. [Routledge Global Security Studies. (Routledge, 2014)

1998—Kirstin Valdez Quade.

Night at the Fiestas: Stories.

(W.W. Norton, 2015)

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1965—Parker Jayne and John A Graham. “The Rediscovery of Zakaria Paliashvili’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.” IN American Choral Review. (v. 56, winter/spring 2014) 1988—William Brandt and D. M. Alexander. “Cosmic X-ray surveys of distant Active Falaxies: The demographics, physics, and ecology of growing supermassive black holes.” IN The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review. (vol. 23, no. 1, 2015) 1998—Nancy (Moss) Ross and Jessica Finnigan. “Mormon Feminist Perspectives on the Mormon Digital Awakening: A Study of Identity and Personal Narratives.” IN DIALOGUE: A Journal of Mormon Thought. (v. 47, no. 4, 2014)

1955—William Kistler. in the middle of things. [poems] (ZigZag, 2013)

1962—J. Philip Jones. Long After the War. (CreateSpace, 2014)

B R I E F LY N OT E D

2007—Katherine R. Seifert and Clark McCauley. “Suicide Bombers in Iraq, 2003-2010: Disaggregating targets can reveal insurgent motives and and priorities.” IN Terrorism and Political Violence. (vol.

26, no. 5, 2014) FAC U LT Y Ralph G. Sneeden. “Contrapunctus (#1)” and “The Narrows: Lake George 1969” [poems]. IN AGNI (no. 80, 2014, Boston University) — “Stepping Off: Confessions from the Littoral Zone” [essay]. IN The Common. (no. 8, October, Amherst College)

1977—Andrea Chapin. The Tutor: A Novel. (Riverhead Books, 2015)

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S P O RTS

NFL Eyes Exeter Alumnus Z A C K H O D G E S ’ 1 1 P R O J E C T E D A S A D AY- 3 P I C K

By Craig Morgan ’84

E

very Exeter graduate carries a unique perspective on his or her Academy experience.

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GIL TALBOT/HARVARD ATHLETICS ( 2)

Zack Hodges’ perspective diverges from most.

“I’ve always been busy; never had time to just sit down and do nothing. The only time I did that was at Exeter,” says Hodges ’11, a senior defensive end on Harvard’s football team who spent a postgraduate year at Exeter. “I remember arguing with [classmate] Peter Kalugin about philosophy and the meaning of life and all these esoteric things late-night in Williams House because I had nothing to do but communicate and share ideas. It opened my eyes to another world and I really valued that experience.”

Perpetual motion is a way of life for Hodges, who conducted this entire interview while working out on an elliptical machine as he prepares for the NFL draft (April 30 to May 2). Hodges lost his father to a brain tumor when he was 1, forcing his mom, Barbara Wright, to work three jobs to make ends meet and forcing Zack to assume myriad duties once he was old enough to fend for himself.

Hodges lost his grandfather, his only real father figure, when he was 14. While Hodges was getting ready for school one morning at age 16, his mom collapsed from a stroke, and she died later that day. On the day she was buried, he played his last game for Independence High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, before moving to East Point, Georgia, to live with his grandmother and his aunt.

“A lot of times, when you get up in the morning, things may seem stable; you may think you have some kind of control over your life,” Hodges says. “That can change fast.

“I try to live my life with a day-to-day emphasis because I guess that’s how I grew up. My mom and I were living on our own with no support from anyone so it felt, in some ways, like I was always in survival mode, trying to make it day to day.”

That approach could serve Hodges well in the NFL, where contracts still are not guaranteed and every practice or game serves as a proving ground for scant and highly competitive roster spots.

Hodges is the 13th-ranked outside linebacker and the 162nd-ranked prospect overall in NFL Draft Scout’s list of hopefuls. Rob Rang, a senior NFL draft analyst for CBSSports.com and The Sports Xchange projects Hodges as a Day 3 selection, going in the fourth or fifth round.

“The level of competition he’s faced kind of skews things because, against Ivy League competition, he was clearly the best player on the field,” Rang says. “But I saw him at the Senior Bowl [in Mobile, Alabama] and I thought he showed some real flashes. He is very much a legitimate NFL prospect.”

Like most analysts, Rang views Hodges (6-feet-2½, 250 pounds) as an outside linebacker, the position where he can best utilize his skill set.

“He’s got good change of direction and good straight-line speed so he should be able to drop back in coverage,” Rang says. “He’s tough enough at the point of attack to hold up, at times as a defensive end, but he’s not big enough to remain in that role in the NFL.” Hodges never viewed the NFL as anything more than a long shot — the same opinion he held about his chances of attending Harvard. In nine games with Tri-Cities High during his senior season, however, Hodges recorded 21 sacks, forced 10 fumbles and made Georgia’s 5-AAAA All Region First Team, earning him attention from schools such as Stanford, Holy Cross and Harvard.

In four seasons with the Crimson, three as a starter, he set a school record with 27 sacks, posted 118 tackles, led the Ivy League with 8.5 sacks his senior season, and won the George “Bulger” Lowe

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Award as New England Defensive Player of the Year.

That performance earned him invitations to the Senior Bowl, the East-West Shrine Game in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, where prospects run through a dizzying array of speed, strength and agility tests, as well as a series of psychiatric and personality profiles designed to judge their ability to adapt to and excel in NFL life.

“It can be a bit bizarre,” Hodges says, laughing. “I’ve never been asked so many times ‘Have you ever been arrested?’ No. ‘Ever do drugs?’ No. ‘Have any kids?’ No again.”

“It can definitely feel like a lot of pressure when your whole future feels like it’s riding on these few drills, but if you’re mentally tough, it’s kind of a cool experience because you get to meet all these great players from around the country, and coaches and GMs and pros.

“I come from a household of women who didn’t really care much about football, so with what you see on TV and in the media, you never really realize how much of a brotherhood the NFL is; what a cool workforce that would be to join.”

Hodges knows the narrative of his NFL pursuit will be about overcoming long odds. His personal life and the fact that he played at Harvard rather than at a big-time Division I program will both be viewed as rivers he’s had to cross. That’s OK, but Hodges wants everyone to know that such a narrative tells only a fraction of the story.

“I don’t want people to think my life is a sob story. It’s not a sob story,” he said. “I’ve met great people. I’ve had great experiences and I’ve learned a lot of things I can continue to use on my road.

I’m fortunate to have an opportunity to go play in the NFL, but there are a lot of talented people out there who won’t make it.

“I think it’s easy to be confused and think I deserve to be in the NFL after what I’ve been through. I’m confident in my work ethic and my ability but it’s not promised. Nothing is promised.

I’m just blessed with this moment. Nothing more.” E

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Zack Hodges ‘11, Harvard Crimson’s #99, led the Ivy League in sacks during his senior year.

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WINTER SPORTS

WRESTLING RECORD: 14-5 NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONS, CLASS A TOP 10 FINISH AT PREP NATIONALS

Head Coach: David Hudson Assistant Coaches: Ethan Shapiro, Bob Brown, Ted Davis Captains: Meet-specific MVP: AJ Pedro ’17

WINTER TRACK RECORD: 2-0 IN REGULAR SEASON DUAL MEETS

Head Coach: Hilary Coder Assistant Coaches: Hobart Hardej, Toyin Augustus-Ikwuakor, Brandon Newbould, Kurt Prescott, Francis Ronan, Anisha Vinod Captains: Holden Hammontree ’15, Michaela Morris ’15, Marcus Polk ’15, James Quinn ’15 MVPs: Christine Hu ’17, Marcus Polk

BOYS SWIMMING AND DIVING RECORD: 5-3 IN REGULAR SEASON DUAL MEETS

Head Coach: Don Mills Captains: Andrew Eigner ’15, Brooks Saltonstall ’15 MVP: Will Belmont ’16

GIRLS BASKETBALL RECORD: 17-7 EIGHT SCHOOLS TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS

Head Coach: Johnny Griffith Assistant Coach: Ellen Gunst Captains: Mel Allan ’15, Courtney Henrich ’15 MVP: Erika Steeves ’15

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PHOTOS: SWIMMING BY RACHEL LUO ’17; TRACK BY CONNOR BLOOM ’15; ALL OTHERS BY MIKE CATANO.

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BOYS ICE HOCKEY RECORD: 24-4-2 QUALIFIED FOR NEW ENGLAND QUARTERFINALS

Head Coach: Dana Barbin Assistant Coaches: Bill Dennehy, Tim Mitropoulos ’10 Captains: Ted Hart ’15, Sterling Weatherbie ’15 MVPs: Bryan Botcher ’15, Ted Hart

GIRLS SQUASH RECORD: 7-10

Head Coach: Fred Brussel Captain: Lizzie Wei ’15 MVP: Lizzie Wei

BOYS BASKETBALL RECORD: 14-10

Head Coach: Jay Tilton Assistant Coaches: Rick Brault, Jabari Trotter ’08 Captain: No official captains MVP: Christian Lutete ’15

GIRLS ICE HOCKEY RECORD: 13-10-2

Head Coach: Melissa Pacific Assistant Coaches: Lee Young ‘82, Jason BreMiller Captains: Clara Gilbert ’15, Marley Jenkins ’15, Az Nalbandian ’15 MVPs: Allegra Grant ’16, Marley Jenkins

GIRLS SWIMMING AND DIVING RECORD: 3-4 IN REGULAR SEASON DUAL MEETS

Head Coach: Jean Chase Farnum Captains: Janet Chen ’15, Dana Yu ’15 MVP: Janet Chen

BOYS SQUASH RECORD: 10-8

Head Coach: Fred Brussel Captain: Philip Chang ’15 MVP: Philip Chang

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DAMIAN STROHMEYER

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hen Tom Hassan ’56, ’66, ’70, ’06 (Hon.); P’11 was appointed the 14th principal of Exeter in 2009, after working in a number of administrative positions at the Academy, he took the reins of a school that had been home to him and his family since 1989. The knowledge and experience he brought to his role as principal has helped him accomplish a great deal in his six years on the job.

With his background as a math instructor, director of college counseling, director of admissions and assistant principal, he possesses a broad understanding of Exeter and of the challenges facing independent boarding schools today.

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TOM HASSAN’S ENDURING IMPACT ON EXETER

By Katherine Towler

D E F I N E D

“This is a school that knows itself well,” Hassan says.

“The core values of knowledge and goodness and non sibi are clearly defined. When I took over as principal, I thought about how I could sustain the character of the school and help it evolve.”

During his tenure, Hassan introduced a number of initiatives, chief among them a new emphasis on global learning and a fundraising campaign for new performing arts facilities. He took the lead as well in establishing partnerships between Exeter and other public, charter and independent schools, nationally and internationally.

Closer to home, Hassan made improving connections among different groups on campus a signature of

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his principalship. He and his wife, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, have regularly hosted gatherings at their home for faculty and staff to recognize the important work of both groups and to bring them together.

“When you talk about goodness, people automatically think of community service, but for me it is as much about having empathy and how we treat people,” Hassan says. “I try to do this by example, like asking students to remember to thank the behind-the-scenes people working here. We need to connect everyone on campus.”

Although his career has been in administration, Hassan has taught in the Mathematics Department throughout his years at Exeter. He continued to teach a

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course each spring, when his travel schedule was less demanding, during his tenure as principal. It has been important to him, he says, to stay in touch with the heart of the institution through teaching and advising. “Sitting at the Harkness table, being visible on campus and meeting with students have all been ways for me to stay involved with the most important work at Exeter,” he says.

SHRINKING THE GLOBE

Early in his principalship, Hassan focused on the need to increase global awareness and learning, most notably with the establishment in 2010 of the Student Global Leadership Institute (SGLI), an intensive two-week summer program at the

DAMIAN STROHMEYER

“WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT GOODNESS, PEOPLE AUTOMATICALY THINK OF COMMUNITY SERVICE, BUT FOR ME IT IS AS MUCH ABOUT HAVING EMPATHY AND HOW WE TREAT PEOPLE.” —PRINCIPAL TOM HASSAN (Above) Principal Hassan began at PEA in 1989 as college counseling director. (Right) During his principalship, Hassan taught a math class each spring.

(Below) Hassan and Dean of Faculty Ron Kim during Community Connection Day, an all-employee day of service led by Hassan to benefit local nonprofits.

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Punahou School in Hawaii. The institute is a collaborative effort led by Exeter and Punahou to develop a community of international youth leaders, deepen student engagement and understanding of global challenges, and encourage positive action toward social change. In the first year, SGLI partnered with four high schools in China and two additional independent schools in the United States. Today, schools in Denmark, England, India, Japan, Jordan, the Republic of Korea and Sweden are sending students to SGLI, as are seven additional U.S. schools.

Students make a yearlong commitment to the leadership program and continue work on team-developed community service projects when they return to their home countries.

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CHERYL SENTER

DAMIAN STROHMEYER

Young people today are coming of age Exeter has a long history of facilitatEngaging directly with with a greater awareness of other cultures ing overseas study for its students, startstudents is what the than earlier generations had. This is one ing with the Academy’s co-sponsorship principal has most byproduct of a digital age that links peoof the 50-year-old School Year Abroad enjoyed at Exeter. ple around the world and erases boundarProgram. More than 50 students leave camies. Helping students make sense of these pus each year to study in 11 countries and connections and understand the needs of a global poptwo domestic locations. During Principal Hassan’s tenure, ulation is an increasingly important part of an Exeter the opportunities for Exeter students increased with the education. “We all know that the world is shrinking,” establishment in 2013 of an exchange program in Ghana, Hassan explains. “Our students are playing on a stage the first African country included in Exeter’s exchange that is culturally diverse and increasingly accessible and offerings. transparent.”

Hassan also created a new position on the faculty for Global learning is equally important for faculty, and a director of global initiatives to oversee exchange proExeter has made professional-development grants availgrams and expand internship opportunities and spring able for faculty to engage in educational travel. In recent break trips for students. In 2014, 117 students particyears, teams of faculty have visited Ireland, Japan and ipated in trips through Exeter Explorations. The trips Korea, Morocco and Ghana, China, Israel and India to offered experiential learning experiences in Italy, China, tour schools and learn about culture, history and environLos Angeles and Utah, with some adopting a co-learning mental issues. model that involves equal numbers of students and facHassan has spearheaded other creative efforts to ulty embarking on experiences new to both groups.

“Attracting ‘youth from every quarter’ has always been bring global awareness to Exeter and increase diversity in the Academy community, including the establishimportant to the Academy. But we also need to get youth ment of the Dissertation Year Fellowships. The program in every quarter,” Hassan says. “There is such power in funds two Ph.D. candidates completing their dissertation getting our students and faculty in international settings. projects and encourages applications from candidates in They bring that experience back with them.”

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M A K I N G

I T

WO R K

“You’d be good at it and we’ll make it work.” That is how Tom Hassan responded when, in 2002, his wife, Maggie, called him to say that the New Hampshire Democratic Party had approached her to run for an open state Senate

(Above) Tom, Meg ’11, Ben and Maggie Hassan. ( Below) Election night 2014 and New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan’s second-term win.

seat. Making it work has long been a hallmark of the Hassan family.

In fact, making it work for their son Ben is how Maggie, now serving her second term as governor of New Hampshire, got her start in politics. Back when Ben, now in his mid-20s, was in elementary school, Maggie was determined to see that his school accommodated his needs. Due to cerebral palsy, Ben uses a wheelchair and needs assistance for most tasks. Although he is unable to talk, his mind is keenly alive and very active. He also exhibits a lively sense of humor. Maggie, a lawyer, became engaged in disability-rights activism to make

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BY JULIE QUINN sure that her son was given every opportunity to grow intellectually. Her involvement, especially in the public school sector, resulted in an appointment to a state education-advisory commission in 1999.

While Maggie didn’t win that first 2002 election, she went on to become a state senator in 2004. In 2012 she was elected to her first two-year term as governor. She was re-elected in 2014. Politics, activism and education have always been Hassan family affairs. Meg Hassan ’11, now a senior at Brown University, has worked as an enthusiastic volunteer on all of her mother’s campaigns.

She has also been an intern at Exeter’s Summer School.

While a student at Exeter, Meg was active in Best Buddies, a student club for which her father has served as an adviser and driver and of which Ben was a member. It matches volunteer Academy students with youngsters who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Meg’s field of interest at Brown has been education and public policy, and after graduating this spring she will head to the southern U.S. as part of the Teach for America program.

This extraordinarily busy and active family makes it work with grace and with dedication to their responsibilities and to one another. As first gentleman of New Hampshire, Tom will often leave just after an Academy event has ended and go straight to a formal or informal state occasion. As part of his Help Out New Hampshire Tour, he has visited all 10 counties in the state, highlighting different volunteer efforts. Tom also enjoys reading to grade school students in a group circle, which, he says, is a change from teaching mathematics around a Harkness table.

Similarly, Maggie might come home from hours in the New Hampshire emergency center overseeing blizzard preparedness, response and cleanup to play hostess at a dinner at Saltonstall House, attend an Academy sporting event or speak to a student group about the national political landscape.

A typical day starts at 5 a.m. for Tom and Ben, the early risers. Maggie and Meg, if she is home, join them later. The family group is rounded out when Joyce Averill arrives. Twenty-six years ago, Joyce was the first person to answer an ad seeking a caregiver for Ben. She has been with the family ever since. Always close at hand is Honey Mae, a dog with big ears and a huge heart who the Hassans adopted from the New Hampshire SPCA several years ago.

Whether getting ready to start a new day or to begin a new chapter in their lives, the Hassans together, as a team, will talk through the issues, listen to one another and, as usual, make it work.

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communities underrepresented in higher education. The fellows live and work at Exeter for a year with the support of a stipend and room and board.

EXPANDING OPPORTUNITY

Hassan’s outreach efforts have also built upon Exeter’s history of collaborating with public schools nationally.

Through summer conferences for public school teachers and teacher exchanges, Exeter has informed educators about the Harkness method and explored applications of the approach in other institutions. Hassan is quick to point out, however, that the educational exchanges work both ways. “Exeter has a responsibility to provide lead-

the implementation of the Harkness method in different school settings.

Collaborations with Stanford University under Hassan’s leadership have created a model for partnering with institutions of higher education as well. John Barton ’78, director of Stanford University’s Architectural Design Program, and two of his Stanford colleagues came to Exeter last year to teach a cluster of three Summer School courses on the process of creativity. The courses on design, architecture and the history of creativity were the first cluster courses offered by the Summer School, and they will be offered again this summer with the opportunity for enrollment extended to students currently attending Exeter’s regu-

“TOM HAS BEEN A REAL LEADER IN ASKING, ‘HOW DO WE TEACH GOODNESS?’ HE HAS BEEN VERY SUPPORTIVE OF THE ARTS AS A MEANS FOR ADDRESSING THIS.” —THEATER INSTRUCTOR ROB RICHARDS Forrestal Bowld Music Center’s new 12,000foot addition will feature a 250-seat recital and rehearsal hall, depicted here.

ership and resources for other schools, but I don’t think that we have all the answers,” he says. “A porous Exeter has been important to me, with a focus on what we could learn from other institutions as well.”

In August 2014, The Noble Academy opened in Chicago with 200 students and with the Harkness method at the core of its curriculum. A member of the Noble Network of Charter Schools, the Academy serves a high school population of predominantly AfricanAmerican and Latino students, 85 percent of whom qualify for the free- and reduced-lunch program. The school adopted Harkness through mentorships with Exeter faculty, as well as enrollment by Noble’s teachers in Exeter’s summer professional conferences. It is the latest in a number of initiatives that have brought Exeter teachers into schools across the country, giving them a fresh perspective on educational issues facing America and on

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lar session. This innovative project came about as a result of a visit Barton made to campus, and Hassan was quick to pick up on Barton’s ideas about bringing a prototype of his Stanford courses to Exeter.

Another Exeter graduate, Dr. Seung Kim ’81, approached Hassan and members of the Science Department about the possibility of a collaborative research project. Begun in 2012, this partnership links Exeter science students with researchers in Kim’s lab at Stanford. The Exeter students complete important experiments on fruit flies and their genetic makeup, and the results are incorporated into Kim’s ongoing work on islet cells in the pancreas.

ADVANCING EXCELLENCE

Hassan’s principalship is also defined by his commitment to the vital role the performing arts play in community

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life and in the intellectual and emotional growth of students. Under his leadership, Exeter launched a $49.8 million campaign — the most ambitious ever undertaken by the Academy for facilities — to fund the construction and endowment of a new 55,400-square-foot center for theater and dance and a 12,000-square-foot addition to the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center. Two performance spaces in the new theater and dance center will replace aging spaces in the Fisher Theater, which was constructed in 1970.

Hassan notes that the new facilities will support a vibrant arts program that sees a high percentage of Exeter students participate, whether by acting in a play or musi-

program that has grown substantially. In addition to providing separate rehearsal and stage spaces, the facility will give the department Harkness classrooms for the first time and allow classes to move seamlessly from the Harkness table to the “lab” space of rehearsal areas.

“Exeter has a wonderful mission of uniting knowledge and goodness,” Richards reflects. “The arts give us a way to explore and teach goodness. Tom has been a real leader in asking, ‘How do we teach goodness?’ He has been very supportive of the arts as a means for addressing this.”

Another important development Hassan has con-

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cal, working backstage, joining the dance company, or performing with one of the many orchestral and choral groups. Kendra Stearns O’Donnell ’31, ’47, ’63, ’91, ’97 (Hon.); P’00, who served as the Academy’s 12th principal from 1987 to 1997 and hired Hassan in 1989 to serve as director of college counseling, sees the new facilities as the crowning achievement of Hassan’s principalship.

“It is very important for Exeter to address the need for better facilities for performing arts,” O’Donnell says. “It is a mark of good leadership that we can look back and see what each principal accomplished. I think Tom will be known for enhancing the performing arts.”

Rob Richards, who has taught in the Theater and Dance Department for more than 20 years, points out that the Fisher Theater was constructed before the department was established. The new facility, designed with input from the faculty, will reflect the needs of a

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“HE WAS SO SUPPORTIVE AND SUCH A ROCK FOR ME. YOU FORGOT HE WAS THE ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL. YOU ALWAYS FELT LIKE YOU WERE HIS ONLY FOCUS.” — JULIA SEIGEL ’09

fronted is the impact of technology on teaching and learning. Although trends in online education may appear antithetical to the Harkness method, where face-to-face conversation is essential, Hassan has been proactive in exploring ways to integrate technology with Harkness.

“Technology is simply another means of connecting people,” Hassan observes. “We have found a good balance at Exeter. The focus is not on keeping technology out but on using it to leverage what we do so well around the Harkness table.”

This spring, Exeter embarked on a new initiative to offer a hybrid course that combines online learning and classroom time. A joint undertaking with the Eight Schools Association, the course brings together students from all the participating schools through online videoconferencing. The other half of class time is spent in meetings with instructors at each school. The

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interdisciplinary course, Water and Humanity, is a pilot project to discover if online teaching can enable the partner schools to offer courses they would not be able to offer on their own.

EMBODYING GOODNESS

The accomplishments of Hassan’s principalship will leave their mark on the Academy. Students, faculty and alumni agree, however, that Hassan’s most enduring legacy may be the atmosphere he has created on campus through the integrity and kindness he has brought to his work. Max Freedman ’13, who served as student council president during his senior year, says that Hassan set an example of calm leadership and was always responsive when students came to him about issues that were important to them. Freedman cites a number of changes Hassan implemented as having a profound impact on the daily lives of Exeter students and the climate on campus. These include a reduction in Saturday classes, a pass/fail system of grading for preps in their first semester, the establishment of end-of-term course evaluations by students, and conversations aimed at encouraging more leadership by women on campus.

“Principal Hassan provided opportunities for discourse on campus and open dialogue,” Freedman says.

“This was part of the tone he set. The campus was a cohesive place as a result.”

Julia Seigel ’09 recalls joining the Best Buddies group the fall of her prep year and getting to know Hassan in his role as the group’s adviser. Best Buddies pairs Exeter students with local teenagers with developmental disabilities. Hassan not only served as adviser, he brought his son Ben, who has cerebral palsy, to meetings. “Mr. Hassan embodied the experience of Best Buddies for us,” Seigel says. “His son Ben helped to put a face on the families of our own buddies. We saw how much the help the Hassans received .. . meant to them.”

When Seigel’s faculty adviser went on leave during her junior year, she asked Hassan if he would become her adviser, and he readily agreed. “He was so supportive and such a rock for me,” she says. “You forgot he was the assistant principal. You always felt like you were his only focus.”

Freedman echoes this sentiment: “He’s a wonderful listener, warm and very approachable. He has undoubtedly left Exeter a more inviting and warmer place than he found it.”

Faculty and staff offer similar assessments of Hassan’s low-key but effective leadership. Elizabeth Dolan, director of college counseling, says, “Tom lives the goodness part of the equation every day. He is an incredibly caring person who puts others before himself. His interest in helping students and being there for them has never

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waned, and he is very mindful of the generosity of the staff at Exeter.”

Hassan credits his parents, neither of whom attended college, with making him aware of how every member of a community has something to contribute. His father worked as a butcher and his mother as a secretary. They stressed the importance of education and of hard work, values that have stayed with him.

Hassan says his son Ben more than anyone else, has taught him about empathy and acceptance. He learned important lessons as well from Annie Riley ’02, when she suggested the Academy start a Best Buddies club and asked Hassan to be the adviser. Prior to this, Hassan had a hard time figuring out how to include Ben in the life of the Academy. With the establishment of the club, he found a way to do so: “Best Buddies was a bridge to connect Ben with the students at Exeter. It lifted a weight from my shoulders. This is a good example of how faculty learn from students, and of the power of connection.”

It will be difficult, Hassan acknowledges, for him and his family to leave the place that has been home to them for so many years. He appreciates the support he and Maggie have received in raising Ben and their daughter, Meg ’11, and the great support of the Exeter community for the work of his wife in the different political offices she has held in New Hampshire.

Dolan says of this unique aspect of Hassan’s work as principal: “No other principal has dealt with having a spouse in political office. I have admired Tom’s ability to allow his spouse to be who she is while also using the scope of her experience as governor to educate and inform students and faculty. It’s a delicate balancing act for both of them, and they have handled it remarkably well. Together they project a real lesson about collegiality and collaboration.”

The achievements of Hassan’s tenure will help to chart the course for the next era in the Academy’s history.

For him and for the many whose lives he has touched at Exeter, these achievements are significant. So, too, are the connections made and the friendships that will endure.

O’Donnell observes, “Exeter has been blessed that Tom stayed at the Academy throughout his career. Each principal has his or her challenges that are particular to the time and to the school’s evolution. Tom has embraced the challenges he faced and engendered great loyalty in students and alumni.” That loyalty will live on in a grateful community of not only students and alumni, but also of faculty, staff and parents. E Katherine Towler, a former Bennett Fellow and frequent contributor to the Bulletin, is the author of three novels and is most recently the co-editor of A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith.

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Pennywhistle Science Instructor Jim DiCarlo will use his flute to teach students about sound waves.

I

n Jim DiCarlo’s physics class, students are instructed

to fill a tube with Alka-Seltzer and note where the resonances sound different from when it’s filled with air. DiCarlo explains that such differences can indicate the weight of a carbon dioxide molecule, compared with the weight of an air molecule.

“You’re actually weighing atoms by listening to them,” he says. And for DiCarlo, who plays American and Irish folk music when he’s not teaching, it’s an exciting chance to merge his interests: “The nerd in me will say, ‘Oh the pitch just went down, and I know why that happened!’ ” It seems there’s music everywhere on campus lately, and not just around the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center.

It floats off the patio behind Dunbar on warm days and

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out of the main sanctuary of Phillips Church or from the depths of its basement. It spills at unexpected moments from the physics classrooms in Phelps or, monthly, from the Unitarian church hall across from the Elm Street Dining Hall.

Though there may be students involved, the main source of that music is a diverse group of adults, members of Exeter’s faculty and staff who’ve found a way to mix rock ’n’ roll with astrophysics, Bruce Springsteen with literature, or singing the national anthem with preaching.

It’s as natural a part of the day for most of them as it is for DiCarlo, who says he almost always has at hand a pennywhistle that he often plays while thinking about homework assignments. If Science Instructor Brad Robinson is

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M E E T T H E I N S T R U C T O R S W H O T E A C H B Y D AY AND JAM BY NIGHT

By Sarah Zobel

Physics

free and in his adjoining classroom, he might just come in with his guitar and play, too.

DiCarlo brings all of his instruments — a banjo and a wooden flute, in addition to the pennywhistle — into his classroom, where he teaches both physics and quantum mechanics. Given that waves and sound are two of the fundamental ideas behind physics, music is a logical teaching tool.

“Things wiggle, and when they wiggle, they ring, and when they ring, you hear them,” DiCarlo says. “From the physics point of view, the sounds that things are capable of producing have everything to do with physical properties: How long is it? What’s it made of? What temperature is it? It’s kind of neat that all those physical properties

then come together to Listen to WPEA online and see a list determine the tones that an of shows hosted by faculty, staff and instrument is capable of.” students at www.exeter.edu/wpea.

So holding up his banjo, for example, DiCarlo will ask what can be done to change a note he plays on it (answer: shorten one of the strings, bend it, tighten it, make it heavier, play harmonics on it). Or he’ll talk about frequency and use his flute, noting that every flute that plays a low D, for example, is the same length, a measurement based on the speed of sound. Yet, he points out to his students, if the flute were filled with a different gas, it would play a different note.

DiCarlo does more than use his instruments as

—PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHERYL SENTER UNLESS NOTED

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teaching props. He’s been playing folk music since he was a college student — for a time touring with a Maine-based band that performed all around New England before dissolving. He now joins in Irish sessions in area pubs and participates as a longtime member of a group that provides music for a monthly contra dance.

Established about a decade ago, the band, Stone Soup, also counts among its members Robinson on guitar and John Blackwell, chair of the Science Department and director of the Grainger Observatory, on bodhrán, the traditional Irish drum. A few area residents and an assortment of Exonians join them on fiddle, guitar and mandolin. The contra dances are held on Saturdays in the hall next to the Unitarian church on Elm Street, where, DiCarlo says, there are squeaky wood floors and windows that rattle, so the band plays loudly. Given the informal nature of contra dance — a folk-based line dance of jigs and reels whose origins are European but that has a long history of popping up in barns and halls around New England — if attendance is low, the band members sometimes do double duty, stepping out from behind the caller to dance. A small group of Exonians started a contra dance club and they’re often in attendance, bringing what DiCarlo calls a “massive infusion of energy.”

Blackwell likewise appreciates the break from the rigors of academic life that playing with Stone Soup allows him. It’s not his first contra dance experience; he played the bodhrán with other groups in western Massachusetts before coming to Exeter. Like DiCarlo, who started on piano as a kid, Blackwell began with a “should” instrument, the violin, which he says “didn’t turn out too well.” With an interest in joining a fife-anddrum corps, he thought he’d give the fife a go, but found it challenging. That left drums, which he started banging when he was 9 years old. His family moved temporarily to England, where Blackwell honed his technique in a Dixieland jazz band, and when they returned to the United States, he expanded into other forms of jazz.

Today, Blackwell says he’s a “sucker for complicated bebop jazz,” and cites King Crimson and Talking Heads as two bands whose music includes the kinds of difficult patterns of syncopation that appeal to him. And like DiCarlo, he’s only too happy to mesh music with science.

“The rhythmic structures of music lend themselves well to a lot of things in astrophysics,” says Blackwell, mentioning by way of example the 17th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler, who wrote music based on the motions of planets in their elliptical orbits, which Blackwell demonstrates by whistling what sounds a bit

like a Twilight Zone police siren. “I’ve studied a lot of variable stars — stars that change their brightness over time — and sometimes we can convert the patterns of their variability and brightness over time to musical notes changing over time. Rhythm and nature is a pretty tight thing. The mathematics of music also plays nicely with the mathematics of physics.”

Likewise, the physics instructors play nicely with the instructors in other departments, as they do in the faculty band, Double Jack, of which Blackwell is one member, on a standard drum kit. Others include the English Department’s Todd Hearon, Duncan Holcomb and Erica Plouffe Lazure. It’s a classic rock–oriented group, whose members come and go as their schedules permit; they’ve been known to play at Shooters, a local bowling alley,

MEMBERS OF EXETER’S FACULTY HAVE FOUND A WAY TO MIX ROCK ’N’ ROLL WITH ASTROPHYSICS, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN WITH LITERATURE, OR SINGING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM WITH PREACHING.

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but otherwise largely focus on just having fun together.

They played the 2013 faculty party, and it was there that another music-related project was born: “pEa Street,” an hourlong radio program on the student-run station WPEA that’s hosted by Lazure and Ron Kim, dean of the faculty and, as of July 1, interim assistant principal.

At the faculty party, a rumor floated that there was a contingent of Springsteen fans, all of whom were invited to come onstage and join Lazure and the band on the 1975 hit “Thunder Road.” Kim was among them. The following spring, an email Kim sent to some of the participants suggesting a weekly Springsteen-focused show on WPEA was met with interest; but when it came time to learn how to work the motherboard and run a show, only Kim and Lazure showed up. Neither had deejayed before, and though each brought a CD to play, they couldn’t get them to function.

So they made do, instead spending that first show going through the station’s entire library of 10 Springsteen songs, including “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” and filling the rest of the hour with Springsteen stories.

They’ve smoothed out the format in the year since.

Lazure instituted the idea of themes — in fact, the nonfunctioning CD she brought that first day was all songs referring to Mary, whether the girl next door, the Virgin

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Science Department Chair John Blackwell with the bodhrรกn, a traditional Irish drum.

WPEA disc jockeys Ron Kim, dean of faculty, and Erica Plouffe Lazure, English instructor.

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Mary or some other Mary. Kim, whose own CD was a random assortment of songs, liked the idea of themes, and they’ve returned to it repeatedly. For their show the week of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, for example, they played Springsteen songs about social justice; during the week that included Valentine’s Day, they played songs with a romantic theme; they followed that a week later with a breakup-song theme. During the November elections, they had a show with politically themed songs, in December they focused on darkness, and for their show around the time of Family Weekend, they played family-related songs.

Given her teaching background, it’s perhaps no surprise that Lazure’s thematic ideas tend to have a literary bent; in the wake of Springsteen’s publishing a children’s book last fall, for example, a list of his favorite books appeared in the media. In response, Lazure, who also sings bluegrass in the

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Bennington College–based Dog House Band, came up with an entire show in which the songs meshed stylistically with the writing in those books.

“Anyone can just listen to a Springsteen album,” she says, “but it’s what you bring to it — the feelings you have about it, the interest you have in it and the stories you can tell about it — that make it interesting. We aim to give a little context for each song.” They do that by researching while the songs are playing, finding fun facts or pertinent quotes from Rolling Stone magazine. It doesn’t leave them much time to sing along with whatever is playing.

Lazure and Kim say they don’t have a huge audience, but admit they haven’t worked very hard to promote the show. Lazure says that a couple of times students referenced Springsteen in papers they wrote for her classes.

Both times, she confesses, she underscored his name and

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Poet and English Instructor Todd Hearon plays in Barn Burners String Band, a Boston-area bluegrass ensemble.

wrote, “Tune in to 90.5!” in the margins. pEa Street will go on hiatus in the fall, when Lazure heads to Italy for the School Year Abroad program, but for now it can be heard Fridays at 9 p.m. whenever WPEA is in operation. Though Kim and Lazure have worked out many of the kinks since that first show, both say they continue to learn from producing the program, which they record in advance but feels live to them. It’s given them a newfound appreciation for what their students are experiencing in the classroom and elsewhere.

“One thing that’s been fun is when you’re an adult, a teacher, to intentionally put yourself in a vulnerable position where you’re doing something that’s new and different,” Kim says. “I look at the control panel and there are all these lights and things you need to do at certain times in the show, and I’ve messed up numerous times.

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Some of the problems that come up are technical failures and some are user failures, but it’s great to be reminded of how it is to be a beginner at something and how nerve-wracking that is.”

One member of the Exeter community who is not new to the music world is the Rev. Robert Thompson ’72, Phelps Minister at Phillips Church, whose rich baritone is heard not only during his own services, but at funerals and weddings, with the occasional ensemble, and at area basketball games. One week in early March saw Thompson singing the national anthem before five games, including one at the University of New Hampshire, all despite having a head cold. (“It’s all about breath control,” he says, brushing off concerns that a stuffy nose would affect his voice.)

As an Exonian, Thompson sang in the glee club

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Rev. Bob Thompson’s deep, soulful singing moves audiences in Phillips Church, and at basketball games.

and the first mixed-voice choir, and joined in with the Rockingham Choral Society from time to time as well; at the end of his own graduation speech, he sang “Amazing Grace.” Today, his preferred genre remains spirituals, and he’s working to learn all of those arranged by Harry T. Burleigh. Although he has taken singing lessons, Thompson says most of his training was more casual, through the onsite presence of former school organist and harpsichordist Lynda Copeland. She encouraged him in semi-classical and classical music, served as his accompanist as he worked his way through Burleigh’s portfolio, and arranged a concert at UNH’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space that opened the door to his singing the national anthem.

“I owe a great deal to Lynda that I don’t think I could ever really repay,” Thompson says.

Downstairs, in the church’s basement, English Instructor Todd Hearon is often found playing a different kind of music — bluegrass — with a group of students who’ve named themselves Banjo Clock. In warmer weather, they head to the patio behind Dunbar. But Hearon does his professional playing with the Barn Burners String Band, a rootsy Americana bluegrass ensemble in which he plays mandolin and banjo and sings. Most of the band’s gigs are in the Boston area,

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although they have also played at the Stone Church, a live-music venue in Newmarket, New Hampshire.

Hearon isn’t new to the music scene, either: He spent six years after college touring the country with a band that was serious enough to put out three CDs. He also wrote some of the band’s songs, but today he says he prefers to “play other people’s stuff.” A poet, Hearon has collaborated with composers and others to put his poems to music. His “Strange Land” was one of three poems written by PEA faculty, given an original score by composer Kevin Siegfried and performed as part of “Three Horizons” in 2010. Hearon also was behind the modernized PEA production of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, which included song and dance elements. Last November, Hearon’s “Caliban in After-Life,” an imagined monologue delivered by that character after The Tempest’s final scene, was set to music by Gregory Brown ’93 and performed as part of a celebration of Shakespeare’s 450th birthday that Hearon helped coordinate.

Meanwhile, very much a part of this millennium, chemistry teacher Sasha Alcott and her husband, Chris Viner, are practicing in an industrial space under a woodworking shop in Newfields, New Hampshire. Their band, When Particles Collide, has made a name for itself not just in New England — winning New Artist of the Year

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JOSHUA PICKERING

Science Instructor Sasha Alcott and her husband, Chris Viner, front the rock band When Particles Collide.

at the Boston Music Awards in December — but well beyond, with a touring schedule that has taken the duo to Colorado, California, Texas, New York City and elsewhere, and in 2014 included an eight-week summer tour.

They’ve also self-released several recordings and videos.

Alcott, who sings and plays guitar, says she’s so busy with teaching and related duties that all she can do is work, write songs and perform — Viner, who plays drums and writes the music, is in charge of the couple’s house and finances, as well as the band’s tour schedule and social media efforts — and she likens the sleep challenges her life presents to having a newborn.

“It’s really, really important to me to be active, to be constantly writing music, practicing, putting out records and performing,” Alcott says. “Music is a huge part of my life, so I’m going to make it work.” This year’s Faculty Follies was When Particles Collide’s first performance at PEA. But they were already known to students, who before class sometimes call up the video to their chemistry-centric song “MOLES!” — which includes the catchy refrain “Everything reacts in mole ratios.” Alcott says she doesn’t use that song in her classes, though she might just as well, for all the equations it includes. It’s the lone academics-oriented number for the band, which has gotten plenty of press and plays music that has been described as art-rock

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and pop-punk. Students do think it’s cool that she’s in a band, Alcott says, but they’re just as interested to see that her life isn’t typical of those of most adults they know.

“I think it’s nice for kids to see an adult pursuing their passion while having a responsible adult job,” she says.

Like so many of her peers, Alcott took piano lessons in her youth, but she neglected to practice adequately. She describes herself as “total DIY,” teaching herself guitar and taking a smattering of voice lessons, in contrast with Viner, who did practice for his drum lessons. She says it’s a positive balance: He makes her want to improve on her instrument while she shows him that it’s OK to let go.

The songwriting has also become a collaborative effort, though Alcott remains the lyricist.

Alcott now has dorm duty one weekend a month, but in the fall, she and Viner will take up full-time residence in a dorm. Alcott says she’s looking forward to it, even given the potential for challenges in scheduling around the band’s tours. Like her colleagues who are able to blend a passion for music with teaching and academic work, Alcott is determined to keep on balancing chemistry and the physics of When Particles Collide, finding music both inside the classroom walls and well beyond them. E

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BIG RED

GETS A LITTLE MORE

GREEN

By Karen Stewart

Author and activist Bill McKibben opened Climate Action Day.

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xeter saw climate-related history being made

THE BIG IMPACT OF GOING SMALL

A campus-wide initiative aimed at reducing waste, streamlining trash collection and minimizing trash removal costs is underway with Exeter’s new Tiny Trash program. The strategy is simple: each office and classroom trades in a large metal bin for a petite, desktop receptacle made of recycled plastic. When the tiny trashcan is filled, the owner empties it in a communal disposal area. The program will eliminate waste from plastic garbage bags and enhance individual awareness about trash and recycling habits — which is projected to increase the amount of materials that get recycled,

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHERYL SENTER, ILLUSTRATIONS BY RACHEL HALPER

in February, and not just in the record snowfall that blanketed campus. The Academy’s inaugural annual Climate Action Day, February 11, brought scores of climate science experts in the fields of sustainable architecture, energy policy, sea level rise, agricultural practices and more to Exeter for workshops and presentations that replaced morning classes. Noted speakers included author and environmental activist Bill McKibben and MIT professor Donald Sadoway, a leading expert in batteries and energy storage. The day, structured much like MLK Day in January, evolved from the hard work of a student and faculty planning committee led by Science Instructor Betsy Stevens P’14.

“Exeter has a strong foundation in sustainability,” says Principal Tom Hassan, referencing the Academy’s MIT professor Donald green building practices, geothermal energy and Sadoway discussed the responsible food sourcing and recycling, “but there is future of energy storage. always more that we can and should be doing. ... It is my hope that the discovery and collaboration ignited during Climate Action Day will impact our day-to-day rituals on campus.”

Indeed, in addition to Climate Action Day, the Academy is rolling out a variety of all-community initiatives seeking to reduce and recycle waste and expand its ongoing effort in the fight against climate change.

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Art not final based on the success of similar initiatives at other schools. Efficiencies are also expected for PEA’s custodial staff, who can turn their attention to other aspects of building care and maintenance. Tiny Trash is being rolled out in phases, with pilot testers receiving their personal trash receptacles in April.

TRIMMING THE FAT IN D-HALL

Exeter’s Dining Services Department kicked off the Zero Waste Campaign in February, with an assist from students who recruited pledges from their peers, teachers and Academy staff to reduce mealtime waste. Much of Exeter’s food waste is currently recycled or composted (uncooked vegetative scraps are fed to local farm animals and organic matter is processed at a composting facility) yet it still counts toward the school’s total waste volume.

In January, the department started to track dining hall waste more comprehensively, measuring the preand post-consumer waste generated by meal and by day.

Two months showed the combined waste tallied about 52,000 pounds. Melinda Leonard, associate director of dining services, sat down with student leaders in March to share the data and determine the campaign’s reduction goal: 10 percent, or 5,200 pounds, by June 3. Leonard’s team is now looking carefully at trimming pre-consumer waste via production practices and reducing “plate waste” through behavior modification. “It’s not about just reaching one goal of waste reduction,” she says. “It’s about elevating our understanding and perceptions on how Exeter manages our food resources and the waste we generate one meal at a time.”

Tom Burack ’78 (left), New Hampshire commissioner of environmental services, co-led a session with energy and climate analyst Chris Skoglund ’93.

LIGHTS OUT

It’s a friendly competition where everyone gives up to win — the annual Reduction Rivalry between Brooks School, Phillips Exeter Academy, St. Paul’s School and Governor’s Academy. In the two-week energy-saving challenge, held in mid-February, Exeter students compete dorm-to-dorm and against rival schools to unplug games and appliances, turn down lights, and generally increase their awareness of energy consumption. This was aided by the Academy’s new online dashboard, which clocks daily energy use in academic buildings and dormitories and is accessible by the entire PEA community. Perhaps this had an impact on Exeter’s first-place finish; or maybe it was Principal Hassan’s promise of ice cream for the entire community if Exeter did win. E Watch video of Bill McKibben and Donald Sadoway’s presentations and read session descriptions at www.exeter.edu/bulletinextras.

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PETER SEARS ’55

Giving Voice to Verse as Oregon’s Poet Laureate

By Claire Sykes

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t all started at Exeter. Looking back on his time there

in 1954-55, Peter Sears ’55 says, “The seriousness of writing and reading got in my blood.”

Both became major interests for him at Yale, where, as an architecture major, he took his first class in the modernist poets. “Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams were all very exciting to me, and I started fooling around writing my own poetry, off and on. But I didn’t have any literary ambitions then,” he says. Nearly 60 years later, in April 2014, Sears was named Oregon’s seventh poet laureate.

Sears, who lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with his wife, Anita, has published four books of poems, his latest being Small Talk (Lynx House Press, 2014).

His work also has appeared in several national magazines and newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Atlantic and Rolling Stone; and in Antioch Review, Ploughshares and other literary publications.

Raised in suburban New York, Sears had no interest in poetry as a child, preferring to read fiction instead. After earning a B.A. in English from Yale, he spent three years in the Army as an intelligence linguist in Germany. He taught English in Beirut, did copywriting for a Manhattan advertising firm, taught junior high and served as dean of students at Bard College. Along the way, he read and wrote poems, slowly turning a pastime into a profession.

A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Sears still writes in longhand with a ballpoint pen on a lined yellow pad. He says, “Poetry is the way I know to go after some Truth, and I’m trying to embody it in language and see what it’s all about.”

A playful humor joins a reflective depth in Sears’ mostly narrative poems, which talk about everything from memory and loneliness to fishing and kissing. Says Paulann Petersen of Portland, Oregon, the state’s poet

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laureate from 2010 to 2014, “There’s a kind of zaniness in his poems, and certainly a surreal streak. Some of his poems have a sweet, whimsical quality to them, but mostly those are riding on the surface of some very deep and compelling satire.”

Writing poetry is not what matters most to Sears. “I’m more interested in teaching,” he says. “I need that engagement with other people.” He’s found it over the years with students at high schools, colleges and universities, and in the community.

Now, as poet laureate, he travels around the state giving public and schoolroom poetry readings and workshops. Ask him what it means to be poet laureate, and he’ll tell you, “It’s very flattering. It means that people see me as embodying poetry in a strong way.”

For his readings around the state during his two-year stint, Sears is including poets writing in a wide range of languages to join him. He calls it “Expanding Voices.”

“Ideally, I’m looking for people who write in two languages,” he says. In front of audiences, Sears introduces the guest poet, and after he or she reads, he interviews the person onstage about poetry in translation; then he reads several of his own poems.

Whether writing and reading poems or guiding others to do the same, Sears is all ears, as he says in the last lines of his poem “The Rain Sounds Like a Delicate Eating”: I believe that when I hear a poem, I hear the silences between the words.

Like rain. I hear the intervals Between rain striking leaves or standing water.

It’s here in the lush, fertile terrain of Sears’ poetry that he asks us to listen, too. E

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U LY S S E S G R A N T D I E T Z ’ 7 3

Curating a Decorative Past

By Lori Ferguson

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n some form or fashion, the specter of history has always played an important role in the life of Ulysses Grant Dietz ’73. As chief curator and curator of decorative arts for the Newark Museum in New Jersey, Dietz spends his days immersed in the past, managing a voluminous collection that encompasses objects from the 16th century to the present day. And as his name suggests, he also lives each day within the penumbra of his great-great-grandfather, Ulysses S. Grant, the nation’s 18th president. Yet it wasn’t until Dietz began his studies at Exeter, he says, that he really began to embrace the role that the past would play in his life.

“I grew up being called Grant,” Dietz recalls, “and when I started at Exeter, I moved to the name Ulysses.

It was the ’70s and having an unusual name wasn’t a problem — in fact, it was kind of cool.” Around this time, Dietz recalls, he also began writing with a fountain pen using peacock blue ink, just as his grandfather Ulysses S. Grant III had done. “I’m a leftie, so it made quite a mess, but I appreciated the link to the past that it represented,” he says with a chuckle. “I still use that ink and a fountain pen today.”

Although Dietz didn’t fully realize it at the time, that’s also when his mind began shifting toward historic preservation and the past. Unwittingly, he says, the Academy began to direct him. “I loved Exeter. My studies were engaging and I also found the town itself fascinating.

My first real loves were old houses and architecture; I spent hours studying the historic homes around town. I even dabbled with the idea of studying architecture after graduating, but ultimately the courses I took with Nick Dawson at Exeter proved to me that it wasn’t a feasible career for me.”

Nevertheless, Dietz says, Exeter still prepared him for the museum career he ultimately embraced. “My language and writing teachers were incredible — I still remember all of them. My French teacher, Janet Kehl, was my favorite — I became a French major at Yale because of her. Alan Vrooman was an excellent teacher as

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well; his class on creative writing was a turning point for me. My instructors at Exeter taught me how to write and to express myself well, skills that would later prove critical in my curatorial work.”

In his more than three decades as a curator at the Newark Museum, Dietz has repeatedly relied upon his facility for communication and his knowledge of history to share the museum’s enormous decorative arts collection with the public. During his tenure, he has organized more than 100 exhibitions of works from the museum’s rich holdings in furniture, silver, ceramics, glass, jewelry and textiles. “The decorative arts are hugely diverse, so I’m able to target a specific subset of the collection with every exhibition — there’s always something new to explore,” he observes.

While Dietz asserts that he values every exhibition for the opportunity it affords him to expand his interests and knowledge base, he maintains that he is most proud of his work with the Ballantine House — the former home of Jeannette and John Holme Ballantine of Newark’s celebrated beer-brewing family and a wing of the Newark Museum since 1937. “The first half of my career at the museum involved the final restoration and reinterpretation of the house, an icon of Gilded Age America,” Dietz explains. “Completing that project is probably my biggest and proudest professional achievement. I employed a very innovative approach to historic house interpretation in the Ballantine House and, some 20 years later, it’s still innovative.” E

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L AU R A C A L L A N A N ’8 3

Merging Social Innovation and the Arts

By Lori Ferguson

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he principal’s reading of passages from founder John Phillips’ Deed of Gift is a longstanding tradition at the Academy’s annual Opening Assembly. As a student hearing that historical text, Laura Callanan ’83 was struck by one key idea in particular: “Goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous.”

More than 30 years later, this phrase still resonates, Callanan says, and the work she’s engaged in today seems like an ideal opportunity to fulfill the responsibilities she perceived in Phillips’ admonition. Last November, Callanan was appointed senior deputy chairman of the federal arts agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, and she couldn’t be more thrilled: “I spent all my time at Exeter in the Fisher Theater — acting, directing, doing tech. You never know what the future holds.”

“I’ve always identified with the arts — first at Exeter, where I was very active in the Dramat, then at Barnard, where I majored in theater, and after college working at Lincoln Center Theater and American Ballet Theatre,” Callanan says. “I was on an arts path. Then I took a 30-year detour into philanthropy and social innovation, focusing on broader social-impact themes working at The Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations Development Programme and McKinsey & Company. Now I have the chance to bring all these threads together.”

Callanan traces the seeds of her new role at the NEA back to the Academy’s standing graduation requirement for the History 32 (now known as History 333) paper.

“When it came time to write my paper, I looked for a topic that linked American history to the theater,” she recalls.

Donald P. Schultz, director of the Fisher Theater for many years, suggested she explore the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), a branch of the Works Progress Administration founded in 1935 to employ out-of-work actors, stagehands, directors and the like during the Great Depression.

It was learning about the FTP that planted the understanding that the arts can be a powerful tool for effecting societal change, and over the past two years, this topic has been Callanan’s focus. “Artists are essential to every conversation about social innovation,” she asserts.

“Social innovators searching for creativity need to extend

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their conversations to include artists, many of whom are addressing social topics as diverse as climate change and the criminal justice system.

Likewise, artists who choose to work with these themes must step forward and learn to speak to social investors and entrepreneurs in a way they understand.”

One of the biggest barriers between artists and other entrepreneurs is language, Callanan explains: “The terms and concepts that artists are accustomed to discussing with curators and collectors don’t resonate in an entrepreneurial context. Similarly, if social innovators want to communicate with artists, they face a learning curve. My goal is to bring social innovators and artists together. Having worked with both of these communities, I see the similarities and would like to think I can be a bridge between these worlds.”

A conversation five years ago with her friend James Houghton, founding artistic director of Signature Theatre in New York, served as the initial spark for Callanan.

“Listening to his plans to open a new three-theater complex, create a community green in the middle of Manhattan, triple the theater’s programming, and keep every ticket accessible at a price of $25, I said, ‘You’re a social entrepreneur, but no one calls you that because you work in the arts. And you don’t call yourself that because you work in the arts, but that’s what you are.’” This started Callanan down a path of researching, thinking and writing about artists as social entrepreneurs.

“Now, as the NEA’s senior deputy chairman, I have a national platform to spotlight innovation, entrepreneurship and the arts, which is absolutely incredible,” Callanan says. “The NEA kicks off its 50th-anniversary celebration in September, and we’ve got lots of exciting initiatives planned, so stay tuned!” E

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Faculty Wire

—continued from page 15 Elena Gosalvez-Blanco, Director of Summer School Modern Languages Instructor; Associate Director of Summer School B.A., Universidad Complutense (Madrid); M.A., Emerson College; M.A., Arizona State University; Appointed 2007

Gosalvez-Blanco begins her term in July by drawing on her tenure with the Summer School as associate director and a year as one of the program’s associate deans of students. “Elena will bring a wealth of experience, finely tuned administrative skills and much creativity to the position,” Principal Hassan says. During her time at Exeter, Gosalvez-Blanco has made significant contributions to language-abroad programs, including in Spain, Ecuador and Mexico, where she served as director.

A dorm head in Merrill Hall, she won the Dormitory Adviser Award in 2010. Gosalvez-Blanco’s initial goals include “. . . to keep listening. Summer School must keep improving and become more efficient so it can continue to be the source of innovation and inspiration it has been and should be. My priority would be to continue expanding financial aid so more students can have this remarkable opportunity.”

Shane LaPointe, Director of Athletics Instructor in Health Education B.S., Oregon State University; M.S., Southern New Hampshire University; M.Ed., Plymouth State University; Appointed 2008

LaPointe is certified as a strength and conditioning specialist by the National Strength and Conditioning Association and has an extensive background in Project Adventure, which provides experience-based adventure programs and workshops.

She came to teach in Exeter’s Health and Human Development Department in 2000. Within a year she was also working in the Physical Education Department, serving as an instructor, coach, adviser and dormitory resident. LaPointe received the PEA New Teacher Award in 2010 and regularly posts short video tips on different health and wellness topics for students to access on the school’s intranet. A multi-sport athlete in high school and college, she has gone on to coach PEA athletes in lacrosse, field hockey, soccer, track and cross-country. “I believe competition is the ultimate form of cooperation,” she says. “I am a firm believer in the values that can be taught by challenging yourself to play.”

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Brooks Moriarty ’87, Director of Studies English Instructor; Barton Evans and H. Andrea Neves Instructorship, 2013 B.A., Yale University; M.A., ABD, University of Virginia; Appointed 2008

Moriarty came to Exeter with more than 15 years of experience teaching English and composition at the Potomac School, the University of Virginia, St. Anne’s Belfield School and St. Mark’s School, where he was English Department chair. At Exeter, Moriarty has served on the Lamont Poet and Bennett Fellow committees, has coached junior varsity lacrosse, and is the dorm head at Bancroft Hall. As director of studies, Moriarty wants to build on the rich opportunities and resources at PEA: “I am especially interested in how students will lead efforts to organize and coordinate the intellectual life of the school. I imagine students proposing independent study projects or courses that work across departmental and other organizational boundaries. I see part of my job as supporting and sparking the intellectual creativity already brewing on campus.”

PROFESSORSHIPS Evelyn Christoph, Bates-Russell Distinguished Professor Modern Languages Instructor; Percy C. Rogers Professor in Romance Languages A.B., Brown University; M.A., ABD, New York University; Appointed 1985

Christoph’s roles at the Academy include serving as a longtime adviser to the PEAN; acting as instructional technology liaison for her department; working on the Instructional Technology and School Year Abroad committees; and directing the Grenoble language and culture program. Her forward thinking has been visible in her work, including the creation of online multimedia workbooks used by beginning French classes. With this appointment, she will look for ways to help improve teaching at Exeter in order to preserve and enhance the Academy’s leadership position among secondary schools.

“Evelyn has become a constant presence in curricular matters inside and outside of PEA,” Principal Hassan says. “She will follow several of her colleagues in this role, each of whom has come from a different academic department. Evelyn has paid careful attention to our traditional Harkness pedagogy while also incorporating technology that enhances our teaching.”

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Finis Hobart Hardej, Tom Steyer Distinguished Professorship Math Instructor B.A., Bowdoin College; M.A.L.S., Dartmouth College; M.Ed., Columbia University; Appointed 1987

Established in 2006, the professorship is to honor “the Academy’s senior teachers and help to recognize their past and continuing service to the school.” Hardej began a distinguished career at PEA as math teacher and has also served as dormitory head and winter and spring track coach. In the Summer School, he spent 12 years as director and dean of admissions. In the regular session, Hardej chaired the Math Department from 2008 to 2013. In presenting the professorship, Principal Hassan said, “He is the person you go to when important committees and significant institutional and departmental discussions require a voice of wisdom and experience.”

Alison Hobbie, Harlan M. Ellis Distinguished Professorship Science Instructor B.A., Wellesley College; M.S., University of Virginia; Appointed 2001

After receiving her undergraduate degree, Hobbie spent four years at The Taft School, where she pioneered an environmental science program.

She later taught nursing students at a community college and was dean of students at Stuart Hall School in Staunton, Virginia. At PEA, Hobbie has continued to demonstrate her multiple talents as a chemistry instructor, Langdell Hall dormitory head, girls novice crew coach, and as an adviser to women in science and engineering.

She was the Hayes Chair of Science from 2008 to 2013 and received the Brown Family Faculty Award (for outstanding performance) in 2006. E

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—continued from page 104

nights at Exeter, as I always looked forward to taking a step away from the intensity and stress of my day-to-day life. Mr. Hassan and his family created an open and safe space where I felt I could be myself. For this reason, he was one of the first people I went to with some deeply personal news.

I came to Exeter hidden in the proverbial “closet” and terrified to be honest and open about my identity as a gay man. When I entered Exeter, I thought I would bury this secret inside for my entire life. I felt so much shame and fear about who I was that I couldn’t imagine being out. Through the incredibly supportive faculty at Exeter and my quick realization that Exeter is an environment that celebrates diversity and openness, I eventually built up the courage to say the words “I’m gay” out loud.

Mr. Hassan was always at the top of my list when I thought about supportive and trustworthy people in my life — so he was one of the first people I told. I invited him for tacos at Las Olas and was sweating while I uttered the words I still had difficulty saying out loud: “I’m gay.”

He immediately gave me a hug, reiterated his support for me, and then proceeded to listen and ask questions. The confidence I gained just from knowing that my Exeter family — the Hassans — supported me helped me eventually feel comfortable enough to come out to the entire community in my senior meditation.

Months after I came out to him, Mr. Hassan sat in the corner of my English classroom with Meg while I delivered a tearful meditation, detailing my journey from being terrified to utter the word “gay” to declaring that I am “proud to be who I am.”

In seeing Mr. Hassan and Meg smiling supportively, all I could feel was gratitude. To have an adult believe in you and guide you when you’re an impressionable, insecure teenager can make all the difference. Mr. Hassan also was the first person I called when I received my early acceptance letter for college. I always looked to him for advice and support, and to share in the highs and lows of life at Exeter.

During my senior year, Principal Tingley announced his retirement. Shortly afterward, the Trustees began sending a series of emails to the community about the search process for selecting Exeter’s 14th principal. To me, it was obvious. The perfect candidate was right on campus! I started emailing everyone I knew at Exeter and encouraging them to nominate Mr. Hassan for the role — making the subject of a front-page article in The Exonian.

Once I started contacting people, it became apparent just how far and wide Mr. Hassan’s impact reached. I received countless letters from alumni, faculty, students and staff asking me how they could help, sharing their stories about Mr. Hassan, and thanking me for organizing an effort supporting his candidacy. I was incredibly proud when Mr. Hassan was named Exeter’s 14th principal, but the moment was bittersweet. I was sad I wouldn’t be a student in the era of his leadership, but I felt comforted and happy to know the Academy would be in his incredibly capable and compassionate hands.

While studying abroad in Madrid during my senior spring of college, I was informed that I had been selected to receive Stanford’s J.E. Wallace Sterling Award for Scholastic Achievement. The Dean’s Office wanted to fly me back to campus for the weekend ceremony and I was asked to invite someone who had formatively shaped the person I had become. I immediately thought of Mr. Hassan. Despite a crazy schedule, he made the coast-to-coast trip, flying in for just a few hours in order to attend the ceremony.

In my introduction of Mr. Hassan, I spoke about how his support, guidance and mentorship had equipped me with the tools to become a successful student; the conscience to always think about how I could make a positive impact in my community, and the courage to be proud of my authentic self, set lofty goals and work hard to achieve them. I can’t think of any better gifts and am forever grateful for his impact on my life. E

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My PEA Family

By Raymond Braun ’08

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hen I found out Mr. Hassan was going to be my math teacher during my prep spring, I was ecstatic. He worked in the Admissions Office when my older sister, Hillary ’05, applied to Exeter, and he’d made quite the positive impression on my 10-year-old self as the really friendly guy who greeted my family in the Admissions lobby after Hillary’s interview. For me, he was the face of Exeter before I was even a student.

By the time I arrived on campus as a bright-eyed prep, Hillary had already told me stories about what a genuine, respected guy Mr. Hassan was and how much students liked him. This became clear to me whenever I ran into him at an event or along the path — he always remembered my name and some details about me, as he does with all students.

Math has always been my most difficult and frustrating subject, but it quickly became my favorite during the term I spent in Mr. Hassan’s class. Mr. Hassan guided us with an infectious, positive attitude and always emphasized embracing discomfort to find a solution. He encouraged exploration and openness to find different outcomes when facing a challenge, a lesson I’ve carried with me. One day in class, I felt embarrassed and stuck presenting my (incorrect) answer to a word problem. As I was about to sit down, Mr. Hassan said, “You’ve solved a problem like this before. Let’s try starting again, and we’ll jump in if you’re veering away.” In Mr. Hassan’s class, we didn’t give up; he transformed our group into a community where people felt encouraged and supported to take risks and explore ideas. This is one of the most important Harkness lessons I learned. Gaining comfort with taking risks and allowing myself to be vulnerable with my peers enriched my entire Exeter experience.

Mr. Hassan will always stand out as one of the most effective instructors at Exeter because he took the time to get to know each student and then found ways to connect math concepts and challenges to our individual interests and backgrounds — whether it was theater, classical music, lacrosse or community service. For one exam, he made us all smile by creating a personalized test question for each student in the class. My question asked the class to optimize my run from Cilley to the Academy Building for a Student Council meeting. Fortunately, I got that one right!

Throughout that spring term, I would visit Mr. Hassan when he was on dorm duty in Knight House. Ostensibly, these visits were intended for discussions about math assignments and problem solving. While I often needed the

Braun and Hassan

extra help, I mainly just enjoyed spending time with Mr. Hassan, speaking about my experiences at Exeter and learning from his advice. We talked a lot about all the amazing opportunities at Exeter. Like many preps, I had bitten off more than I could chew with activities outside ofclass.

I was initially excited and overwhelmed by all the choices, but spring term was a time for reflection — to streamline my list of commitments, identify the big goals and milestones I wanted to achieve, and chart out my remaining three years.

During one of my visits, Mr. Hassan and I had a long conversation about impact and prioritization. He explained that every decision we make creates impact...and has trade-offs. We analyzed each potential activity: What’s the time commitment? Who or what will be impacted? How does the activity map with my goals and things that I want to learn to develop myself? What kinds of people will I be interacting with? This provided me with a framework for making decisions that I still employ today. I homed in on social impact and community service as my primary goals for time spent outside the classroom and ended up becoming president of ESSO my senior year.

While in Mr. Hassan’s class, I joined an ESSO club called Best Buddies, Exeter’s chapter of an international organization dedicated to improving the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. As a club member, you’re matched with a “buddy” with whom you hang out several times a month. The chapter also organizes fun events and parties each month for all Exonians and their buddies, such as bowling or movie nights.

Mr. Hassan was the Best Buddies faculty adviser, and I was lucky enough to get paired with his son Ben, who has a wickedly fun sense of humor. Ben’s smile lights up a room and he has an uncanny ability to make those around him feel better on a bad day. He’s one of the strongest and most courageous people I know, and he also just happens to have a type of cerebral palsy that makes it difficult for him to speak or move his body.

As I spent more time with Ben, I also got to know Mr. Hassan and the rest of his incredible family — his wife, Maggie; daughter, Meg ’11; and Ben’s caregivers, Liz, Mary and Joyce. We began the tradition of spending Sunday evenings together, cooking dinner, watching TV and hanging out. Those evenings were my most cherished —continued on page 103

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B U L L E T I N

S P R I N G

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20 Main Street Exeter, NH 03833-2460 Parents of Alumni: If this magazine is addressed to a son or daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please email us (records@exeter.edu) with his or her new address. Thank you.

EXETER REUNIONS 2015 REUNION DATE

CLASS

YEAR

May 1-3

1985

30th

1990

25th

1995

20th

2000

15th

1955

60th

1960

55th

1970

45th

1980

35th

May 14-17

1965

50th

May 15-17

1975

40th

2005

10th

2010

5th

1945

70th

1950

65th

May 8-10

May 19-21

Reunite with Exeter — the people, the place, the past and the present.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.EXETER.EDU/REUNIONS OR CALL THE ALUMNI AND PARENT RELATIONS OFFICE AT 603-777-3264.