The Exeter Bulletin, fall 2023

The Exeter Bulletin FA L L 2 0 2 3

The Visiting Fireman REMEMBERING OPPENHEIMER’S INSPIRING 1955 S T AY A T E X E T E R

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The Exeter Bulletin Principal William K. Rawson ’71; P’08 Director of Communications Robin Giampa Editor Jennifer Wagner Contributing Editor Patrick Garrity Class Notes Editor Cathy Webber Staff Writer Sarah Pruitt ’95 Production Coordinator Ben Harriton Designers Rachel Dlugos David Nelson Jacqueline Trimmer Photography Editor Christian Harrison Communications Advisory Committee Daniel G. Brown ’82, Robert C. Burtman ’74, Dorinda Elliott ’76, Alison Freeland ’72, Keith Johnson ’52, Yvonne M. Lopez ’93

Una Jain Basak ’90, Bradford Briner ’95, Wole C. Coaxum ’88, Suzi Kwon Cohen ’88, Elizabeth A. “Betsy” Fleming ’86, Scott S.W. Hahn ’90, Ira D. Helfand, M.D. ’67, Paulina L. Jerez ’91, Giles “Gil” Kemp ’68, Eric A. Logan ’92, Cornelia “Cia” Buckley Marakovits ’83, Samuel M. Maruca ’73, William K. Rawson ’71, Christine M. Robson Weaver ’99, Michael J. Schmidtberger ’78, Peter M. Scocimara ’82, Sanjay K. Shetty, M.D. ’92, Leroy Sims, M.D. ’97, Belinda A. Tate ’90, Kristyn A. (McLeod) Van Ostern ’96, Janney Wilson ’83 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 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 2023 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

PATRICK GARRIT Y

Trustees President Morgan C.W. Sze ’83 Vice President Deidre G. O’Byrne ’84

“MARSHALL’S CAPTAINCY PROVED TO BE ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL IN ACADEMY HISTORY. ” —page 24

IN THIS ISSUE

Volume CXXVIII, Issue no. 1

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Features 24 Strength and Character The life of Ernest J. Marshall, class of 1904, Exeter’s first Black sports captain.

By Panos Voulgaris

32 Follow Me Alumni mentors share their workplace and knowledge with rising seniors.

By Debbie Kane

38 The Visiting Fireman J. Robert Oppenheimer’s inspiring 1955 stay at the Academy.

By Patrick Garrity

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Departments 6

Around the Table: Artificial intelligence in the classroom, governors assembly, students visit CERN and more

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Inside the Writing Life: Heather Cox Richardson ’80

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Connections: Audrey Vanderslice ’20, Curtis Haas ’18, John Reilly ’68 and Monica DiLisio Berry ’83

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Class Notes

102 Memorial Minute: Lynda K. Beck ’80 (Hon.) 104 Finis Origine Pendet: Tanay Nandan ’25

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Dean of Students Russell Weatherspoon, who is retiring after this academic year, takes center stage in the Goel Center to offer some sage advice to members of the class of 2024 as they begin their senior year.

CHRISTIAN HARRISON

AROUND THE TABLE

What’s new and notable at the Academy

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The Academy Building lawn has been a hard-hat zone since graduation as drilling and installation continues on 86 new geothermal wells. These wells join the lawn’s 49 existing wells that currently serve Phillips Hall and will provide heating and cooling for the newly renovated dining hall and the Academy Building. With 163 wells already in place across campus, the Academy is making progress on its long-term sustainability and climate action plan. The lawn is scheduled to reopen in the spring — just in time for graduation.

Construction is also moving ahead on Merrill and Langdell halls and what will be a modern dining hall between the dorms. That project is due for completion in 2024.

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The Power of ‘Youth From Every Quarter’

To watch Opening Assembly, go to exeter.edu/live.

By Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08

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ur Deed of Gift, signed by John and Elizabeth

Phillips in 1781, states that Exeter “shall ever be equally open to youth of requisite qualifications from every quarter.”

Since the decision to become a coeducational school in the fall of 1970, my senior year, Exeter has been a leader among secondary schools in building a more diverse and inclusive community. We seek students of promising academic ability and strong character from a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and identities, and we admit students without regard to their family’s ability to pay tuition. The rich diversity of students that results creates a powerful learning environment and is one of the defining strengths of our school.

This year we have 1,078 students from 39 countries and 45 states and territories. Almost half are recipients of financial aid. They bring an impressive diversity of talents and interests. Students drive their learning at Exeter, inside and outside the classroom, and we look forward to seeing all that they will accomplish this year in academics, the arts, athletics, extracurricular activities, student leadership roles, community service, and in so many other ways. It will be exciting to see them grow in ways they never could have imagined before coming here. It has been nothing short of wonderful the first few days of the fall term to see how excited all our students, new and returning alike, are to be here, and how quickly new friendships form at the beginning of each year.

At Opening Assembly, I reminded our students that to realize fully the promise of our diverse community of learners, and to make the most of the opportunities through Harkness to learn with and from each other, we must be fully committed to diversity of thought and free expression.

Robust debate and free intellectual inquiry are fundamental to our educational method and mission, just as freedom of expression is a pillar of a healthy democracy. I told our students we must learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable, and understand that we should expect a diversity of viewpoints on almost every subject worth exploring.

Learning in this way propels our growth as individuals and as a community. It is how we prepare our students to be the citizens and leaders that our world needs.

I also spoke to our students about the gratitude we all should feel for the privileges we enjoy as members of this very special school community. Our gratitude extends to prior generations of Exonians who have helped make Exeter what it is today, and to all adults here and at home who will support our students and our school this year. We show our gratitude by how we make the most of the opportunities that are given to us, by how we strive for excellence in all that we do, and by how we incorporate the spirit of non sibi in our daily lives.

So, as we begin the 243rd year in the history of our school, I express gratitude to all alumni, families and friends of the Academy for your belief in the mission of our school and for your steadfast support. E

CHRISTIAN HARRISON

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First Impressions K AT I E B R U L E N A M E D A S N I N T H G R A D E P R O G R A M C O O R D I N AT O R

By Adam Loyd

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atie Brule still vividly remembers the apprehension that set in as the Michigan summer days before the start of ninth grade ticked away. “It was that feeling of — this is a whole new world,” she says, seated at a table outside her Dunbar Hall residence.

“I didn’t know what kind of clothes to wear or how to do a combination locker and wanted to make sure I had friends to sit with at lunch.”

Those personal yet universal memories helped shape Brule’s approach to her new role as ninth grade program coordinator and how she supports preps in their first days on campus. Brule succeeds English Instructor Tyler Caldwell, who held the position for four years.

“I try to bring that awareness,” she says. “Whatever the students are feeling, that may feel very big to them and I’m not going to try to diminish it.”

Brule, an instructor in English and girls varsity basketball coach, knows her role extends beyond the opening days on campus. “Those first few weeks are so fun, but the preps tend to grow up really fast,” she says. “I’ve been thinking about how to encourage them to grow and become independent in a way that builds toward adulthood, without losing joy and enthusiasm.”

Coordinating prep-specific events throughout the year and conducting regular check-ins with advisers of ninth graders, Brule also works directly with the students to keep them informed of resources available to them on campus.

“Making them aware of the network of support available is important,” she says. “The Learning Center, The Writing Center, peer tutors and the library in general are all great academic resources; also reminders about sleep and working with our nutritionist Tina Fallon, so they learn how to properly feed themselves.”

In addition to making sure the students remain physically well, Brule’s holistic approach to the position includes

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an emphasis on mental health. She partnered with the Health and Human Development Department to select this year’s common read, the book assigned to all incoming ninth graders. Written for a young adult audience, This Is My Brain in Love by I.W. Gregorio discusses topics of mental illness and self-acceptance. “I think it’s important to have these types of conversations early,” Brule says. “If we can have this open and honest dialogue between the faculty and students, we might be able to break the stigma and change some of the culture around not feeling like you can ask for help if you’re struggling.”

Gregorio visited campus in October to share her motivations for writing the book and engage in a lively Q&A with the prep audience. The author is also a practicing surgeon, and Brule hopes the students recognized her varied pursuits. “Sometimes young students will come to Exeter and think, this is my lane, this one thing will get me into college,” Brule says. “And I’m hopeful that I.W. Gregorio’s conversation with them will help them think about their time here a little differently.” E

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WELCOME BACK!

P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y P AT R I C K G A R R I T Y, H I L L A R Y Y O O N ’ 2 4 A N D C H R I S T I A N H A R R I S O N

The Academy pathways and quads were bustling as 1,078 students from 43 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and 38 foreign countries returned for Exeter’s 243rd year!

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Chatbots in Class?

O N E I N ST RU CTO R’S T H O U G H TS O N A RT I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E A N D E S S AY W R I T I N G

By Betty Luther-Hillman

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hroughout my time at Exeter, history classes and essay writing have been inseparable. My own public school history class assessments mostly consisted of multiple-choice exams, memorizing facts and circling the correct answer, occasionally compiling them in a string of sentences that passed as an essay. But at Exeter, we strive to teach history as a means for developing critical thinking skills, emphasizing use of evidence, engaging narration, and close reading of sources. And while there are many ways to hone these skills, writing has been a crucial one; it’s hard to imagine teaching history at Exeter without having a stack of essays to grade at some point each term. But last year, ChatGPT threatened to upend everything.

An acronym for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, ChatGPT is perhaps This image was generated by DALL-E, an artificial intelligence system, based the most infamous version of a on the following prompt: Paint a female history teacher with short black hair number of new artificial intelliwearing dark-framed glasses standing in front of the Academy Building at gence chatbots that can converse Phillips Exeter Academy in the style of Claude Monet. using “humanlike conversational minutes using ChatGPT and come away with a submittable dialogue.” According to one tech website, “the language essay? But, as I read the piece more carefully, I became less model can respond to questions and compose various impressed. The analysis was general, vague, and lacked written content, including articles, social media posts, specific examples. When I prompted the interface to essays, code and emails.” Basically, ask ChatGPT a provide more specifics, problems arose. Scenarios and page question, and it will give you an answer, sometimes a numbers were inaccurate, and the writing did not clearly lengthy one. Shortly after it was released last November, link examples to analysis. We now know these problems to I decided to try it out by asking it to write the essay be widespread; one lawyer submitted a ChatGPT-written my students were currently working on. I typed in the brief that cited imaginary court cases, and librarians have essay question, and in a matter of seconds, the interface received bibliographies of sources that do not exist. produced what seemed to be, at first, a well-organized Feeling confident that the essay assignment was and cogent three-page essay. secure, I decided to go bold: I walked into class and I’ll be honest that I had a moment of alarm. Was it possiprojected ChatGPT for the students to see. “I know ble that every student in my class could simply spend two

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you’ve heard about this, but I just want to show you why it’s no good,” I explained as I entered the essay prompt. As the screen started writing, though, the reaction of my students was not what I wanted.

“This is amazing!” several students said. “I’m never going to write an essay again,” one student remarked. (Perhaps my boldness rubbed off on them.) Even as I tried to point out the vagueness, generalizations and analytical flaws, the students remained captivated. The best I could do was to remind them of our new history department policy that using AI was simply not allowed, but I left the class wondering if they had gotten the message.

Despite my chagrin in that moment, I still have hope for the longevity of human-written essays, and I plan to continue assigning them. After all, I have high standards for my students: to distinguish evidence from generalizations; to support their analysis with strong, specific evidence; and to inspect the texts they read for these details, too. I haven’t yet seen evidence that AI can do this type of analysis well; AI-generated text seems to specialize in writing the generalizations that make me comment in the margins, “What evidence supports this claim?”

Most importantly, I want my students to write about history with accuracy and nuance. “Accurate” is the first category on the rubric I give my students, and I weight it twice as much as any other category when I grade essays. And despite the promises that technologies will improve over time, the “bugs” of inaccuracy I have described seem to be “features” of AI-generated text that works through prediction.

But even if AI-generated text is accurate, I want my students to be able to explain how we know it’s accurate, and that requires attention to sources, inspecting them for trustworthiness and limitations.

Arguably, in an era where “information” (accurate or not) is just at our fingertips, evidence-based essay writing using credible sources is more important than ever. Until we can trust the accuracy of AI, its uses for history essays will remain limited.

As a history teacher, I’m also skeptical about the use of AI for deeper historical analysis, for a simple reason: Humans are not algorithms. Despite what many nonhistorians believe, human behavior is not easily predictable. Indeed, that’s what makes the study of history so interesting; humans over time have made surprising, impressive, disappointing, maddening and fascinating decisions, some of which parallel the actions of their predecessors and some of which are unique. I want my students to study these people of the past closely, dig into the details of their decisions, and understand how the

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world around them shaped their actions; it’s not clear to me that a predictive algorithm can inspect the specifics of the past with this level of rigor.

This does not mean that I plan to forever ban AI from the classroom; like any technology tool, it has its uses. I’ve found that it provides good basic descriptions of historical events, for example, not unlike an encyclopedia (or Wikipedia, for that matter). But just like our math teachers who still insist that certain assessments are “no calculators allowed,” I want my students to recognize the errors and flaws that can occur if one is not using the technology carefully. I’d love to see my students annotate a ChatGPT-written essay, for example, using the margins to add evidence or critique its claims. While

“In an era where ‘information’ (accurate or not) is just at our fingertips, evidencebased essay writing using credible sources is more important than ever.” it’s important to learn how to use the technology, it’s just as important to develop the analytical skills to recognize when the technology is incorrect, the same way students might punch the wrong numbers into a calculator but know enough math to realize they made an error.

My most important goal as a teacher is to get my students to think, and I’ll keep striving to create assessments and provide feedback to sharpen their thinking, so that when they use AI technology, they can use it well and avoid its pitfalls. Even if that means I’ll still have that stack of essays to grade. E Betty Luther-Hillman is the Lewis Perry Professor in the Humanities and an instructor in history. She has taught at Exeter since 2011 after earning a Ph.D. in history from Yale University.

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CAMPUS LIFE AT A GLANCE PRESEASON: The field hockey team hit Hatch Field in August for some training ahead of the start of classes.

ACADEMY LIFE DAY: Strike! The Front Street boys gathered at the lanes for a day of dorm bonding.

MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL: Thanks to OMA proctor Sophie Ma ’24, who organized the event, the Exeter community celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival, a tradition in some Asian cultures that honors the harvest.

CLUB NIGHT: Business, badminton or biology? Students had their pick of nearly 200 clubs during the annual event.

P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y P AT R I C K G A R R I T Y, S O P H I E M A ’ 2 4 A N D J O A N N E L E M B O

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Civil Discourse

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GOVERNOR NED L AMONT ’72 AND GOVERNOR CHRIS SUNUNU S P E A K AT E V E N I N G A S S E M B LY

By Patrick Garrity

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ancor and disrespect often

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define political discourse in America today, but two politicians from opposite sides of the aisle showed Exeter that acrimony needn’t be the rule.

Governor Ned Lamont ’72 of Connecticut, a Democrat, and Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican, took the Assembly Hall stage for an hourlong dialogue devoid of pique. The collegial discussion was co-hosted by the Academy’s Republican and Democratic clubs. Club co-heads Leo Braham ’24, Beverly Oleka ’25, Carter Otis ’24 and Natalie Welling ’24 took turns posing questions to the governors before a crowded hall.

The governors shared messages that mirror the Harkness learning principle of listening to understand, not simply to respond. Sununu asked the audience, “When you come to discussions, whether it’s like this or whether you’re going to have an argument on politics over family dinner or you’re just talking amongst friends, are you coming to have a discussion with a preconceived notion to get your own convictions validated? Or are you coming to the discussion to say, ‘Gee, this person might disagree with me. I wonder why. I wonder what the basis is.’ What’s the background? What’s the history with this individual and this issue that has gotten them from A to B to C that might be completely different from where you are?”

The moderators asked questions on topics such as artificial intelligence, the opioid crisis, a livable wage, gun control and free speech. The governors hold differing views on several subjects. Lamont supports nationalized gun laws, for instance, and Sununu does not. Sununu rejects the practical importance of increasing the minimum wage, and Lamont says it “sends a signal to people that we value their work.” But the tone of the conversation remained respectful.

Lamont was asked how he responds to criticism of

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his fervent support for public education even though he “attended one of the wealthiest and most prestigious high schools in the nation.”

“I think I went to one of the greatest high schools in America,” he said. “It was much more diverse than Syosset High School on Long Island where I would’ve come from. And I learned a lot about people. We were a little whiter and a hundred percent more male than it is today.

“At my age ... it’s not where you’re from, it’s where you stand. And I think I’ve got a long record. People know where I stand on these issues so they can say, ‘Hey, you went to Exeter, you’re not like me.’ And they get to know you and they realize you’re fighting for them every day. …

I’m proud of where I came from, and I like to explain that to people every day.”

On the topic of free speech and tolerance for viewpoints different from our own, the governors agree.

“You all know what empathy is, right?” Sununu asked.

“Do we practice empathy every day? Empathy is something to be practiced, right? We call it disagreeing better.

We all need to disagree better.” E

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The Power of Discovery P H Y S I C S S T U D E N T S P U T H Y P O T H E S I S T O T H E T E S T AT C E R N

By William Soh ’24 and Isabella Vesely ’23 Our proposal sought to instead use permanent magnets in special geometric formations — no electricity needed.

In July, our plan was one of three winning entries chosen from hundreds of submissions from student groups in over 60 countries. We were invited to test our proposal at the global epicenter of physics among some of the best scientists in the world.

Three-quarters of the way through our stay in Switzerland, our team trickled into our morning meeting room. Some arrived after team breakfast, others after waking up from eventful late nights of work. We started our day together in hybrid fashion with our support scientists and the other two winning teams, Pakistan’s Particular Perspective at CERN, and the Netherlands’ Wire Wizards working at DESY, Germany’s largest accelerator center. After checking in with everyone, we dived in: How is our physics going? What’s going well? What setbacks is everyone facing? Not a single day The Myriad had passed without an answer to this final Magnets team question. We discussed and brainstormed as one big team before setting plans for the day. With only three more days of access to the beam, we ERN, the European Organization for Nuclear had zero time to waste.

Research, is home to the world’s largest particle A short time later we settled into our shifts across the accelerator and only antimatter factory, and, CERN campus. For the rest of the day, subteams rotated for two weeks in September, eight extremely to allow each team member to fully explore all parts of excited Exonians. the experiment.

In the final months of 2022, our Myriad Magnets Members from the Exeter and Pakistani teams rushed team — Daniel Jeon ’23, William Lu ’24, Peter Morand ’25, Achyuta Rajaram ’24, William Soh ’24, Isabella Vesely ’23, to the test beam control room to check the overnight data and prepare the day’s experiments. We were lucky: Ishaan Vohra ’24 (our team lead) and Aubrey Zhang ’23 — Particles came through as expected, and our complex met regularly to develop a research proposal for CERN’s setup with numerous particle physics-specific detectors Beamline for Schools competition. Our 14-page submissuffered from no major errors (a true rarity). The calmer sion presented a design for an original and modular aura of this morning was mildly misleading — it was a mechanical setup to replace the high-energy-consuming major development from the beam shifts of the days electromagnets used in all accelerators. prior. Since our first day, those assigned to beam shift CERN is a major consumer of electricity. A massive could expect two hours of intense problem-solving led portion of this consumption comes from powering all by our support scientists. From fixing data collection and the electromagnets, which bend and focus the particle software concerns to examining mechanical components beams, needed to run the massive accelerator complex.

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MAXIMILIEN BRICE: CERN

and detectors that randomly stopped working, each shift was a unique experience at the center of computer, electrical and mechanical engineering in physics.

A few buildings over, a group of students headed to a data analysis session. There we learned the ins and outs of CERN’s data analysis library, called ROOT, from CERN scientists and engineers. Some of our mentor scientists prepared physics and data analysis-specific programming exercises, often using real data from older runs, while other mentors stayed throughout the day to help debug, answer our many questions and offer new ideas to ponder. Ready to start putting our new techniques to the test, we began analyzing our own data. All of our team’s analysis sessions that day consisted of translating numbers into useful methods of understanding our magnet arrays’ effectiveness.

At Exeter, our physics club often looks to show how physics is fun in unconventional ways.

CERN’s Markus Joos, our program’s technical coordinator, has perfected a similar pedagogy. In “playground” sessions, he shared his decades of experience working on some of CERN’s largest experiments. Amid CERN stories and general experiment questions and answers, we explored the inner workings of the detectors and computer systems that underlie our own and CERN’s most elaborate experiments. We worked as a team to create a cosmic muon detector, using scintillator detectors to expose the fundamental subatomic particles raining down on us from cosmic radiation.

Our time in the playground enhanced our understanding of the inner mechanisms of our experiment and even inspired new ideas — including a new magnetic mangle design and the possibility of a detector to measure the random positively charged beta particle emission of bananas (a project shaping up to become a senior project for Achyuta Rajaram and William Lu)!

Throughout the week, we attended special lectures

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Above: CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

Left: The engineering mechanism the students designed and built at CERN.

from CERN experts. We even had the chance to meet Bathsheba Nell Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations office in Geneva, and give her a personal tour of our experiment! Taking full advantage of our location, we also toured CERN’s historic first particle accelerator from 1957 (where we realized we had studied its exact physics principles in Exeter’s advanced physics sequence!), the antimatter factory, and the extensive engineering facilities. To cap off a fully immersive experience, we explored the historic and cultural aspects of Geneva, making sure to practice our French even when trying Swiss chocolates.

As the trip ended, we wrapped up our data collection and presented our conclusions to the CERN and DESY labs. Our initial results, using our magnetic mangle in a dipole configuration, showed that a radially and rotationally adjustable magnetic mangle is indeed possible for meaningful particle deflection. In other words: Our design worked! We also confirmed that stationary arrays of magnets in the dipole Halbach configuration can deflect the beam. But after boarding the plane home, our particle physics adventure had only just begun to accelerate. From across the Atlantic, we will stay in contact with CERN, completing our data analysis and exploring the impacts our results may unlock. E

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hen Claire Ashley’s colorful, in-your-space inflatables — some topping 25 feet across — blew up on campus this fall, they demanded attention. And that was the point.

“I prefer that they are out in the world being irreverent, obnoxious beings rather than being polite and sitting on the wall in a calm way,” says Ashley, an artist based in Chicago.

“I’m hoping the kids are like, ‘Whoa, what is that?’ That question allows them to enter a conversation about contemporary art that may be a different lens than they might think of when they enter a museum. It’s an experience-driven entry point.”

The “Claire Ashley: Radiant Beasts” exhibition included more than 30 works fashioned from PVC-coated canvas tarpaulin, Tyvek, expandable foam, spray paint and small blower fans, and installed in iconic and surprising spaces from the Lamont Gallery to a squash court in Love Gym. “My vision for what I wanted to bring to the community was a sense of chaos,” Ashley says. “Really awakening students to these parallels, these intersections between things that they’re studying and contemporary art. And thinking about how the work is living amongst them, whether they’re coming to the gym to work out or to Phillips Church for meditation or prayer.”

Throughout the term, the gallery team also installed shortterm, pop-up “interventions” of Ashley’s artwork in previously undisclosed locations. Each pop-up lasted for four days and students were encouraged to take pictures and share their thoughts on social media.

“Inflatables are this perfect form because everybody recognizes them as either a bouncy house, a cuddly toy, or something they can hug,” Ashley says, “which I think is really important in terms of making people feel comfortable about looking at or talking about art. Whereas, for a lot of people, when they enter a gallery they feel like they’re either less than or, don’t quite understand what they’re seeing. I’m trying to make art as open and available to people as possible.”

Ashley’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries, museums, site-specific installations, performances and collaborations. During her stay, she led an artist talk and met with Exeter students. Her visit was programmed through the Lamont Gallery and supported in part by the Michael C. Rockefeller ’56 Visiting Artist Fund. E From top: Artist Claire Ashley with Crustie (Hot Rock) in Love Gym; Undersphere on the Academy Building; Expletives (I & Buddha) in Phillips Church and Cosmic Gasp (Face of Boe) in the library.

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By Sally Komarek Sally Komarek and Patty Burke Hickey at the Giza pyramids in Egypt.

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his summer I traveled to Cairo, Egypt, with Global Initiatives Program Director Patty Burke Hickey to teach at the Cairo American College, where Exeter introduced the Harkness model in 2015. Each day offered a new gift. Here’s a look at what I learned about myself and my craft by sharing our practice and exploring a new culture.

August 6-7

Patty and I arrived at Boston Logan International Airport on Sunday afternoon, excited to begin our journey. While waiting for our flight, we chatted about our instruction plans for our time at Cairo American College (CAC). Neither of us had traveled to Egypt before, but we had connected with friends, colleagues and family members who shared suggestions for places to eat, shop and explore. After two lengthy flights and a three-hour layover in London, we landed in Cairo around 5:30 p.m. local time. We enjoyed a late dinner

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overlooking the Nile River, then crashed from the exhaustion of a full day of traveling.

August 8

We planned our first day as an adjustment period to help us get over any jet lag. After getting a sweat in at the hotel gym, we made our way to the pool to discuss our ideas for the next day’s lessons. We knew that we’d be working with a group of 12 to 15 teachers, and that their experience with Harkness was mixed. Some teachers had participated in numerous Harkness training sessions with current and former Exeter colleagues, and others were brand-new. We decided to use reflection and goal-setting to pull CAC teachers into the conversation regardless of their familiarity with Harkness.

With our Wednesday plan final, Patty and I set out for downtown Cairo, where we took a food tour with Bellies En-Route, a women-owned company that leads zero-waste tours. We started out eating koshari, the national dish of Egypt, a delicious medley of pasta, rice and lentils. We also tasted falafel (made from fava beans, not chickpeas), okra, an assortment of juices (my favorite was tangerine), baba ghanouj and a warm bowl of molokhia, a spinach-like vegetable. We were so appreciative that at every stop our tour guides shared any leftover food with others, such as individuals working as street sweepers, and children. This was such a beautiful way to meet local Cairenes and learn about the city, its rich history, and the agricultural practices and culinary traditions that make their dishes so special. We ended the tour with full bellies and some new menu ideas to take home.

August 9

Patty and I woke early and arrived at CAC at 7:30 a.m. to begin setting up to lead workshops with the humanities faculty. The session started with brief introductions before we asked teachers to journal a personal “Problem of Practice” as it pertains to their Harkness classrooms. There are about 22 students per classroom at CAC and the Harkness table seats 16 to 18 students. The conversation was rich with the challenges of Harkness learning in a larger classroom: How do I build strong student habits and establish classroom norms?

How should I give feedback and evaluate participation and engagement? How can I balance participation among so

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many students? And notably, how do I involve those students on the outside of the Harkness table.

In the afternoon, Patty and I facilitated a Harkness demonstration. The teachers read some short poems from Lamont Poet Natasha Trethewey’s Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Nancy Gibbs’ 2005 Time magazine article “An American Tragedy: The Aftermath.” The conversation was lively, engaging and demonstrated many of the same dynamics we see around our own Harkness tables at Exeter. We wrapped up at CAC and headed back to our hotel, where we reviewed the class’ “Problem of Practice” reflections over dinner and made our plan for Thursday’s sessions.

Harkness training at Cairo American College.

August 10

We opened our second day of Harkness training with a debriefing about the previous day’s work. Like any Harkness conversation at Exeter, each individual experienced the conversation differently. We unpacked the direction of our conversation, returned to some key moments, and talked over a variety of possible interventions to employ as a Harkness instructor.

Next, we led a session on inclusive Harkness practices; multiple ways of giving feedback; preparation and close-reading practice; “silent discussions”; and discussion roles, among other strategies. The dialogue from this session stretched into lunchtime, and we enjoyed delicious sandwiches while collaborating with one another. After lunch, we split up by discipline to discuss department-specific questions, skill building and written assessments.

For our final session of the week, we returned to the “Problem of Practice” cards from our first session, and asked colleagues to identify new solutions, plans and practices to help them work through their initial “problems” and identify a colleague they can partner with throughout the year. It was terrific to end on such a high note, and the enthusiasm to begin a new school year was palpable. Patty and I carried that energy back to campus.

August 11

We kicked off a weekend of tourism with a trip to the Saqqara and spent a few hours exploring the vast sites and grounds of the step pyramids. Our incredible tour guide, Yomna, explained every historical detail. In the Serapeum, an ancient burial site for sacred bulls, we were blown away by the massive stone sarcophagi nestled deep underground. Touring was such a positive experience and reminded me of how transformative in-person experiences can be when studying history. It made me eager to work in more field trips, day trips and hands-on exploration into my coursework at Exeter.

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August 12

We traveled west to explore the famous Giza pyramids.

Standing next to the individual blocks of the pyramid, it put into perspective just how massive the pyramids really were.

Imagining their construction around 3200 B.C., I was in awe that these magnificent structures predate all of Exeter’s History offerings by more than two centuries. Our next adventure brought us to the Great Sphinx of Giza, which was (you might sense a theme here) even more massive than one could ever imagine! After an incredible day we returned to our hotel with our phone camera rolls full.

Caption he

August 13

Our final day began with a drive to the Citadel of Cairo, or Citadel of Salah ah-Din. I asked Patty to snap some photos of me in front of the Citadel to show to my future students in HIS205: The Medieval Worlds, as Salah ah-Din is a crucial historical figure in our course study. From there we entered the Muhammad Ali Mosque, which was one of the most breathtaking buildings I’ve ever stepped into. The entire experience was unforgettable. Next, we drove to Old Cairo, where we saw the spectacular Crypt of the Holy Family and the famous Hanging Church. We then spent hours exploring the exhibits, including the mummies, at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. The day ended with a trip to Khan al-Khalili market and a felucca ride on the Nile.

August 14

Morning came early for us as we headed to the airport at 5 a.m. to start the journey back to Boston. I am so grateful for our time in Egypt. I gained so much as a teacher of history and Harkness instructor. E Sally Komarek joined Exeter’s faculty as an instructor in history in 2017. She is also the head girls varsity ice hockey coach.

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Grill

By Sarah Pruitt ’95

F

or more than a century, Grill has been

the go-to spot on campus for grabbing a snack between classes, fueling up for late-night study sessions, avoiding dining hall — or all of the above.

The first Academy Grill opened in late 1920 in an old schoolhouse behind Peabody Hall, opposite Hoyt Hall. When that building was torn down in 1941, Grill relocated to the basement of Alumni Hall, now part of the Frederick R. Mayer Art Center. The new space seated 125 and, like the original Grill, resembled a diner, with a counter lined with stools, and tables and chairs.

At “Senior Grill,” a long-running tradition that kicked off in 1957, Exeter’s oldest students headed to Grill on Tuesday and Friday nights to watch television, play cards and smoke — at least until smoking was banned on campus in the late 1980s. By that time, Grill had moved to the basement of the remodeled Lamont Gallery and featured a jukebox, purchased with funds raised by the Student Council.

Grill moved again in 2006, finding its present home in the newly constructed Academy Center, now known as the Elizabeth Phillips Academy Center. In addition to a convenience store stocked with cold drinks, freezer items and snack foods, hot food is available to order, and there’s seating for 85 people.

Students pack the place during midmorning break times, especially right after assembly, says Scott Jeffco, Grill’s manager. Among the top-selling items are the popular Grill cookies, baked in-house and priced at 50 cents apiece.

Grill sells around 200 of these oversize chocolate chip treats every schoolday.

Just remember: Don’t call it the Grill. The article fell out of favor somewhere around the move to the Academy Center. “It’s just Grill,” Jeffco says. “I made the mistake of saying ‘the Grill’ once and a student let me know, ‘You are wrong.’” E Archival photos of Grill from the 1940s to 2021.

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Making History A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H E D U C AT O R A N D A U T H O R H E AT H E R C O X R I C H A R D S O N ’ 8 0

E

ach evening for the past four years, Heather Cox Richardson ’80, a professor of American history at Boston College, has written her take on the day’s news. In 1,200 or so measured and factual words, she places contemporary politics in a wider historical context. Her observations — published in her online newsletter, Letters from an American — have been described as a breath of fresh air in a time riven by so-called “fake news” and partisan politics.

Some days, at the end of a news-jammed week, Richardson takes a break, posting a cool photo of a lake or a sunset captured by her husband, Buddy Poland. More than 1.1 million people subscribe to Richardson’s newsletter.

Richardson is also the author of six books on U.S. history, the American West, and the Plains Indians. Her latest, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, traces aspects of U.S. history from pre-Revolutionary days and addresses why American democracy is in crisis and how we can move forward. We caught up with Richardson before the book’s publication in September.

P H OTO © V I K I N G A D U LT ( H C ) 2 0 2 3

By Daneet Steffens ’82

There seem to be two main parts to this book: One centers on authoritarianism, and the other addresses how marginalized people have long demanded equity and have worked to push democracy forward. How did you select that structure?

Well, including the Trump section, the book has three parts. But originally, it was going to be a series of essays slightly longer than my newsletters.

Then I realized we had an opportunity to rethink the way we think about American history. I wrote the 30 chapters and put them aside. When I picked the book back up, I ended up rewriting about 80% of it, answering questions that people have asked me about how the parties switched sides, what it means to be conservative. The thing about the section on the Trump administration that

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really shocked me, really still shocks me, is that if you strip out all the noise — and the noise is what I tended to write about every night — it’s really stark: It was really a stark climb toward authoritarianism, which I don’t think had been as clear to me when I was in the thick of it.

In some ways, we still are.

The trick is helping people see what American history has always been, that it has always been inclusive. Not that people have always been treated equally — absolutely not. But American history does not belong to a radical white right wing, and it never has. The book became this journey from how we got to the present, what the present looks like, and how we get out of it. It looks at how authoritarians can overturn a democracy, and it argues that the way they do so is by manipulating language and history. It’s not the book I set out to write, but in a way that’s appropriate. It’s the book that I was pushed to write by the people who read me, and so it reflects them more than me.

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Your writing tone is the same in the book and the newsletter: accessible, relaxed, engaging. How do you stay so calm while so many are shouting at the television?

Everything I do is a journey to understand. I like to understand things — and we get that from Exeter, right?

But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with them. That’s another thing that Exeter taught me. I enjoy intellectually arguing; that’s my happy place. I like testing out new ideas. And I like having my feet under me. When people say I’m calm, that’s really just me looking to understand.

Once your feet are under you, once you understand something, you can make good decisions about it. For me, understanding brings calm.

— that’s exactly where I learned how to do that. I loved the challenge of writing a coherent essay on ‘black and white’ or on Virginia Woolf ’s use of blue in To the Lighthouse, or whatever. I thought that was just the most fun thing ever, and I get to do it every night.

Is there a particular moment of history that’s important for students today to understand?

Any story that makes them feel empowered. Something I think we’re missing when we look at how the radical right is changing education — especially historical education — is we talk about how they’re erasing minority voices. But I think it’s more than that. I think what they are erasing is the idea that individuals can advocate for different kinds of society, the idea that you can make a difference. And you can — I mean, look at what has happened recently as people have started to speak up for democracy. That’s the piece I think it’s important for younger people to understand. And that message is actually coming from young people now: the Tennessee Three and David Hogg and Victor Shi. Young people are saying, “Hey, we can make a difference.” So I say, any story that tells kids, “You can matter.”

“Exeter taught me to speak my mind: I didn’t understand the degree to which the Harkness method was unusual, how everyone participates, but that has absolutely been my approach to my career.“ Have other aspects of Exeter stayed with you?

Friendships have lasted eternally: I was in Soule in that short window when Soule was a girls dormitory, and we still call ourselves the Soule sisters. And Exeter taught me to speak my mind: I didn’t understand the degree to which the Harkness method was unusual, how everyone participates, but that has absolutely been my approach to my career, and what I now take into my own classes. I also learned to recognize that if you failed, you just got up and did it again the next day a little bit better: doing poorly or failing was not the end.

Also, every Friday in English class, we would have an in-class writing: you had to write for an hour about a prompt on the board, and I loved that. Quite frankly, my Letters from an American are a daily in-class writing

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Who else inspires you?

There are some phenomenal journalists: Zack Beauchamp, Dahlia Lithwick, Ian Millhiser, David Rothkopf. The can’t-miss on general culture is Rebecca Solnit. Dear God, that woman is smart. Her latest book, Orwell’s Roses, is brilliant in terms of its humanity, its history, its science. There are an awful lot of voices out there that are really smart, which is an exciting thing after many years in which it felt like smart voices were not getting oxygen. It feels like we’re in a renaissance, not just of words but of music and art. For all that there’s a lot of terror out there and reasons to be frightened, you look at the outpouring of talent — around the world and certainly in America — and you think: “Really? Are we going to bottle that up?” I mean, tell me what that looks like. I can’t see a way you do that.

What are your plans for the newsletter?

The newsletter started organically and it will end organically, though I have committed to going through the election. There will come a time when we don’t need it any longer. And that’s kind of the beauty of being a teacher, right? If you do your job really well, nobody needs you anymore. And I am a teacher at heart. My dream is for someone to go: “Hey, remember that woman? What was her name again?” Because that would mean I’ve done it right. E

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E XO N I A N S

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Alumni are encouraged to advise the Bulletin editor (bulletin@exeter.edu) of their own publications, recordings, films, etc., in any field, and those of their classmates, for inclusion in future Exonians in Review columns. Please send a review copy of your published work to the editor to be considered for an extended profile in future issues. Works can be sent to: Phillips Exeter Academy, The Exeter Bulletin, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833.

ALUMNI 1956—William Peace. Nebrodi Mountains: The Billionaire and the Mafia. (Strategic Book Publishing, 2022) 1968—Anthony Gantner. The City Dionysia.

(Norfolk Press, 2023) 1968—John Gentry. Neutering the CIA: Why US Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences. (Armin Lear Press, 2023) 1969—Richard Maurer. The Woman in the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Helped Fly the First Astronauts to the Moon. (Roaring Brook Press, 2023) 1971—Dan Hunter. Learning and Teaching Creativity: You Can Only Imagine. (Radio Ranch Press, 2023) 1972—W. Drake McFeely. Books That Live: Norton’s First One Hundred Years. (W.W. Norton & Company, 2023) 1981—Claudia Putnam. Seconds: A Novella.

(Neutral Zones Press, 2023) 1982—Judd Kruger Levingston. A Moral Case for Play in K-12 Schools: The Urgency of Advancing Moral Ecologies of Play. (Lexington Books, 2023) 1982—Julie Phillips. The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Mothering, and the Mind-Baby Problem.

(W.W. Norton & Company, 2022) 1991—Sean Mahoney. “Factory Girls,” a rock musical that played at the University of New Hampshire in October.

2001—Mackenzie Hawkins, with Wonchull Park.

Nowflow Breath, Movement & Mind: A Living Practice of 3 Nowflow Qualities from 3 Physics Flow Natures. (Thru Publishing, 2023) 2001—Katie Farris. Standing in the Forest of Being Alive, poetry collection. (Alice James Books, 2023) 2008—Amanda Kim, director. Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023.

2015—Lindsey Palmer, assistant. Heart of Stone, film. (Netflix, 2023) 2019—Kristen Richards. as if to return myself to the sea, poetry collection. (Indie Earth Publishing, 2023) FAC U LT Y Ralph Sneeden, emeritus English instructor. The Legible Element: Essays. (EastOver Press, 2023) Chelsea Woodard. At the Lepidopterist’s House.

(Southern Indiana Review Press, 2023)

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Strength and Character THE LIFE OF ERNEST J. MARSHALL , CLASS OF 1904, E X E T E R ’ S F I R S T B L A C K S P O R T S C A P TA I N

By Panos Voulgaris

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teeped in the Academy’s history

is a remarkable football tradition dating to 1878. It is widely known that Exeter shares the country’s longest continuing high school football rivalry with Andover, beginning 145 years ago. It is less well known, however, that Exeter has more alumni in the College Football Hall of Fame than any other high school in the nation. Among them is Amos Alonzo Stagg, class of 1885, dubbed the “Grand Old Man of Football,” who helped establish the game over his 70-year coaching career.

Stagg also headlines an impressive list of Exonians who have served as the head football coach at one of at least 41 colleges around the U.S. Included in that roster is Ernest J. Marshall, who entered football lore when he was named the first Black captain of a Phillips Exeter sports team in 1903. Marshall, who graduated from Exeter in 1904, later made a significant impact as a coach and educator at Howard University. But his story before and after his time at Howard is equally notable. He was a passionate leader, student, athlete, outdoorsman, coach, professor and physician.

Born to humble beginnings in Baltimore, Maryland, in the postReconstruction era, Marshall left home in 1897 to spend three years at the famed Hampton Institute. A precursor to Hampton University, the institute was founded in 1868 to educate formerly enslaved people.

The Virginia Museum of History and Culture notes that it trained an “army of Black educators,” including Booker T. Washington.

At Hampton, Marshall was mentored by the Institute’s president, Hollis B. Frissell, an Andover graduate. After graduating from Hampton in 1900, Marshall trekked to Boston where he worked for a year to raise funds for his education. In a December 1900 letter to Frissell, Marshall expressed having experienced racial challenges in the north while also laying out his goals: “During the few months I have been here I see [the] value [of your warnings] a great deal more than ever before. This I think is due to experience. … As I have told you before … Next year, I expect to go in some school and after I finish, I shall then go in the South to do the best I can.”

Marshall arrived at Exeter with minimal resources as a 10th grader

in 1901 to prepare for college. In Marshall’s time, Black students encountered a difficult social experience at the Academy. For instance, one of Marshall’s housemates, the Black poet Charles Frederick White, a member of the class of 1907 for a short time, later wrote that despite being “exceptionally well and brotherly treated by the faculty [and] other non-Negro-hating boys,” he was met with “southern prejudice,” by a particular group of threatening students, which cued his departure prior to graduation.

Indeed, during the 1902 spring track season, Marshall and another Black member of the team were not welcome to eat at the training table with their white teammates, provoking them to withdraw from the team.

The Boston Globe reported that while many in town supported the protest, “In student circles … feeling against them [was] very bitter, and in the march of the school from the campus after the [track] meet, they were treated with contumely.”

The Globe contended that Marshall’s treatment was “in direct variance with the Exeter spirit,” given that in previous years Black athletes had typically eaten at team training tables.

Others who lived with Marshall in the segregated J.W. Field’s House succeeded at Exeter, leading to impressive careers. Marshall’s housemates included two members of the class of 1904: his lifelong friend Eugene Clark of Washington, D.C., a preeminent educator in Black schools, and Newlyn Cashin, a distinguished physician in his native Alabama. In addition, Fenwick Watkins, class of 1905, from Burlington, Vermont, who starred in football, basketball and baseball

“THE ACADEMY ELEVEN” The 1903 varsity team photo and roster. Ernest J. Marshall ’04 holds the Exeter-Andover game ball.

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That Marshall captained this distinguished group was an inspirational undertaking given the racial climate of segregation in America at the time.

at the University of Vermont, had a successful career in coaching and real estate in North Dakota; and Benjamin Seldon, class of 1907, from New Jersey, was an early promoter of Pan-Africanism and a regular collaborator with W.E.B. Du Bois. Seldon conveyed lifelong gratitude to the Academy for helping him become a trailblazing educator.

Marshall persevered during his time at Exeter. A strong student, he became one of the top athletes in the school and served on the PEA Athletic Association, the student voice for athletics at the time. In competition, Marshall rejoined the track team and found renown on campus for his exploits, becoming the school record-holder in both the shot put and discus in 1903. Further, Marshall was a standout on the football team, earning a spot on the “Academy Eleven” for all three of his years at Exeter, the only player to do so during his time.

During the spring of 1903, the team met to determine its captain and Marshall emerged as the top choice. Marshall’s selection was monumental for the Academy as well as the American sports scene of the time because Black players were a rarity on major athletic teams.

Though Black players began playing on the Exeter football team as early as 1893, none had ascended to the role of captain before Marshall, moving news agencies around the country to pick up the story.

“Colored Man Elected Head

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of Exeter Football Eleven — He is Popular Here,” The Boston Globe reported on June 6, 1903. The following day The New York Times wrote, “Ernest J. Marshall, ’04, of Baltimore … is the only colored boy to be honored with a captaincy of an athletic team at Exeter,” and The Trenton Evening Times declared, “Negro Boy Captains Exeter.”

The headline of Marshall’s hometown Baltimore American read: “Colored Lad Captain of Football Team: Ernest J. Marshall, of This City, to Head the Crack Eleven of Phillips-Exeter.” The article continued: “He has been one of the most popular students at the school and stands high in his studies, as well as in athletics. Although personally well liked, there was dissatisfaction when his name was first suggested [for] the captaincy of the school football team, but this appears to have died away and his election was unanimous.”

The Cleveland Gazette added, “He was the only logical candidate for the captaincy.”

In 1903, the Academy hired noted coach Eddie N. Robinson, who had previously been the head coach at the University of Nebraska (1896-97) before a legendary run at Brown University (1898-1901, 1904-07, 1910-25), where he coached the school’s first Black player, Hall of Famer Fritz Pollard, in 1915 and 1916. At Exeter, Robinson took over a program that had struggled to a 2-4-3 record in the previous season, including a demoralizing 29-17 loss

to Andover.

Roughly 60 players returned to campus vying for a spot on the Academy Eleven. The roster featured a “who’s who” of football greats including future college All-Americans, Ivy League team captains, prominent head football coaches and three members of the College Football Hall of Fame. That Marshall captained this distinguished group was an inspirational undertaking given the racial climate of segregation in America at the time.

The 1903 schedule featured daunting competition against college varsity teams including the University of New Hampshire, Tufts, Bates and Bowdoin. Exeter had, in fact, defeated the Boston College varsity during Marshall’s lower and upper years.

Coach Robinson and captain Marshall guided the Academy to an 8-0-2 record, including eight shutouts, while outscoring opponents, 134-16.

Prior to the Andover game, Robinson commented in The Exonian, “Marshall, captain and left tackle … is a hard worker, and sets the team a good example in this respect.” The Boston Journal reported: “Up in the Granite State Exeter will meet its greatest rival, Andover. … Andover will undoubtedly be the favorite … No matter what …

Capt. Ernest Marshall, the colored leader at Exeter, will be surrounded with a team up to the standard.”

In a 14-11 triumph, Marshall ushered his team to victory by

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opening holes on offense and making a timely fumble recovery to secure the game and undefeated season.

The Exonian headline read: “A GREAT VICTORY FOR CAPTAIN MARSHALL AND HIS MEN.” In short, despite the racial challenges, Marshall’s captaincy proved to be exceptionally successful. His 1903 unit was the greatest Exeter football team to that point and remains one of the best in Academy history.

Less than a month after that win over Andover, Marshall announced his college plans. The opening

page of the December 1, 1903, Boston Journal sports section reported, “Ernest J. Marshall, the colored lad who successfully brought the Exeter team to victory in the annual game with Andover, intends [on] entering Williams College next year.”

Upon arriving in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Marshall excelled in the classroom and for the football and track teams. He and his Exeter classmate Eugene Clark were among only four Black students on campus.

Marshall set a new standard for the track team by smashing the school record in the shot put in 1906, while earning six letters in football and track. Alumni notes remembered Marshall as “a star athlete at Williams who rated the highest honors” in his studies.

Marshall left Williams after three years to complete his bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan.

Afterwards, he spent the summer of 1908 preparing for Yale Graduate School but was unable to afford the move and began graduate school at Michigan. Writing to the Hampton Alumni Office, he said: “I did not have a very successful summer [earning wages] so I came back to Michigan because it is cheaper.”

Marshall’s student experience spawned his desire to remain in education: “I finally decided to devote my time to the study of foods, both from the chemical and bacteriological sides. ... [There’s] a good chance to get a position at some school to teach this branch of chemistry. If necessary, I shall be perfectly willing to teach the foundation subjects such as Elementary Chemistry, Hygiene, and Biology.”

In fact, shortly into his graduate school stint in Ann Arbor, Marshall accepted a post at Howard University in Washington, D.C. At Howard, from 1909-21, he held numerous roles, including assistant professor in chemistry, instructor in English, director of athletics and head football coach.

In eight seasons as head football coach, Marshall accumulated an impressive record of 31-4-4, including four straight seasons (1909-12) in which his team was undefeated and unscored upon. One student at

GO BIG RED! A vintage poster depicting Exeter’s football triumph over Andover in 1903.

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Howard remarked, “Coach Marshall knows the game of football from the ground up.”

Indeed, Marshall’s leadership profoundly changed the nature of Howard’s athletic program. In December 1911 the Howard University Journal noted, “From the very time that Coach Marshall came here, athletics took on a new life in our University, and a new spirit was shown by the student body.”

Marshall affirmed, “As long as I am here the [Howard] colors will never trail in the dust.” But his team did not have the opportunity to play against the nation’s top white teams, at which several of his Exeter brethren were playing or coaching.

The Howard faithful voiced strong opinions in the Journal: “There is no doubt, but that Howard has one of the best all-around elevens in the country. All of this is due to Coach Marshall’s untiring and conscientious work with his men … From the beginning he thrust himself, full of vigor [and] spirit, into his work, and has brought athletics to the high point it has never before reached.”

One player said, “In Coach Marshall we have one of the best coaches in the country, a man whose judgment of men cannot be doubted.”

Always a passionate advocate for his players, Marshall pushed the university administration to raise money for a new athletic facility, and

CAPTAINS OF ACADEMY TEAMS.

Boston Daily Globe (1872-1922); Sep 23, 1903; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Boston Globe pg. 9

the community rallied behind him.

In December 1913, the Journal wrote, “Coach Marshall has done excellent work for Howard, as everyone testifies; coming to us in 1909 when our team needed a strong guiding hand, he soon established our record in football by a string of unbroken victories.”

In his final season as coach in 1916, the Journal reflected on Marshall’s effect on the program: “The greatest asset to the football squad is Coach Marshall. He has certainly done his share in developing a strong and powerful Howard machine … That he has succeeded can easily be attested by the large gate receipts … The men hold him in the greatest esteem, and never refuse to obey his orders or heed his calls.”

Marshall remains the greatest coach in Howard’s history. After stepping down as football coach in 1916, he remained at Howard as a chemistry professor through the 1920-21 academic year. In 1916, one

Marshall was a pioneer for HBCU football, spearheading the growth of Black athletic programs across the midAtlantic and Southeast.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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Exonians in the College Football Hall of Fame NAME

EXETER GRAD YEAR

COLLEGE

YE AR INDUCTED

Amos Alonzo Stagg

1885

Yale/Springfield/Chicago/Pacific

1951

Lee McClung

1888

Yale

1963

Marshall Newell

1890

Harvard

1957

James Hogan

1901

Yale

1954

Jim McCormick

1904

Princeton

1954

Howard Jones

1905

Syracuse/Yale/Ohio State/Iowa/ Duke/Southern California

1951

T.A.D. Jones

1905

Syracuse/Yale

1958

Ed Hart

1907

Princeton

1954

Eddie Casey

1915

Harvard

1968

Donold Lourie

1918

Princeton

1974 Inducted as a coach

student reflected, “The fact that much of his time must of necessity be spent in the classroom has not in the least caused him to lose a single morning’s practice, or to show any sign of indifference to his pedagogic work,” and asserted that the professor and coach “is doing the work of three men.” The spirit of Marshall’s Exeter education — faithfully adhering to his non sibi principles — is evident in these statements from his students at Howard.

Marshall’s influence extended to other historically Black colleges and universities. He co-founded the Colored Interscholastic Athletic Association, now known as the Central Interscholastic Athletic Association, an NCAA conference member. Marshall was a pioneer for HBCU football, spearheading the growth of Black athletic programs across the mid-Atlantic and

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Southeast. The trophy given to the winner of the football game between Howard and Morehouse College was co-named for Marshall, and the CIAA inducted Marshall into its Hall of Fame in 1985.

The pursuit of his life’s passion to be a physician prompted his move to graduate school at the University of Chicago. He took the requisite courses during the 1921-22 academic year to prepare for admission to Northwestern Medical School, where he completed his degree in 1927.

Marshall overcame significant adversity to become one of Northwestern’s early Black medical school graduates. To pay tuition, he took a job at the Chicago Post Office. The school’s registrar, C.W. Patterson, wrote a letter of concern to the postmaster regarding Marshall’s shift hours stating, “It appears that

Inducted as a player

[Marshall] has been depending on earning a part of his expenses by outside employment … [occupying] his time from 11 o’clock in the evening to 7:30 in the morning. I have told him that it was out of the question to carry the medical course, giving so much time to outside employment.”

The postmaster, however, was unyielding and did not shift Marshall’s hours.

Patterson felt strongly that Marshall should receive the opportunity to continue his studies with a more convenient work schedule: “Mr. Marshall is a high-class colored man, a graduate of the University of Michigan and a graduate student of the University of Chicago. He has made a good beginning with us.” Northwestern eventually hired Marshall as a night guard and as a laborer for campus renovation

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“We will remember Ernest as a great athlete and a fine guy. His

Ernest Marshall in a 1902 football team photo

successful struggle to get an education without any financial backing revealed his strength of character.”

— Eugene Clark ’04

PEA: A “Cradle of Coaches” Exonians named head coach at

41 institutions Amherst College

Grinnell College

Oregon State

Boston College

Harvard University (4)

University of the Pacific

Bowdoin College

Howard University

Princeton University

Cal-Berkeley (2)

University of Iowa

Purdue

University of Chicago

Johns Hopkins University

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2)

University of Colorado

University of Michigan

Saint Joseph’s

Concordia College (MN)

Michigan State

Syracuse University

Cornell University

Middlebury College

Tufts University (3)

Dartmouth College

University of Mount Union

Univ. of Southern California

University of Dayton

United States Naval Academy

Western Reserve

Duke University

University of New Hampshire

Williams College

Fargo College

University of North Carolina

University of Wisconsin

Fordham University (2)

North Carolina State

Yale University (4)

George Washington

Ohio State

projects so he could remain a fulltime student. He also worked four hours a day at Chicago’s Wesley Memorial Hospital to receive room and board there.

Marshall continued searching for creative ways to pay his tuition.

With Patterson’s help, during his third year at the school, he forged a relationship with Julius Rosenwald, the Chicago philanthropist and co-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Co. Rosenwald had supported numerous African American causes, notably, Black education and the growth of Black YMCAs across the country. The registrar wrote to Rosenwald that Marshall “has carried his schoolwork very well under rather serious financial handicaps. … On account of his record I would wish to do everything possible to help him.”

At the time, Marshall was in arrears for the two previous semesters and his future at the school was in peril. Rosenwald came to his aid, covering the two semesters of debt and paying future costs, to which the registrar replied, “I am very glad indeed to learn that Mr. Marshall is to receive this assistance and I have every reason to believe that he is deserving.”

Likewise, Rosenwald’s secretary, William Graves, was happy to learn that Marshall’s studies would not be interrupted: “[He] has been under considerable pressure to support himself, and I [offer] a personal endorsement in addition to what Mr. Rosenwald is advancing.”

When Marshall completed his studies, Graves observed, “Mr. Rosenwald shares the satisfaction … that Mr. Marshall was able to complete his work satisfactorily and to finish the course with his class.”

Shortly after departing Chicago, Marshall wrote an emotional letter of appreciation to Patterson, the Northwestern registrar: “Please let me thank you for the many kind things you did for me while there.

Without your help I never could have

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made it, and I shall ever be grateful to you.”

Marshall spent the following year completing a residency at Kansas City General Hospital in Missouri.

He practiced medicine in Kansas City for the rest of his life. Keeping an office as a general practitioner for over 30 years, Marshall was also a member of the staff at WheatleyProvident Hospital and General Hospital while being active in the Kansas City Medical Society, Missouri Pan-Medical Society and Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically African American fraternity. In addition to being a respected member of Kansas City society, Marshall maintained his enthusiasm for sports and the outdoors until he died in 1959. He was survived by his wife; a son, who also became a physician; and three grandchildren.

Throughout his life, Marshall understood what was important in education, not only to him, but also to students. Shortly before his death, he wrote: “If you learn only what’s in a book, then one school is about as good as another. But when a student comes in contact with [a transformational teacher] he gets something he never forgets and is even thankful for having known such men — they make the [school].”

Marshall’s career as an educator embodied this ideal. As one of his Howard students stated, “The deepest and most profound respect exists between [Coach Marshall] and his men.” This sentiment is akin to that of the Academy’s Deed of Gift, which states, “above all, it is expected that the attention of instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care.”

Marshall stayed intellectually active deep into his life. He maintained a concern for world affairs with an eye toward the future. In 1958 he wrote: “We have come through two major wars, a depression and a

police action. How much has been learned — very little I fear except improving the fine art of killing. I wonder where it will end. If world leaders can’t or won’t agree, I fear the great masses of humanity will get out of control and we know what the end will be.” Marshall’s compassion and empathy, developed through his vast experiences, were evident until the very end.

When Marshall died, Eugene Clark, his lifelong friend from Exeter and Williams, wrote: “We will remember Ernest as a great athlete and a fine guy. His successful struggle to get an education without any financial backing revealed his strength of character.”

Indeed, Marshall needed immense strength of character to live an impactful and extraordinary life when racial integration was far from commonplace in America. And he was proud to credit the foundation he received during his time at the Academy.

In a 1958 letter to the Williams Alumni Office, he wrote, “I prepped at Exeter, the greatest in the world.” E

A B O U T T H E AU T H O R

Panos Voulgaris is in his third year at Exeter as head football coach and instructor in physical education. Prior to joining PEA, he led three different football programs to championship seasons and taught history for 15 years. In 2022, he guided Exeter to a 7-1 season, the team’s best record in the last decade.

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FOLLOW ME ALUMNI MENTORS SHARE THEIR WORKPL ACE AND KNOWLEDGE WITH RISING SENIORS

By Debbie Kane

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nne Rankin ’92, the current Bates-Russell Distinguished

Faculty Professor and an instructor in science, embraces her role as a change agent at Exeter. Inspired by conversations with current and former students over her nearly 25 years with the Academy, Rankin spent months brainstorming ways to build meaningful connections between the groups.

“Students often talk about how valuable it is to have perspective from someone working in a career they’re interested in,” she says.

To provide those opportunities, Rankin coordinated nine new summer internships that pair students with alumni mentors in the workplace. Open by application to rising seniors, the internships placed students in diverse professional settings, including assisting with eye exams at a retinal clinic, helping a sustainable clothing brand prepare its 2024 collection, and collaborating virtually to develop an artificial intelligence module for older adults.

Rankin’s initiative complements the Academy’s robust summer internship program, which includes an 11-year partnership with Dr. Seung Kim ’81, director of the Stanford Diabetes Research Center.

Students work alongside Kim in his lab, conducting hands-on biomedical research, creating and characterizing new strains of fruit flies.

Rankin stresses that the internships are more than ways for students to work in interesting settings for a month or so. “It’s also an opportunity to learn from someone other than teachers,” Rankin says. “It’s about human relationships and learning how to be mentored. Putting the students in touch with a caring adult and having them talk to you about your next steps. That’s important.”

The alumni benefit as well. Mentoring students who share their Exeter experience is an opportunity to share real-world experiences as well as insight into their business or area of expertise. “We don’t coddle anyone,” says mentor Dennis Whittle ’79, co-founder of consulting firm Normal>Next. “They’re doing real work with real leaders in real time.”

Ultimately, for Whittle and other alumni, the mentorship opportunity was as rewarding for them as for the students. “It’s a chance to learn how to be mentors,” Rankin says, “and give back to Exeter in a meaningful way beyond financial contributions.”

Here’s a look at a few of the new internships.

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EXPLORING CLINICAL MEDICINE MENTOR

Dr. Raghu Murthy ’81, eye surgeon STUDENT

Jett Goetz Dr. Raghu Murthy ’81, an eye surgeon and founder of Retina Eye Specialists in South Pasadena, California, mentored and taught medical residents, teaching fellows and others in his practice for nearly 20 years. When Rankin asked him if he was interested in mentoring an Exeter student, he jumped at the chance. “It gives me a sense of purpose,” he says. “I want to pass along my knowledge and inspiration to others.”

During his two-month internship, Jett Goetz ’24 shadowed Murthy as he met with patients and took images of their eyes.

Eventually, Goetz worked directly with patients, handling their intake information and conducting eye exams.

“It was really interesting because the cases Dr. Murthy works on are usually very complex, like retinal detachments, diabetic retinopathy, macular edemas, macular degeneration, certain cancers, etc.,” Goetz says. “The other technicians I worked with in the office were all medical students, so what I was doing was something most young students wouldn’t be taught how to do yet.”

Harkness-style discussions with Murthy about patient cases and diseases also proved enlightening. “Dr. Murthy always took the time to check in with me, answer my questions, and teach me how to interpret the images taken of patients’ retinas,” Goetz says. Dr. Grace Ting, an emergency room physician and Murthy’s wife, was also available to share her expertise with Goetz, including teaching him basic suturing skills.

Working with Murthy cemented Goetz’s desire to pursue medicine as a career. “Jett got clinical exposure he can’t get anywhere else,” Murthy says. He believes sharing his medical knowledge with aspiring physicians is yet another form of goodness, or non sibi.

“That’s what Exeter’s all about,” he says.

From top: Jett Goetz ’24; Goetz with Dr. Raghu Murthy ’81, Goetz working with a patient

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EXPLORING SUSTAINABLE FASHION MENTOR

Heiji Black ’96, clothing designer STUDENT

Katelyn Cui

Katelyn Cui ’24 worked alongside Heiji Black ’96 at Jeune Otte, Black’s sustainable women’s clothing brand, based in Chicago. Cui worked on all elements of the business, including sewing buttons, posting on social media and cutting patterns; the primary focus was preparing the brand’s spring/summer 2024 collection for a fall photo shoot.

All of Jeune Otte’s clothing items are made in a repurposed leather tannery using fabrics that are dead stock, mill end, organic or recycled. “We try to minimize our footprint,” Black says. “Part of our business model is education around sustainability.”

“The Jeune Otte team’s connection with the people in their area and those with shared goals was what made it possible to source their fabric and produce locally,” Cui says. “Sharing with the community was the best way to build momentum and support.”

Among her greatest takeaways from the internship: informal conversations with her colleagues. “My co-workers and I just talked about life,” Cui says. “I learned about the fashion industry and what life is like after academics.”

She fit in easily at the studio. “You really have to know yourself,” Black says, “be confident and want to learn in order to absorb what is going on in a new environment. At the Harkness table you learn how to ask good questions and have an opinion. Katelyn did it in a kind and humble way. She was a total rock star.”

Katelyn Cui ’24 working at the Jeune Otte fashion studio.

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EXPLORING INVESTING MENTOR

Ben Gerig ’90, chief executive STUDENT

Leela Gandhi Leela Gandhi ’24 joined Ben Gerig ’90 at Northlight Capital Partners, the commercial real estate investment firm he founded in Westport, Connecticut.

Gandhi, who intends to pursue a business career, worked on projects related to the firm’s existing portfolio, analyzed potential deals (including researching the market comparables for a $35 million transaction), wrote investment committee memos and observed calls with potential borrowers and investment sponsors. “There’s no substitute for a real-world transaction that’s closing,” Gerig says. “It’s the real deal.”

Gerig often met with Gandhi after calls, too. “He would explain the dynamics at play to give me insight into the thought process behind his decisions,” she says.

“A lot of learning happens through osmosis,” Gerig says. “We tried to keep her on as many calls as possible.”

Probably the biggest benefit of the internship, Gandhi says, was her weekly catch-up with Gerig to discuss how the business works. “Mr. Gerig took time out of his busy schedule to teach me industry-specific concepts and share insights into the inner workings of investment opportunities,” she says.

“The clubs I’m in at Exeter have allowed me to develop my passion for business and finance, but this internship provided me with an opportunity to develop real-world skills and work closely with experienced professionals.”

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EXPLORING SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MENTOR

Dr. Shelly Bhowmik ’03, preventive and lifestyle medicine physician STUDENTS

Vedika Amin Pallavi Saxena Lauren Kim Offering hands-on experience working for a solo-preneur is exactly what Dr. Shelly Bhowmik ’03 had in mind when Exeter interns joined her to help market her consulting practice, Platform Wellness. Bhowmik, a physician, is a workplace well-being consultant who supports women of color to combat stress and burnout.

“Once these students leave Exeter,” she says, “they’ll encounter so many different scenarios, and I wanted to help them understand how to navigate those situations.”

Bhowmik charged her three interns with creating a year’s worth of social media content for her business. “As an entrepreneur and a minority woman-owned business,” she says, “I rely on social media to attract corporate clients, and it’s important that I present the right information to the right audience.”

Drawn to the internship because of its proximity to diversity, equity and inclusion issues, Lauren Kim ’24 researched and wrote blog articles about topics affecting women of color in the workplace, including diversification, burnout and obtaining employee/caregiver benefits. She also generated content for the company’s social media outlets and mailing list. Kim was surprised to learn about the high burnout rate among women of color in corporate settings, especially after major technology company layoffs.

“The leaders we met through Dr. Bhowmik really helped me understand the preventative wellness and DEI field, something I wasn’t familiar with before,” Kim says. “I also gained a greater understanding of typical workplace environments and employee experiences within a DEI framework.”

Bhowmik was open to working with Exeter students because “I demand excellence from myself,” she says, “and that’s what you get with Exeter students. I knew they’d bring forward quality work.”

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EXPLORING SYNTHETIC CHEMISTRY MENTOR

Manuel Montori ’12, biotech engineer STUDENTS

Nora Sharma Charles Potjer Nora Sharma ’24 and Charles Potjer ’24 worked alongside Manuel Montori ’12 in the lab at his Austin, Texas, startup, Spero Technologies. Montori and his co-founder are conducting research to benefit biological manufacturing technology, using a system based on recombinant enzymes to produce compounds like pigments, vitamins and aromatics.

Sharma and Potjer familiarized themselves with Spero’s research and the academic literature supporting it, then moved on to tasks in the lab. Sharma streamlined the lab’s process of growing Physarum enzyme in a bioreactor. Potjer replicated a process called chitin-binding, or immobilizing enzymes, making it easier for them to be purified and increasing their life span.

Potjer was impressed by the autonomy he was granted.

“I worked one-on-one every day with the company founders and worked independently, helping with lab work, designing experiments and reading through copious amounts of papers,” he says. “I felt like my voice mattered. I got to think creatively, take risks and operate with a level of independence I don’t think I could have in many other spaces. It certainly wasn’t a traditional lab research experience — which is why I loved it!”

Montori lauded the students, saying: “We were impressed by Nora and Charles’ ability to dive into some pretty complex and specialized science, both reading literature and executing experiments in the lab. It was a privilege to work with them. We hope to keep fostering a great relationship with Exeter.”

From top: Charles Potjer ’24; Spero co-founder Connor Behr, Potjer, Nora Sharma ’24 and Manuel Montori ’12; Sharma

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EXPLORING PUBLIC POLICY & DEVELOPMENT MENTORS

STUDENTS

Dennis Whittle ’79 and Chip Storey ’79, consultants and startup co-founders

Hannah Park Kahliya Clayton Gunn Sukhum Jonny Chen Angel Guo

Five Exeter students worked together to help close the growing gap between generations and foster meaningful intergenerational connections outside the family. At Normal>Next, co-founders Dennis Whittle ’79 and Chip Storey ’79 engaged the students, all working virtually, to create a learning module that would help older adults meet and connect with young people through artificial intelligence.

The internship began with a one-week onboarding process (the same process the company uses for its college and graduate school interns) that trained the Exeter students in design thinking principles as well as organizational behavior. Then the group worked collaboratively — without specific guidelines — to develop the one-hour module’s content and present their methodology to company executives, board members and select people outside the company.

“In some ways, the Exeter students had an advantage because of their Harkness training,” Storey says. “It makes them more confident in expressing ideas and helps with the whole process of collaboration.”

They also had to test their ideas with older adults to make sure they were realistic and effective. “A great idea may not work in practice, so you have to try again until it works,” Whittle says.

Hannah Park ’24 and Angel Guo ’24 applied for the Normal>Next internship because they were looking for a collaborative, community-centered experience. “If I could explain my experience in just three words, it would be community, experiential and impact,” Park says. “We were challenged to step out of our comfort zone and expand our way of thinking. All of the skills I learned in the program are essential to the fields I’m interested in pursuing.”

Guo, who wanted a real-world experience that enabled her to help others, says, “I discovered the importance of empathy and learned that the process should guide you towards a solution, not the other way around.”

Both were surprised by how much they were able to accomplish during hourslong Zoom calls across several time zones over the three-week internship. “Our team was incredibly effective, and we had great chemistry,” Guo says.

Park adds, “It was meaningful to be able to take what we learned and developed over the three weeks, and give it to real people and make a real impact.”

Whittle and Storey hope that the student-created module will be implemented this fall by two national organizations. They’re proud of the way the students represented Exeter. “When you do things like this, it requires you to fail a lot,” Whittle says. “I’m proud we were able to get them to see the thrill of experimentation.” E

INTERESTED IN HOSTING A SUMMER INTERN? Email Anne Rankin at aerankin@exeter.edu.

WANT TO BECOME A MENTOR? Register at exonians.exeter.edu/directory.

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The Visiting Fireman R E M E M B E R I N G J. RO B E RT O P P E N H E I M E R’S I N S P I R I N G 1 9 5 5 S TAY AT E X E T E R

By Patrick Garrity

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BETTMAN/ CONTRIBUTOR VIA GETTY IMAGES

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J.

Robert Oppenheimer stood on the Academy chapel stage, his prepared remarks to 700 boys and their teachers reaching the end of an hour. “I am at the end of my time,” he said. “I may have spoken a little sadly; but I do not have the feeling this is bad news. I have the feeling that there is only one true danger, and that is to go into our life or through it without understanding what we are up against, what is asked of us, and by what we can reasonably be judged.”

With those words, Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb,” concluded his extraordinary visiting fellowship at Exeter in 1955.

Today Oppenheimer is a household name, the result of an epic eponymous film whose nearly billion-dollar box office haul is a record for a biopic. Almost 80 years ago, he was known worldwide as the brilliant physicist behind the Manhattan Project who played a pivotal role in developing the atomic weapons that ultimately ended World War II. His leadership of the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico, where the work was conducted, earned him global celebrity and influence.

But Oppenheimer was more infamous than famous when Exeter invited him to be its first “visiting fireman.”

His old acquaintances and unpopular views on nuclear proliferation had turned an unforgiving spotlight on Oppenheimer in the years after the war. The fallout stained his legacy and largely cost him his career.

How he wound up at Exeter, how he spent his week on campus, and the waves his visit created are preserved in letters and newspaper and magazine clippings in the Library of Congress — and in the memories of those Exonians fortunate enough to be enrolled in the fall of 1955.

The Nuclear Age The world changed greatly during the decade after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. An “iron curtain” of Soviet control fell across Eastern Europe. A three-year war on the Korean Peninsula between communist and pro-democracy forces resulted in stalemate and cost more than 35,000 American lives.

A nuclear arms race was on, with the development of the atomic bomb giving way to pursuit of the thermonuclear hydrogen bomb — a weapon a thousand times more powerful than the one that flattened Hiroshima. In hearing rooms in the U.S. Senate and in the editorial pages of American newspapers, attempts to thwart communism blossomed into a full-blown “red scare” that infected everyday life.

The race for nuclear supremacy and heightened fears about the spread of communism led to Oppenheimer’s undoing.

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ly “there is on ger, one true dan to and that is go into our ut life … witho g understandin what we are up against.”

As the nation’s foremost scientist, and a leading voice in the fledgling Atomic Energy Commission, Oppenheimer was against expanding the nation’s nuclear arsenal. He lobbied to end research into the hydrogen bomb — then referred to as the “Super” — and urged international oversight of nuclear weapons. Those views placed him afoul of hawks in Congress and U.S. military leadership — and President Harry Truman, who rejected Oppenheimer’s advice. They also led the FBI to reopen an Oppenheimer file that was started before the war because of his friendships with and connections to communists in academia.

In late 1953, an aide on the congressional committee overseeing nuclear arms sent a letter to the FBI claiming that “more probably than not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union.” The resulting uproar prompted the government to conduct a security investigation into Oppenheimer. On June 1, 1954, after 19 days of closed testimony, the inquiry found that Oppenheimer was in fact loyal to his country but that his testimony in the hearings had been “less than candid” and that his views against developing the hydrogen bomb “had an adverse effect on recruitment of scientists and the progress of the scientific effort.”

The board voted to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance, denying him access to the nation’s nuclear research and secrets, and effectively ending his influence on the matter. The father of the atomic bomb, a hero of American science, was relegated to exile in academia.

That’s where the Principal’s Visiting Fellows Committee and one of its members, Michael Tennican ’56, found him in 1955.

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Letters exchanged between Principal William G. Saltonstall and Robert Oppenheimer.

Inviting Discourse The idea of embedding a VIP — a “visiting fireman” in popular parlance — at Exeter belonged to the editorial board of The Exonian. The students pitched the program to Principal William Saltonstall in 1954. “Under the Visiting Fellows Plan,” the newspaper reported, “noted figures in fields such as history, literature, and the arts would spend from one to two weeks or perhaps more at PEA, giving lectures, visiting classes and most important, talking informally with boys.”

The choice was ambitious. Oppenheimer made few public appearances after his security clearance was revoked. Only a month before Exeter’s invitation, the president of the University of Washington canceled a plan for Oppenheimer to deliver a series of lectures there.

The resulting upheaval led the state of Washington to outlaw the Communist Party and require all government employees to take a loyalty oath.

“The committee as a whole was very much aware of the controversy surrounding Oppenheimer’s public stance and considered whether that controversy counseled against inviting him to Exeter,” Tennican recalls.

“I think that all of us concluded that his cautions against nuclear weapons were well worth consideration and that Exeter students were plenty strong enough to weigh his arguments against contrary views, however loud.”

Saltonstall extended the formal invitation to Oppenheimer in a letter dated March 11, 1955: “For some time now, we have been discussing the possibility of inviting to the school for a week or two a Visiting Fellow.

We already have many guest speakers during the year, but in every case, they come, deliver their speeches, and in a day or two are on their way again.

“It is the very strong desire of our students and faculty

Science is one of the “great testaments to man’s power and his reason, but it is always aware of its limits.”

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that we try to persuade one or two people a year to stay for a longer period of time in order that men and boys will have more of an opportunity to talk with them without a feeling of pressure. ... Is it possible that you would be able to come to Exeter sometime this spring as the first Visiting Fellow?”

A month passed before Oppenheimer replied. “Dear Mr. Saltonstall. Thank you for your good letter of March 11th. I am delighted by your plan … and touched and grateful that you should have invited me. … I should like very much to accept.”

Crowded schedules led the visit to be delayed until the following fall, when it was decided that a week in mid-November worked best. In the days ahead of Oppenheimer’s arrival, Saltonstall suggested a “flexible” itinerary that included “meetings with mathematics and scientific societies, the board of the school paper and perhaps one or two of the other student organizations; discussions with faculty in the Math, Science and History departments”; and a closing address “to the boys and the faculty and their wives.” On Nov. 16, 1955, J. Robert Oppenheimer arrived at Exeter.

Memorable Conversations The visit surpassed Saltonstall’s hopes. “For six days he answered questions in the school’s Lamont Art Gallery,” Newsweek reported. “He was mercilessly grilled about everything from segregation to religion and science, from the Geneva Conference to how to get rid of communists in Tibet.”

The Exonian reported that Oppenheimer spent eight hours a day speaking with students and teachers: “Friday was a typical day. In the morning, the doctor, after having met with the Science Department, held discussions with four science sections. He ate lunch with eight or 10 of the leading science students. After talking with boys for most of the afternoon on the balcony of the Art Gallery, Dr. Oppenheimer had dinner with some of the faculty.”

Ben Page ’58 recalls being among a half-dozen chemistry and physics students who met informally with the scientist. “Oppenheimer was probably the smartest person I have ever encountered, in a lifetime of meeting many smart and interesting people,” says Page, now an emeritus professor at Northwestern University.

The week culminated with Oppenheimer’s remarks to the entire Exeter community on a Monday evening in chapel, the informal name then used for both the physical space in which the community gathered in the Academy Building as well as the gatherings themselves. The speech, by all accounts, was stirring. He wished for every student in attendance “to look into some area of science you do not understand, to have a sense of impotence and darkness about it, to find your way gradually into seeing what it is really all about, of seeing how it ties up with

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Oppenheimer’s lecture inspired student reflection, including this poem by Thorne Gray ’56.

things you have known before, to see its order and its beauty. It is something that you will never forget.”

He told listeners that science is one of the “great testaments to man’s power and his reason, but it is always aware of its limits. He who practices it ought always to be aware that its powers, though great, are limited, that he is not like God, but that he is something special in his own right.”

Oppenheimer pondered aloud what Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin would think of the unfathomable strides science had made in the previous 200 years, saying, “They would have been overwhelmed by what the application of science has done to man’s life, by the

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extent to which it has lengthened his life, made it possible to alleviate and cope with his pain and his trouble, made it possible to extend his powers, made power itself really quite abundant.”

Then he came to the heart of his remarks: three “rather troublesome points” that science had wrought.

First, he said, “science has given us the power to do a lot of things that we should not. … the exercise of this power will produce evil; the exercise of that power is disaster.”

Second, Oppenheimer said, science and politics had diverged in ways Jefferson and Franklin could not have imagined: “Because of the complexity of technical things,

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Letters reveal the discordant opinions and controversy surrounding Oppenheimer’s visit.

imagine t o n n a c “I other anything saster than a di stop that will ulation the accum dge.” of knowle

competence and expertness are vested in people who have not and probably should not have the authority; and people in authority are ignorant — and not always adequately aware of how ignorant — of the very technical things on which their decisions have to rest.”

Third, he said, he regretted the effect of the complexity and specialization of scientific study: “Men in one field get deep into it, devote their life to it, love it, make maybe some great discoveries in it — and really not know too much of what is going on in another.” The more we learn, the less we know, in other words.

“I think these changes are here to stay,” he said, “because I cannot imagine anything other than a disaster that will stop the accumulation of knowledge.”

The Fallout Oppenheimer’s address received the highest marks from the students. “His speech was undoubtedly the most thought-provoking and comprehensive that has been given, and perhaps that will be given, during this year,” The Exonian reported.

“Spectacular,” Page recalls.

William “Bo” Wreden ’58 says, “The following day I wrote to my parents, first about my grades and about Thanksgiving plans and then about my impressions” of the address. He wrote, “Oppenheimer gave an excellent speech in Chapel on Monday which had the most applause I have ever heard given to a speaker (and some speakers get an aweful [sic] lot here).”

Saltonstall summarized Oppenheimer’s residency for the Boston Sunday Herald: “His enthusiasm and understanding have been a special joy to me. I’ve been happy with the whole thing.”

Others were less enamored, namely William Loeb III, the publisher of the Manchester Union Leader. He held outsize influence as a conservative kingmaker because of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary every four years. Loeb called Oppenheimer’s appearance “revolting” in an editorial published three days later. Citing the revocation of the scientist’s security clearance and his “friendship with Reds,” Loeb said it

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was “gross negligence” on the part of Academy leaders to allow “Oppenheimer to ‘stimulate the minds of the students.’ It is worse than that. It is an instance of glaring arrogance and of utter disregard of proprieties, patriotic and otherwise.”

The editorial prompted some letters to Saltonstall condemning the invitation. It also drew stinging retorts from students who wrote letters to the editor of the Union Leader. “If I were you, I should not worry about another’s disregard for patriotic proprieties, but about my own abuse of those liberties which we Americans so dearly cherish in this land of freedom,” wrote C. Bradley Moore ’57.

The students’ letters only further agitated Loeb. He followed with a series of editorials bearing headlines like “Mis-Education at Exeter” and “Arrogance and Illogic at Exeter,” writing “how completely these naïve young men have been taken in by Oppenheimer can be best judged from those letters.”

In a letter to Saltonstall, Oppenheimer lamented the war of words. “I have seen some of the attacks made upon Exeter for inviting me,” he wrote. “I hope they have brought you no serious trouble.”

A Christmas card Katharyn Saltonstall sent to Oppenheimer perhaps best summarized the feelings of her husband and the Exeter community. “What a rich harvest of ideas and sober thoughts your week’s visit provoked and inspired among the boys, the faculty and all of us who were privileged to meet and talk with you,” she wrote. “I remember nothing that has had quite the same impact and influence for good on the community in all the 25 years we have been at Exeter.”

Valued Perspective More visiting fellows followed Oppenheimer through the program, including Pulitzer Prize winners Ralph McGill and Mark Van Doren. In 1969, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall spent two days in Exeter. To this day, Exeter benefits from a rich and diverse roster of distinguished visiting speakers.

As for Oppenheimer, he was director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton from 1947 to 1966. At the time of his death in 1967, the world’s nuclear cache had reached a peak of more than 31,000 warheads.

Last year, the Biden administration reversed the 1954 decision to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance.

The Atomic Energy Commission’s investigation was a “flawed process that violated the Commission’s own regulations,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a news release. “As time has passed, more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed.” E

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CONNECTIONS

News and notes from the alumni community

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The Exeter DNA

By Audrey Vanderslice ’20

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hen I walk across campus toward my thesis seminar in this

final year of college, much reminds me of my formative years at Exeter: The lawns hark back to the quad, everyone refers to the dining halls as D-hall and the four seasons of New England weather remain, even though winter always seems to last the longest.

Of course, many facets of college life differ from those Exeter days. No check-in times or assemblies punctuate my week. Classes don’t revolve around the Harkness method. And yet my time at Harvard has made it clear that the values and habits I developed during my time at Exeter remain intrinsic to who I am irrespective of my environment.

One of many key lessons I acquired at Exeter: engage. Within hours of moving into my Harvard dorm room, I ventured outside to seek new opportunities. I tried out for clubs I could barely name, applied for courses I discovered online, and found ways to connect with new classmates even though I sometimes doubted if I’d become as close to them as I felt to my Exeter friends.

I did not get into many (if not most) of the clubs and classes I applied to. And just last week, I lost an election for class marshal. Several times over the last few years, I have been incredibly grateful that Exeter provided the tools for me to succeed in college, but perhaps more often I’ve been grateful that Exeter taught me that it was all right to fail. Regardless of the ultimate result, it is always worth it to care and to try.

I truly believe that getting involved is as much a part of our collective DNA as waving when crossing Front Street. Exonians seek to immerse themselves and enhance every community of which they’re a part. Each year, as another class of Exonians is added to the admittedly chaotic Exeter at Harvard group chat on Facebook Messenger, it is only a matter of weeks before they join or start their own clubs.

My friend Anne, a former editor-in-chief of The Exonian, is now leading an organization that aspires to make startups a viable career option for talented students and has helped raise $140 million in seed funding. Ayush, another friend who served as Student Council president at Exeter, has worked with research laboratories at Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute, using artificial intelligence to discover new diagnostic and therapeutic options for neurological diseases. The dozens of other Exonians sprawled across campus encounter one another in board meetings of new extracurriculars and on late-night burrito runs.

I know this rule holds true across colleges, too. After four years of competing on the same counsel table on Exeter’s mock trial team, my friend Sam and I found ourselves rivals in the final round of the mock trial national championships. Moments before trial started, I found a sticky note from Sam on my chair wishing me luck and reminding me to have fun.

I have come to rely on such support from fellow Exonians, as they have consistently offered me both emotional and pragmatic guidance. The former director of the consulting group I now help lead was a year ahead of me at Exeter, where we worked together on the Student Council.

At Harvard, she suggested extracurriculars she thought I might enjoy, prepped me for my first job interview and recently advised me on how to find a thesis adviser. She didn’t have to help — she sincerely wanted to.

When the class of 2020 graduated from Exeter in the midst of COVID-19, I worried that our ties to the school would fade with time. Now I feel quite the opposite as I’ve watched Exonians serve as an increasingly strong support system for one another. I don’t know much about what my postcollegiate future might hold, but I do know that no matter where I find myself, I will always have Exonians there to facilitate and celebrate life’s successes, place our inevitable failures in their proper perspective, and encourage one another to continue growing along the way. E

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CURTIS HAAS ’18

Going With the Flow

By Sarah Zobel

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ince earning undergraduate degrees in physics and math at Colby College, Curtis Haas ’18 has distinguished himself at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and beyond.

As a first-year doctoral student in 2022, he was awarded the inaugural Stanley Corrsin Graduate Fellowship in Fluid Dynamics from JHU’s Center for Environmental and Applied Fluid Mechanics.

“Fluids is more of an everyday thing,” Haas says, explaining the appeal of studying turbulence and hypersonic flows. “We don’t really interact with quantum mechanics or general relativity as much.”

This summer, Haas received a prestigious National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The fellowship is given to exceptional graduate students in science and engineering whose work is important to the mission of the Defense Department.

It pays three years of tuition, and provides a stipend, a travel allowance and a mentor.

Haas would eagerly accept an invitation to fly at supersonic speed, but for now he’s on the ground in Baltimore, where we caught up with him as he began the second year of his doctoral studies.

What’s the focus of your research?

Traditionally, there are two ways to study fluids: computationally or experimentally. If we’re running a computer simulation, its accuracy depends on the initial conditions,

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which are hard to know exactly in real life because the systems are nonlinear and chaotic. On the other hand, experiments are difficult, especially with these highspeed flow regimes. We’re working on hypersonic flows, which are so incredibly fast and hot that you can only have limited sensors on the vehicle, or they’ll break off. Our research combines the two approaches, using limited sensor measurements from flight tests, for example, and working backward to figure out the initial conditions that caused those measurements. Once we have those conditions, we can use the simulation to generate the full flow field. We’ll get the benefits of each method and eliminate the deficiencies.

What does this look like outside the lab?

One important application is that going supersonic — above the sound barrier — over the United States is illegal because of the sonic boom. NASA is currently developing and testing an aircraft that reduces the sonic boom, with the goal of ending the ban on supersonic flight, and there are companies working on commercial travel at supersonic speeds. Hopefully, they’ll make it legal in the near future.

Humans always want to go faster, so it seems like eventually we’ll get there.

Are there non-flight-related applications?

Our method is general enough to be used at any flow speed. For example, if there’s an oil spill and you have measurements of the environment or the oil spill, you could work backward and figure out the source of the spill using these methods. It’s the same idea: You have sensor measurements and you want to work out the initial conditions that caused it. E

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The New Life of Reilly

By Danielle Cantor

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Science, just like life, can do that. In hen John Reilly ’68 was March 2016, life dealt Reilly a monuin the ninth grade, his mental surprise: He had a stroke. “I was grandparents sent him a writing a note and my pen slipped out of book about energy, with a my hand,” Reilly recalls. “I went to pick it chapter titled, “The Fantastic World of Dr. up, then I began to slip out of my chair. A Einstein.” “The physics read like science colleague saw me hit the floor. She knew fiction,” Reilly recalls. “I was fascinated. immediately to call 911.”

From then on, I knew that’s what I wanted He had lost all sensation in the right to study.” Young Reilly was correct in his side of his body. His speech was limited, prophecy — he grew up to be a college and he used a wheelchair. It was only after physics instructor. What he could not a month in the hospital, and three months possibly predict is that his career would of residential rehab, that he could return first take a 40-year detour. to live at home. With steadfast support After earning a master’s degree in from his wife, Kate, and extended family, physics from Duke University in 1974, he made remarkable progress.

Reilly taught for two years at a junior high In 2018, he took his first trip since the school in North Carolina. Looking for a stroke: a flight north to the Academy for summer job, he was hired as a vacation his 50th reunion. “Attending the reunion replacement by a local TV station. After was the start of a new post-stroke chapter a few weeks, the station offered him a for me,” Reilly says. “Even though I still permanent position. Just like that, his had impairments, I began to resume summer gig turned into a long career in exercise at the YMCA, volunteering at the sports broadcasting. museum, and French language conversaReilly worked for nearly 20 years in tion at the International House.”

Charlotte, analyzing ratings and supportThe “new chapter” also included a ing advertising sales. He then spent 19 Top: John Reilly ’68 at second chance to embrace the career he years with ESPN Regional Television, his 55th Exeter reunion. had left behind. He devoted his energy to the college sports syndication division of Bottom: Reilly volunteering reviewing the science and preparing to teach ESPN. In 2014 he moved to Raycom Sports at the science museum. again. The profession had changed substanas a research and sales consultant. tially since the ’70s. Film projectors, mimeographs and slide Reilly traces the inspiration for that life-changing rules were no longer the norm. Reilly had also changed. summer job back to his Academy days. He came to Exeter, a “I wanted to make sure I could still do the work,” he says. long way from his hometown, Norfolk, Virginia, as an upper “So I took the modern version of the certification test to and says he had to “work really hard to stay above water.” teach high school physics in North Carolina — the same one Still, he allowed himself time off for one activity: spinning I had taken nearly 40 years ago. Luckily, it worked out OK!” records at the school radio station, WPEA-FM. In August 2019, Reilly stood in front of a classroom of Although broadcasting became the focus of Reilly’s physics students at Central Piedmont Community College, career, his passion for physics remained constant. In 1981 armed with PowerPoints and passion. Four years later, he he began volunteering at Charlotte’s new hands-on science says, he has found his true calling as an adjunct instructor. museum, Discovery Place. He manned the demonstration “Finally, I am using what I learned in school,” he says. “I stations, including “Upside-Down Water,” in which the feel that I got a second chance and, in turn, I owe something force of atmospheric pressure bests the force of gravity. He back. I am happy I get to do it.” E loves it, he says, “because it surprises people so.”

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M O N I C A D I L I S I O B E R RY ’8 3

Healing the Arts

By Juliet Eastland ’86

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lthough she might not use the term, Monica

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Over the years, Berry has cleaned coins at an excavation site on the Aegean island Samothrace, rehabilitated Amazonian featherwork at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., stabilized the experimental glazes of a contemporary sculptor, and laid hands on every artifact in the Greek and Roman gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

“You’re looking at a ceramic that’s, say, 2,500 years old, and you see fingerprints in the clay body,” she says. “It feels spiritual.”

For the past eight months Berry has been back at the MFA, immersed in Renaissance Venice as she works on an imposing 15th-century altarpiece by Bartolomeo Vivarini. Acquired by the museum in 1901, the ornately framed altarpiece features an approximately three-foot-high painted wooden pietà, surrounded by painted wooden panels of saints. Carved in high relief, the pietà centerpiece was clearly intended to leap from the flat background, but over centuries, it had darkened and deteriorated.

“There was a lot of detail that had been completely obscured,” Berry says. An earlier varnish application had yellowed, coating the sculpture with a murky residue.

Christ’s eyes were indistinct under layers of grime, and years of devotional touching had eroded part of his foot. An earlier restoration effort had deformed Mary’s nose. Most worrisome from a structural standpoint were hundreds of tiny black holes pockmarking the sculpture, the result of pervasive damage from wood-boring worms. Well-meaning curators in the early 19th century had dipped the sculpture in hot beeswax to fill the holes, but the wax mostly stayed on the surface, where it attracted dirt.

Her patient, Berry says, “had a lot of problems.”

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON, 2023

Berry ’83 is a healer. Her patients’ needs vary: Some may have a simple fracture, while others may be weakened from botched surgeries. Some are so frail from years of neglect, they require a house call.

They range in age from newborn to around 4,500 years old.

They are cultural artifacts — sculptures, decorative arts, archaeological materials, outdoor monuments and contemporary art.

For over 25 years as a freelance conservator, Berry has helped museums, historic properties, artists, galleries and private collectors preserve objects and sculptures. “I really like to be hands-on, to look at art up close,” she says.

“What drew me to conservation was that it requires attentive looking, and I was actually given permission to touch! I think it’s a privilege to have your hands on something that has cultural significance.”

Berry originally intended to become a healer of people.

But while completing premedical requirements at Cornell, she was also studying Italian, majoring in art history and taking studio art classes. She found herself enraptured by the “new, bright colors” emerging from the 1980s Sistine Chapel restoration.

Forgoing medical school, she studied art conservation in Italy after graduation, then obtained a master’s degree in art history and diploma in conservation from The Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Later, she obtained a diploma in art conservation from Harvard University Art Museums’ Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies. At the time, in the 1990s, NYU’s Conservation Center was one of only three programs in the country offering the requisite training in chemistry, art history and hand skills.

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PHOTOGRAPHS © 2023, MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON; OBJECT GIFT OF QUINCY ADAMS SHAW

microscopy (by a conservation For this kind of polychrome scientist) revealed both indigo dye wood piece, Berry says, the goal and azurite crystals as well as traces is “to let age be visible and not try of gilding. Originally, this now to mask a lot, not try to do a lot chemically altered surface had been of compensation.” Her mandate, a bright ultramarine color with gold therefore, was not to create a perfect highlights to imitate a rich brocade. replica, nor deceive viewers into “The blue background is very underthinking they were looking at an bound, meaning there’s not very untouched original, but to illumimuch there holding it together, so nate the pietà’s essence through cleaning had to be very controlled,” judicious, conservative care. As with she says. an archaeological artifact: “You do Under the microscope, Berry want to see its age. You don’t want it injected a stable and compatible to look perfect.” consolidant in the wormholes to give Additionally, her work needed the weakend wood support more to cohere with that of the paintings structural integrity, and removed conservator and the frame and previous restoration along a wood furniture conservators. Initially the split in Mary’s face. Then came the altarpiece’s gleaming 24-karat-gold arduous removal of soot and grime. frame (fully restored in the early 20th Generally, she says, the oil paint century) did not jibe with the panels can be carefully cleaned under low and sculpture’s wear. magnification. But areas with more So the frame conservator delicate glazes — especially the reds “is actually going in and toning in Mary’s face and hands — required down the brilliant gold to create even greater care. “Under 25-40x an artificial patina,” Berry says. magnification, I could really see the Occasionally, conservators and subtle distinction between restocurators will put up the pietà and ration and the original paint layers,” a few panel paintings to discuss, she says.

“What’s the gilding looking like on The last stage of treatment is the panels, compared to the pietà, cosmetic — fills and retouching. compared to the frame? Overall, Berry filled disfiguring loss that when it’s eventually integrated, it bisected Mary’s face, as well as the needs to resonate as a whole.” many visually disruptive wormholes As with any healer, Berry’s in both figures. Finally, using a varioverriding concern is to do no harm. ety of paints (gouache, acrylic and Her first task, therefore, was figuring finely ground pigment in resin), she out how to remove the wax and began retouching areas of loss. varnish safely without damaging “Before treatment,” Berry the sculpture’s gilding (halos and says, “Mary looks ancient, completely Mary’s outer robe), oil paint (flesh and Virgin and the Dead Christ haggard, which she’s meant to — she’s drapery detail) or pigment (background). with the Ascension and Saints lost her son — but when she’s clean, we The materials used in conservation today

by Bartolomeo Vivarini, 1485. see a younger face with expressive lines, are likely to change over time, she says, so rosy cheeks and nose red from crying, and these two the paints, pigments, consolidants, adhesives, “should be readily reversible in the future without any further damage,” white tears coming down her cheeks that we couldn’t see before. … beautiful, intimate details.” she says.

It’s an arresting, visceral portrait of grief, as moving Berry began by testing various solvent mixtures and now as it must have been to worshipers more than five dwell times to find what would be the safest cleaning centuries ago. methods for various surfaces. Cleaning proceeded using Once the altarpiece goes back on display at the end of hand-rolled cotton swabs. As the yellowed varnish and the year, Berry plans to mark the moment with a celebratory wax dissolved, floral patterning began to emerge from meal (Italian, of course). After almost a year of intensive, what appeared to be a solid-black matte background. hands-on caretaking, she’ll be hungry. E A combination of spectral analysis and high-resolution

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Memorial Minute Lynda K. Beck ’80 (Hon.)

Instructor in Science and Vice Principal, Emerita (1944-2021)

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ynda Beck grew up in Schenectady, New York, an only child whose father was an engineer at General Electric’s laboratories. She graduated from Niskayuna High School, where she was an accomplished athlete and scholar, and went on to earn an undergraduate degree from the State University of New York, Cortland. She arrived at the Academy in 1972 with her freshly minted Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of New Hampshire, the first female teacher in the Science Department. She was assigned to teach chemistry and physics, and soon developed the department’s Advanced Placement chemistry program, which she taught with distinguished results, and for which she earned a summer of study at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

As a member of the small initial group of pioneering women on the faculty, Lynda contributed substantially to PEA’s effort to become a place where the girls and female teachers could thrive rather than just exist in a boys school that had simply hired female faculty and admitted girls.

Fifty years ago, very few women with a Ph.D. were in her field.

Graduate school was Lynda’s proving ground in terms of easing her “place at the table,” and it prepared her for teaching at that historic time at PEA. She was used to a certain amount of sexism in college because she was usually the only woman in science classes. In a 2020 Bulletin interview, she reminisced: “ ‘I remember when UNH redesigned its science building, I was the only female chemistry graduate student, and they asked me what kind of rugs I thought they should have. I’m not kidding!’ Rather than getting angry at the male professor asking the only woman in the class about room décor, Lynda listed the actual needs of the lab: fume hoods, eye washes and goggles.”

And this is what Lynda did in her 26-year tenure at the Academy. “It was very difficult,” she told the Bulletin.

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“Certainly, the community was very supportive and there was a lot of good will, but there was not a whole lot of understanding of what it means to be coed [at that time].

Each time something sexist was said, I corrected it.”

In the timeline of changes at PEA, the most salient experience in Lynda’s tenure was her work with the Committee to Enhance the Status of Women, which was instrumental in helping to voice the concerns of the female faculty and students. Lynda credited that committee work with helping her learn the skills needed to be successful in her future administrative roles.

Another major event early in Lynda’s career was her work as one of the five founding members to launch the Conference of Women in Independent Schools. In June 1983, it brought to campus, among others, the feminists Pauli Murray, Carol Gilligan and Gloria Steinem. It was the first conference of its kind, and one that succeeded and continued in subsequent years. A 1993 edition of the Bulletin stated: “The overall goal of the conference was to create a national network of female faculty in independent schools similar to the one that existed for male faculty. The workshops were planned to cover broad educational theories as well as practical skills — computer literacy, financial planning, public speaking, legal rights. Things that women might not seek out or have access to.”

During Lynda’s early years at the Academy, computers and the internet were making inroads in education, and she was asked to head a team that set policy and brought the latest technology and fiber-optic infrastructure to every classroom, dormitory and office on campus. Jim Samiljan, emeritus modern languages instructor, remarked that Lynda was chosen “for her superior organizational skills, fastidious attention to detail and leadership qualities.”

Gradually, Lynda moved from full-time teaching to administration. Before becoming vice principal, she served on several faculty committees. She counted the writing of

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the Academy’s first sexual harassment manual as one of her most consequential accomplishments. Lynda knew of no harassment cases at the time, but she thought that the rules of behavior and engagement needed to be clear to everyone. She was also pleased with the establishment of partner benefits for gay faculty.

One colleague shared: “Lynda knew when it was the time to put together diverse teams with different talent sets in order to tackle problems. When at sea as to which direction to take, Lynda would ask, ‘What is our mission?’ and ‘Which of our values align?’ She helped look for and find the moral clarity needed in administrative actions.”

On the occasion of Lynda’s 25-year citation, John “Jack” Herney, emeritus history instructor, wrote about parts of her job that were “invisible” to the faculty. “You no longer deal with the chemical reactions planned and unplanned that students create in your laboratory. Instead, planned and unplanned administrative headaches that beset any school now occupy your time.

This work put you in contact with bureaucrats at the FCC, local officials as you helped draft our emergency plan for the Seabrook [nuclear plant], and other potential catastrophes, as well as insurance adjusters, health planning consultants, and all sorts of lawyers laden with all manner of legal briefs. All of this work that most of us are happily unaware of, and, if made aware, all of us are happy not to be doing.”

Lynda’s teaching talent and administrative experience were put in service nationally as well: as a teacher consultant for the National Science Foundation and on the board of directors of the New England Association of Independent Schools.

An excellent golfer, enthusiastic bird watcher and ballroom dancer, Lynda coached varsity girls soccer and basketball. Until 1983, she lived in the reassigned girls dorms Hoyt Hall and Soule Hall, where she was dorm head for five years. She was known as firm yet warm and caring toward the girls, and helped them feel supported as they charted and navigated the choppy early waters of coeducation.

Even after becoming an administrator, Lynda continued to teach AP chemistry.

The course attracted a remarkable group of students. One of them, Peter Durham ’85, wrote: “The ‘chemistry’ class was special; most of the students were four-year seniors and we knew each other well from previous math and science classes, and from the computer club. Lynda added her warm and witty personality, and her confidence in our ability to deliver the very best work. The result was a unique and memorable experience for everyone. …Lynda was a caring, supportive presence in my life not just during my senior year, but for most of my adult life. I miss her warmth, her faith in me, and her dry sense of humor.”

Lynda filled a necessary position in PEA’s transitional years, paving the way for females to flourish without having to struggle for equal recognition, and helping the Academy become a truly coeducational school. And she did it with humor, authority, grace and equanimity. E

Lynda Beck (far left) with the Steering Committee for the Conference of Women in Independent Schools.

“Lynda filled a necessary position in PEA’s transitional years, paving the way for females to flourish.”

The Memorial Minute excerpted here was written by Tatiana D. Waterman (Instructor in Science) with gratitude to Susan Jorgensen Herney (Senior Associate Director of Admissions, Dean of Students, Director of Stewardship for Major Gifts, Assistant Director of Capital Giving, Emerita), Kendra Stearns O’Donnell (Principal, Emerita), Jack Herney (Dean of Faculty, Robert Shaw White Professor in History, Chair of the Department of History, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid, Emeritus), Jim Samiljan (Robert W. Kesler ’47 (Hon.) Distinguished Professor and Instructor in Modern Languages, Emeritus), Peter Durham ’85, Albert Léger (Chair of the Department of Science), Leor Franck (Digital Projects Coordinator), Magee Lawhorn (Head of Archives and Special Collections) and L. Todd Hearon (Bennett Fellowship Coordinator and Instructor in English). The full remarks were presented at faculty meeting on February 20, 2023, and are available at exeter.edu/ memorialminute.

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Insulting the Prince

By Tanay Nandan ’25

In the world of transistors, silicon, steel, resides a set of 0s and 1s named the Prince.

Jailed by Supercell, to dash, lance, and exclaim “Ha Ha,” for millions of cursing prepubescent children, who have not yet finished their homework. It takes 14 of their worthless seconds to generate a prince.

With a clanging of steel, and a foolish overconfidence, he lands on his horse, only to be chipped away by skeletons, defenseless against minions, or kited by a skillfully placed ice golem.

His health bar drained to zero, the prince disappears in a puff of pink smoke. Doomed to reappear, and vanish, many more times until the player finally decides: the Prince is not worth 14 seconds of their time.

Such is the daily routine of the Prince.

Jailed, as we are.

Hopeful, as we are.

Gone, as we will be.

(Inspired by “Insulting the Prince,” by Martin Espada) Tanay Nandan ’25 was awarded a 2023 Lamont Younger Poet Prize. The prize honors poems of exceptional promise written by preps and lowers at Phillips Exeter Academy as well as achievement in the early years of a student’s developing craft.

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LAMONT GALLERY FREDERICK R. MAYER ’45 ART CENTER

2023 & 2024 EXHIBITIONS

CLAIRE ASHLEY: RADIANT BEASTS

September 5–November 18, 2023

Claire Ashley’s large-scale inflatables explode the possibilities of painting, creating hybrid “bodies” that are moveable, wearable, and deliciously preposterous. Her site-conscious works expand beyond Lamont Gallery, playfully emerging inside academic buildings and spilling out onto campus.

IMAGE CREDIT: CLAIRE ASHLEY, CLOWN I AND CLOWN (STAR PATRICK), 2019, SPRAY PAINT ON RIPSTOP NYLON, AND FAN

HOESY CORONA

January 3–February 29, 2024 Hoesy Corona is a Latinx Queer artist of Mexican descent creating multidisciplinary art spanning installation, performance and sculpture. His work highlights the complex relationship between humans and the environment by focusing on our changing climate and its impact on habitation and migration patterns. Corona will speak at Assembly on February 9, 2023.

HOESY CORONA, CLIMATE SHOCKS, 2023

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March 19–April 13, 2024

This exhibition highlights artwork created by current Exeter employees in celebration of the many artists, craftspeople and creative makers that make our school community so vibrant.

KELLY MCGAHIE, STAR LAKE, 2019, DIGITAL PHOTO (FROM HIDDEN TREASURES 5).

PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY CLOTHESLINE PROJECT

April 19–May 11, 2024

The Clothesline Project focuses on increasing awareness of the impact of sexual violence, abuse and honor survivors’ strength to continue. This exhibition provides an avenue for all PEA students to courageously break the silence that often surrounds sexual violence and to create a safer

ADVANCED STUDENT ART EXHIBITION

May 18– June 2, 2024

This annual exhibition features the hard work and creativity of Exeter’s visual arts students enrolled in advanced studio courses.

HOPE GANTT ’24, SPANISH CLASS, 2023, OIL ON CANVAS (FROM THE FRESH PRODUCE: 2023 ADVANCED STUDENT ART EXHIBITION)

community for all.

LAMONT GALLERY PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY 11 TAN LANE EXETER, NH 03833

603-777-3461 • gallery@exeter.edu The Lamont Gallery is open to the public by appointment.

Please go to the “Visit the Lamont Gallery” page of our website to learn more and make a reservation. www.exeter.edu/lamontgallery

PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY

20 Main Street 20 Main Street Exeter, NH 03833-2460 Exeter, NH 03833-2460

Parents ofAlumni: Alumni: Parents of If magazineisisaddressed addressedtotoananExonian Exonian who If this this magazine who no longer maintains a permanent address at your no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, pleaseemail emailus us(records@exeter.edu) (records@exeter.edu) with home, please with their new address.

Thank you. their new address. Thank you.

We want to hear from

you!

In January 2024, we’re asking all alumni to complete a quick online survey. Your input will help shape your alumni experience for years to come.

Jackie Addo ’25 and Kendra Wang ’25 are one of several cross-dorm pairings in Exeter’s newest dormitory, New Hall.

Don’t miss out!

Update your contact information with us today at exeter.edu/recordupdate.