The Exeter Bulletin, spring 2012

The Exeter Bulletin

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They design, program and market apps and websites— and still get to class on time

Spring 2012

Around the Table

V O L U M E Principal Thomas E.Hassan ’56,’66,’70,’06(Hon.);P’11 Director of Communications Julie Quinn Editor Karen Ingraham Acting Editor Jennifer Murray Staff Writers Mike Catano, Alice Gray, Nicole Pellaton, Famebridge Witherspoon Class Notes Editor Janice M. Reiter Editorial Assistant Susan Goraczkowski Creative Director/Design David Nelson, Nelson Design Contributing Editor Edouard L. Desrochers ’45, ’62 (Hon.) Communications Advisory Committee Daniel G. Brown ’82, Robert C. Burtman ’74, Dorinda Elliott ’76, Alison Freeland ’72, Keith Johnson ’52, Yvonne M. Lopez ’93 TRUSTEES President G. Thompson Hutton ’73 Vice President Eunice Johnson Panetta ’84 David O. Beim ’58, Flobelle Burden Davis ’87, Marc C. de La Bruyère ’77, Walter C. Donovan ’81, John A. Downer ’75, Jonathan W. Galassi ’67, Thomas E. Hassan ’56, ’66, ’70, ’06 (Hon.); P’11, Jen Holleran ’86, David R. Horn ’85, Alan R. Jones ’72, Sally Jutabha Michaels ’82, William K. Rawson ’71, Dr. Nina D. Russell ’82, Robert S. Silberman ’76, J. Douglas Smith ’83, Remy White Trafelet ’88, Morrison DeSoto Webb ’65 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, 603-772-4311.

Periodicals postage paid at Exeter, NH, and at additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA by Cummings Printing.

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

Copyright 2012 by the Trustees of Phillips Exeter Academy.

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

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Contents

Features

20 | TECHNOLOGY AND HARKNESS: AN EXPERIMENT Using iPads as teaching tools By Katherine Towler

26 | TEENAGE TECHIES Designing, programming and marketing apps—and getting to class on time By Karen Ingraham

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Departments 4 Around the Table: Principal Hassan on visualizing our success,Vernon Jordan headlines MLK Day, the 2012-13 PEA applicant pool, visitors on campus, and more.

12 Table Talk with Ted Shen ’62, discussing his opportunity for a second chance 13 Exoniana: A crossword puzzle to test your knowledge of Exeterisms 16 Exonians in Review: The 1970s: A New Global History from Civil Rights to Economic Inequality by Thomas Borstelmann ’76. Reviewed by R. Bruce Pruitt P’95, P’00

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32 Sports: Second Synthetic Turf Field Proposed for PEA: Spring and Fall Athletic Teams May Get New Playing Surface by Mike Catano. Plus, winter sports roundup.

36 Connections: News and Notes from the Alumni/ae Community 38 Profiles: Donald Light ’59, Timothy Pittman ’82 and Candy Chang ’95 96 Finis Origine Pendet: The Day the Trustees Came

By Trevor Robinson ’46 Visit Exeter on the web at www. exeter.edu. Email us at bulletin@ exeter.edu

12 THE EXETER BULLETIN IS PRINTED ON PAPER WITH 10% POST-CONSUMER CONTENT, USING SOY-BASED INKS.

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Beauty and the Beast Fanciful costumes, elaborate scenery and a 55-member student cast and crew united to make the Academy’s winter production of Beauty and the Beast a musical extravaganza. —Photo by Cheryl Senter

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The View from Here

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Around the Table

What’s new and notable at the Academy

Visualizing Our Success S E T T I N G B E N C H M A R K S TO R E A L I Z E T H E D R E A M

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

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eral way, I would like to offer my vision and my dream of where I would like the Academy to be in five years, in relation to each of these near-term objectives.

In my letter to the community, I spoke of an advising structure that would “balance the needs of students, parents and faculty within a system that is compassionate, responsive, equitable, realistic and technologically efficient.” I would like to see our students experience an even and stable advising system; one in which all students and all advisers know what is expected of them, and what their responsibilities are to make that long-term relationship work. No system involving human relationships can be completely legislated, and certainly other educational institutions wrestle with this issue as well, but I hope the Exeter community in five years will have developed a common set of high standards to which advisers and advisees will aspire. These standards will be part and parcel of an arrangement that provides advisers adequate time, training and support, and one which rewards advisers for their efforts. In order to begin developing such a structure, I have appointed a committee to begin the process, and have asked that a plan be brought before the faculty in the spring of next year.

Elements of the Exeter in the World initiative have been under way for well over a year.There has been an increase in the number and types of opportunities for students and faculty to expand their horizons beyond the Exeter campus—locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Owing to our centuries-old mandate, we have expanded John Phillips’ encouragement to find “youth from every quarter” to ensuring now that we prepare “youth for every quarter.” In five years, I would like to have this effort seen as integral to the fabric of an Exeter education. Policies and procedures will be developed for implementing new programs and evaluating existing ones.There will be avenues for students and faculty to report back to the community and share the benefit of their experiences. Academic

CHERYL SENTER

he letter I sent recently to all members of the Academy community communicating a vision for Exeter’s immediate future has engendered a tremendous amount of interest. Of course, it is no surprise to me that Exonians reacted quickly and with great insight. On the day I sent it out, I received more than 150 emails in reply.

That number has now grown to hundreds more, as well as many discussions in the dining halls, on the paths and at alumni/ae events.And there is more rich dialogue ahead as we address the three imperatives which I have outlined: Intellectual Ambition, Global Exploration and Goodness.

Even at this early stage, several themes are emerging from the various reactions to the plan. These are: the student advising system, continuing the Exeter in the World initiative, enhancing the performing arts, increasing diversity among PEA’s adults, and fostering and instilling goodness throughout the community. Some of these topics can be placed neatly under one of the imperatives, while others span two or even all three.

As I reflect on these immediate concerns, it makes sense to have a common image—both qualitative and quantitative—of what success would look like as we address them. We are currently working on developing benchmarks for initiatives contained within each imperative, and I expect to be able to report on these when the school year concludes. Now, in a more gen-

departments will be collaborating on programs and trips, and students will be benefiting from a variety of intellectual and human perspectives. A coordinator for Exeter in the World—one who will ensure that the optimum value was derived from each experience and aid community members in creating new, fresh, imaginative programs—will be named. I am cur rently fundraising for such a position.

In five years, my hope is that we are well under way in having a new performing arts center that unites the campus in exploring all aspects of creativity. The facility will not be limited to just those students who have a burning passion for theater and dance. Strong science and math students, for example, will use the arts to unleash their imaginations. In fact, recent research shows that Nobel laureates in the sciences are 22 percent more likely to become amateur actors, dancers, magicians or other performers than nonlaureate scientists. In the future, every Exeter student will have the programs, the place(s) and the resources to encourage their creativity.

I would like to see the adult community reflect more closely on the diversity of the student body. We need to ensure that all people and perspectives can thrive here at Exeter. I can think of no greater lesson to model for our students as they prepare to enter a world that is more global and interconnected. And it is more than just a recruitment issue; we need to focus on the retention of a diversity of students and adults.

Overall, I want the Exeter community of the future to act as a model of civility and respect for students during their time here. I would like, in the years immediately ahead of us, to have every person in our community—adult and student— know that they are valued for who they are and what they contribute. I believe that living as part of a cohesive and cooperative campus community will equip students to create and nurture the best possible society in their lives beyond Exeter.

Our dreams will move closer to reality and our visions will become more concrete in the months ahead as we address the near-term challenges, explore the three overarching imperatives, establish benchmark measures and statistics, and implement plans and programs. However, in the words of the poet Carl Sandburg, “Nothing happens unless first a dream.”

Future Exonians

An outstanding applicant pool “We had an exceptionally strong pool of applicants this year, one of the most accomplished I can recall in my 23 years in Admissions,” says Director of Admissions Michael Gary. “They excelled on all fronts, including academic, extracurricular and social.” Exeter received 2,600 applications from 39 states, Guam and 23 foreign countries; 451 students were offered admission with approximately $6 million awarded in financial aid. “We’re looking forward to welcoming these extremely vibrant individuals in the fall, and want to thank all the students who showed [an] interest in Exeter.”

“Unending, infectious enthusiasm for learning” describes one 10th-grader who designed, with her sister, a space nutrition bar that was enjoyed by astronauts on STS-134, the final space shuttle Endeavour flight. Her passion has led to a Conrad Foundation Spirit of Innovation Award and an invitation to the White House Science Fair.

“President Obama inspired me to focus my love of math and science in a way that would have an impact not just on our own lives but also those of my fellow students and my country as a whole,” says this inventor.

A Native American boy is also focused on ways to help others.

“One of the long-term goals that I have set for myself is to graduate college with a dual degree in mathematics and electrical engineering.

I want to implement change on the Navajo reservation by designing new techniques to bring basic necessities to the rural communities.”

He adds, “I am willing to put my desires aside after college to make the Navajo reservation a better community. . . . I want to travel the world and hopefully join the Peace Corps.”

A harpist and young entrepreneur—described by a teacher as “one of the most honest souls I have ever known”—lives on a farm with four generations of her family. She started harp lessons when she was 6, and at age 8 developed an egg business to raise the money to purchase a harp. “I treasure the joy of teaching people about my passion for the harp and about my farm life as well,” says this ninthgrader.

The Academy is eagerly anticipating the arrival of next year’s class of unique and talented future Exonians.

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Around the Table

Campus Life at a Glance (A) Twenty-two PEA stu-

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PAINTING BY EVA ELMORE ’ 12

dents were awarded regional honors in the 2012 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards of New Hampshire (more at www.exeter.edu/artandwriting awards). (B) Adela Locsin ’13 hangs a lantern in the dining hall in preparation for the Lunar New Year celebration. (C) Students from the Exeter Social Service Organization (ESSO) serve the Dining Services staff at the Gratitude Dinner where the tables were turned. (D) Victorious members of Exeter’s Mock Trial team celebrate their win at the New Hampshire State Mock Trial Championship in February.

(E) Lamont Gallery Assistant Sara Daley answers questions from Exeter Harris Family Children's Center kindergartners on a recent visit. (F) A triumphant PEA Economics team wins a firstplace trophy from theYale Undergraduate Economics Association competition. (G) Students enjoy the Jazz Brunch held on campus with great food and music.

ADELA LOCSIN

Snapshots from winter term

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YA SHENG LIN

NICOLE PELLATON

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STEPHANIE ADAMAKOS

TERRI BURNS

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Around the Table

‘The Man and The Movement’ C I V I L R I G H T S L E A D E R V E R N O N J O R DA N R E M E M B E R S M A RT I N L U T H E R K I N G J R .

NICOLE PELLATON (2)

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hillips Exeter was honored to host Vernon Jordan, well-known civil rights leader, presidential adviser and attorney, at the 21st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration on January 13.

“I believe in American democracy, because I have seen it respond to change and improve the prospects of my people,” Jordan told a capacity crowd in Love Gym. He exhorted the students, “You will—and must—continue to improve the prospects of the American people.” Jordan quoted King, saying, “The arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Jordan talked about knowing King—he and Jordan grew up in the same neighborhood—and “the unfinished movement.” He spoke of the powerful impact of King’s words, including King’s Bethel AME Church speech in 1956 where Jordan “heard, for the first time, an early version of the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech,” which became famous around the world seven years later.

“Martin became the Moses of the 1960s,” Jordan said.

“2012 marks an interesting first,” Jordan continued. “This is the first year that we commemorate Martin Luther King Day in a nation that has, in its national capital, a monument to Dr. King not far from where he told the nation about his dream.” Jordan explained that when he imagines his youngest grandchild going to the monument, he wonders what her perceptions will be. “I fear that she will see Dr. King as the movement and not see [him as] one of the leaders of the movement,” he explained.

If King were alive today, Jordan said, “There would be tears of joy and there would be tears of sorrow. But there would not be resignation.” Tears of joy “to see a black man in the Oval Office,” welcome blacks as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and see protests to end inequality. Tears of sorrow to see voter registration laws that deny “young people and minorities” the ballot; witness “the toll that poverty and hunger and hopelessness are having on too many Americans”; see black unemployment figures twice those of whites; watch a nation move too quickly to war; and see that “the gap between the rich and poor is as large as it’s ever been.

“By virtue of your own talents and your affiliation with this great institution, you are the leaders of the future,” Jordan told the all-school assembly. “Very little will stand between you and your aspirations.”

Jordan started his speech by acknowledging his friend Nathaniel Reid LaMar ’51, who was instrumental in arranging Jordan’s visit to Exeter. Jordan spoke of his childhood excitement when it was announced that LaMar, a classmate of Jordan’s in their segregated school in Atlanta, would be leaving the South to attend Exeter. “How proud we were that one of our own was embarking on this unique journey, and how confident we were that he was going to succeed.”

Above:Vernon Jordan (left) and his childhood friend Nathaniel Reid LaMar ’51 at Exeter’s MLK Day celebration. Left: Jordan chats with Exonians following his remarks.

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Around the Table

In the Assembly Hall A S A M P L I N G O F S P E A K E R S W H O C A M E TO C A M P U S sion about what you would read, about what was important.”

She discussed the transformation of traditional journalism—an “expensive product”—as it downsized to deal with decreased returns, while readers simultaneously increased their demand for instant news. As newspapers closed their bureaus, citizen journalists found their voice.

“Not only is journalism still relevant, it’s more relevant than ever,” said Selwyn of today’s era, which she calls “a democracy of news” where “we’re all in the world’s conversation. “Social media enhances the story, but doesn’t replace it,” Selwyn concluded.

January 27: Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben delivered a clear message to Exonians: Global warming is “the great challenge of our time,” one he compared to the civil rights movement for an earlier generation. He added, “It’s a challenge we are currently losing and losing pretty badly.” McKibben is widely acknowledged as the author of the first general-audience book on climate change, The End of Nature, published in 1989.

McKibben focused largely on the work of 350.org, an organization he founded with seven Middlebury College students in 2008. 350.org’s first major initiative was the 2009 International Day of Climate Action, in which Exeter participated. 350.org’s name is based on the number that leading scientists identify as the safe human limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere—350 parts per million.

“I cannot guarantee to you that it’s a test we can win,” McKibben told the students. “I do want to tell you there is, around the country and the world, effective opposition rising.”

McKibben met with three PEA classes—Macroeconomic Issues in the United States, Human Populations and Resource Consumption: Implications for Sustainability, and The Ethics of the Marketplace— and had lunch with the student-run Environmental Action Committee. As a direct result of McKibben’s visit, Exeter is planning to start a 350.org chapter on campus.

February 14: Daniyal Mueenuddin Award-winning author

MIKE NAGEL

NICOLE PELLATON

Environmental activist, journalist and author

February 3: Amy Selwyn

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“Raise your hand if you care about the world,” said Amy Selwyn to the students. As a thousand hands rose, Selwyn began her talk entitled, “Is Jour nalism Still Relevant in a Facebook- and Twitter-driven World? What’s the Future of News?”

Selwyn has worked for the BBC, The NewYork Times,The Associated Press and the European Broadcasting Union. She brought her extensive experience to bear on the topic of news in the social media era, discussing the impact of professional journalism today.

In the “old world, before 2005, the executive editor was male, white, and over 60,” Selwyn explained. Editors made the deciThe Exeter Bulletin

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February 24: Dr. Seung K. Kim ’81 Professor of developmental biology and director of the M.D./Ph.D. program, Stanford

MIKE CATANO

NICOLE PELLATON

News consultant for international media outlets

“I have this divided identity,” author Daniyal Mueenuddin told students, staff and faculty at assembly. “I am very much a Pakistani writer. . . . At the same time, I am very much an American.”

Mueenuddin, whose short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope and The Best American Short Stories, described how his experiences in both cultures have informed his work.

Raised in Lahore, Pakistan, he came to the U.S. at age 13 to attend high school. He began writing poetry during his time at Groton School in Massachusetts and continued through his undergraduate years at Dartmouth College.

Mueenuddin returned to Pakistan after attending college in the U.S., to live and work on his father’s farm. He wrote poetry for five years before attending law school at Yale University. After working as an attorney in New York and earning an M.F.A. degree from the University of Arizona, he returned once again to Pakistan, where he has found success writing fiction.

Dr. Seung Kim ’81 told the students that “science is about discovery and open-ended inquiry, which can be fun and addictive.” He credited the Harkness method of teaching and learning for his passion for scientific research. Kim underscored that the give and take around a Harkness table provides good preparation for adult life, which requires asking questions in dynamic situations.

Kim is a faculty member at Stanford University in developmental

Around the Table

February 28: Dr. Peter Hedberg ’76

MIKE CATANO

A surgeon’s call to non sibi

Compelled to help those in need, trauma surgeon Peter Hedberg ’76 answered the call of non sibi and was bound for Haiti just four days after the January 2010 earthquake. During an assembly in February, photos of injured earthquake victims and makeshift methods of resetting fractures using cloth bandages, tape, string and blocks of cement flashed overhead as Hedberg spoke of a patient’s “golden hour”— when trauma victims have their best chance of being saved. He reminded his listeners of the value of volunteering: “Even the mundane activities were so good for our hearts.Volunteering is in our DNA. “It’s in all of our hearts,” he said, showing slides of theologian Albert Schweitzer’s motivational quotes and photographs of Port-au-Prince, days after the devastating earthquake. Hedberg touched on the universality of helping: “It’s survival; it’s part of our nature.” He urged students to experience the fulfillment of “giving back to their communities.”

Faculty Wire Matthew Miller Wins Vassar Miller Poetry Prize

NICOLE PELLATON

This winter, PEA English Instructor Matthew Miller received the 2012 Vassar Miller Poetry Prize for his collection of 36 poems entitled Club Icarus. The prize was awarded by the University of North Texas Press, which will publish Miller’s second book of poetry in 2013. The title is based on one of the collection’s poems.

In his variation of the Greek myth, Miller’s Icarus—the boy who flew too close to the sun and melted his wings—collides with an airplane, causing Miller’s family and fellow passengers to tumble from the sky. “So (we) all become an Icarus figure … flying for a moment only to crash into the sea,” Miller says. The falling father wants to do what any parent would do—protect his daughter—and hold on to her for what time she has left. “Then I realize that she is laughing and playing and I have no reason to dump my fear and anxiety on her—as parents often do with kids—and just let her enjoy the life she has.”

More on the web: As he tumbles toward the sea, his daughter sprouts wings Visit www.exeter.edu/ and flies away. “There is joy in the child living, yet the natural ClubIcarus to read tragedy of the death of a parent, which must happen on some Miller’s poem.

To read Hearon’s level. The young grow up, and the old must be cut away for poem visit www. the new to mature and continue the cycle,” Miller explains. exeter.edu/Atlantis While the poem’s story didn’t worry Miller, it scared his wife for some time. “[This] is not meant to scare [readers],” he says. “The idea is that the child lives and thrives and that we should not be scared of things we cannot control.This poem and a lot of the others in the book are just ways to deal with death and living, using humor, rage, acceptance, celebration. It’s about what the world will give and what the world will take away.”

Todd Hearon’s Poetry Concludes the Wicked Series Out of Oz, the final volume in the bestselling Wicked Years series by author Gregory Maguire, ends with the poem “Atlantis,” written by English Instructor Todd Hearon. Maguire chose this work after having read it in the literary journal Ploughshares several years ago. He wrote to Hearon, the Charles Lynn and Mary Chase Stone Instructor in Humanities, asking if he could use the poem as a finale to the series. “He told me it was the perfect fit,” Hearon says. “After he sent me a draft of the final few pages, with the poem attached, it seemed to me a nice send-off.”

The Wicked books tell the tale of the life and times of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum’s classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and were the basis for the Tony-winning musical Wicked.

The idea for the poem came to Hearon almost 10 years ago. “I was thinking of our country and the state of things, which was probably distressing, and the idea of the great, mythical, sunken city of Atlantis came to mind, with the voice of the poem [written] as an inhabitant there.”

MAGGIE DIETZ

biology and medicine, and an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

He also directs the M.D./Ph.D. program at Stanford and is a recipient of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Award for Excellence in Preclinical Teaching.

Exonians have enjoyed summer opportunities working in Kim’s lab researching new techniques to create and regenerate pancreatic islets—clusters of cells that produce endocrine hormones, including insulin.

Kim argued that the nature of scientific inquiry requires curiosity, fearlessness, adaptability and endurance—all of which can lead to character development and goodness in its practitioners.

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Around the Table

Trustee Roundup

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he Trustees of the Academy met on campus Wednesday, January 25, through Saturday, January 28. Earlier in the week, Trustee Toby Webb ’65; P’02 shadowed English Instructor Jonathan Wang as part of the “A Day in the Life” program, which provides trustees with an opportunity to immerse themselves in today’s Exeter. On Wednesday evening, the Trustees dined at Saltonstall House with author Stacy Schiff P’09, a trustee spouse and parent of an Exeter alumnus. The group engaged in a Harkness discussion involving her book on Benjamin Franklin, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America.

The Trustees began their official meetings Thursday morning with a report from Principal Hassan. He updated them on the launch of “Exeter’s Immediate Priorities,” and reiterated his intention to make the next steps in the process as inclusive as possible by soliciting suggestions from the community as the Academy focuses on the three imperatives: Intellectual Ambition, Global Exploration and Goodness. He pointed out that some of the action steps, such as addressing the advising system, will involve forming groups for more extensive study. Other efforts, like increasing the level of mutual respect on campus, could involve a community-wide effort, which in some areas has already begun.

Following Hassan’s report, the Trustees heard from Director of Facilities Management Roger Wakeman, who reported on the work about to begin on the second phase of the Phillips Hall renovation. This project will focus on the inside of the building and follows last summer’s reconstruction of the building’s exterior envelope. Wakeman also updated the Trustees on the steam distribution system renewal project, which is approximately 80 percent complete, and the Lamont Health and Wellness Center renovation project, which is slated to begin in the summer of 2013.

Trustees approved an addendum to the Academy’s Environmental Mission Statement, which they had originally approved in 2004. This addition includes “Guiding Principles for Sustainable Design and Construction.”

The final agenda topic for the buildings and grounds portion of the meeting was a discussion of the planning for the new performing arts center. The on-campus program committee has now completed a programming document that defines the recommended needs and potential scope of a new facility or additions to current facilities. Recognizing the importance and magnitude of this project, it was agreed that a subgroup of the Trustees will collaborate with the current program committee to better understand the needs as they relate to the arts at Exeter and to understand how a new facility can support these needs. The Trustees wish to make certain that any new space is appropriate in scope and scale as it relates to other facilities and priorities. Additionally, the group felt that the Academy must carefully consider the realities of raising the funds required for this project in an unstable economic climate and ensure that the size of the project is aligned with the potential for successful fundraising.

Later that evening, many Trustees toured Fisher Theater, which underscored the need for a more modern and efficient facility.

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Trustees heard a brief report regarding the Academy’s investments. While our endowment continues to outperform the S&P average, it does not provide as strong a revenue stream to support an annual operating budget as it had in more robust economic times. The Trustees feel it is important to give the Academy community a better sense of our financial picture—both following the recent financial crisis and projecting into the immediate future.

Chief Financial Officer Chris Wejchert and Hassan are working with them on the timing of such a presentation.

Trustees fanned out to various dormitories Thursday evening for dorm duty. Trustees listened carefully to students’ stories, and while they noted a general happiness with the Exeter experience, a recurring concern was the unevenness of our current advising structure. This issue will be addressed as part of the Academy’s focus on its three guiding imperatives.

On Friday morning trustee members of the Education and Appointments Committee chose to meet with student leaders of the Academy’s various political clubs, given the timeliness of the presidential primary season.

Much of Friday morning’s discussions focused on reports delivered by various administrators, including Interim Dean of Multicultural Affairs Mark Blackman, Dean of Residential Life A.J. Cosgrove and Academy Librarian Gail Scanlon, all of whom are new to their respective roles. Of note was a growing emphasis on engaging with and training student leaders, expanding efforts to support our multicultural student community, and continued preservation of our extensive library holdings. In addition, Trustees heard from Director of Admissions Michael Gary and Dean of Faculty Ron Kim. Friday afternoon was devoted to reports from the Office of Institutional Advancement staff. Trustees received an update from Director of Institutional Advancement Ted Probert as well as reports from Assistant Director of Annual Giving Lee Frank and Assistant Director of Alumni/ae and Parent Relations Michelle Curtin about the increasing efforts to engage our youngest alumni/ae and current students. Trustees were then introduced to Kerri Dolce, our new associate director of The Parents Fund, who discussed efforts to build better connections with parents.

Trustees heard the recommendations for this spring’s Founder’s Day Award and next fall’s John Phillips Award and approved the nominees. In May, former President of the Trustees Chuck Harris ’69 will receive the Founder’s Day Award for his devotion to Exeter over many years and in many capacities. In October, Dr. Lannette Linthicum ’75 will be on campus to receive the John Phillips Award, which honors an Exeter graduate for contributions to the welfare of community, country and humanity. She will be recognized for her medical work in the Texas prison system.

The Trustees and Principal’s Staff met on Saturday morning to continue discussions regarding the Immediate Priorities outlined in Hassan’s letter to the community. All agreed to the need to establish a clear road map subsequent to the community input stage now under way. This road map will provide the necessary direction and careful timing of each initiative so that the Academy can achieve the vision even during this period of constrained economic activity.

Around the Table

Shooting Beauty Exeter’s Best Buddies Club Takes Up the Camera “Tiffani rolled her eyes, and gave me that ‘Darby, you are lucky I put up with you’ chuckle, [one] that I receive on a regular basis from her. But she walked over and sat

students with intellectual or developmentally disabled teenagers. “After that, she was walking up the aisles of the [Phelps] Academy Center Forum, holding her purse and flashing a smile toward the camera: that was her runway and she was our model.”

Tiffani Kataxinos and Henry, Best Buddies for two years, were taking part in a Shooting Beauty Project workshop, led by award-winning photographer and filmmaker Courtney Bent. Bent’s Shooting Beauty Project started when she discovered that her photos of individuals with disabilities lacked the joy and wonder that she

NANCY SHIPLEY

down next to me, facing the camera,” says Darby Henry ’13, a participant in Best Buddies, the Academy’s chapter of the international organization that matches Exeter

tions about disabilities, and take the breath away.

Shooting Beauty, a film by Bent and George Kachadorian, chronicles a photography workshop Bent led with individuals with cerebral palsy and other significant disabilities. The film has won many awards—including multiple best documentary and audience awards— and led to an outreach project that aims to promote conversations “about important and often unspoken issues surrounding acceptance, diversity and disability,” according to the film’s website.

Over three afternoons, Bent welcomed a group of more than 20 PEA Best Buddies, explained the Shooting Beauty Project, showed participants how to use digital cameras, and encouraged them to go out and explore.

“I got to see a whole new side of my buddy,” says Tony Karalekas ’14 of Conner Daly. “I knew him as an energetic, sports-loving, outgo-

TONY KARALEKAS/CONNER DALY

observed when she was with them. She decided to give her subjects the camera and see what happened. The result: photos that express highly individual viewpoints, challenge popular assump-

Top: Principal Tom Hassan and his wife, Maggie, enjoy the photo exhibit at the Lamont Gallery.

Bottom: Tony Karalekas ’14 and Conner Daly’s photo was featured in the workshop exhibit.

ing personality; and during this experiment, I saw his creative, abstract side. Most of his pictures were at interesting angles or action shots.You could really see his personality through his photo choices.” Karalekas notes that it was during one of his walks with Conner, camera in hand, that he “learned that Conner has a

steady girlfriend.”

“Best Buddies gives me something I have never experienced before,” Henry says of the program that brings buddies together routinely to play games, take walks, eat, and develop friendships that for many are life-changing. “It’s a confusing mix of carefree happiness and this heavy, and sometimes even burdensome, appreciation of life. Tiffani gives me these moments where nothing else matters, while showing me joy in the little things at the same time. Best Buddies and Tiffani create an environment where you do not have to be afraid to be who you are. There is such a range of differences in Best Buddies, and our differences make us this family that I cannot imagine going through Exeter without.”

“It just feels right,” says Karalekas when asked why he enjoys Best Buddies. “The happiness I feel when I see these special teenagers laughing and smiling alongside us Exeter students is enormous. During Best Buddies, I don’t feel any different from my buddy, and that I think is special. . . . He is such a warm personality and he has changed my life.”

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Around the Table

Opportunity for a Second Chance TA B L E TA L K W I T H T E D S H E N ’ 6 2

T

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for ones who aspired to Sondheim’s level of originality, who were exceptionally gifted and who sought to create challenging, ambitious work. Here I found my opportunity: a void I could step into. No one was supporting and subsidizing the writing of musical theater as an art form; funding for new musicals was (and still is) available only for developing shows having the promise to succeed as commercial entertainment.” With the mission of trying to level part of the playing field, The Shen Family Foundation has since become the leading source of funding for high-aspiring musical theater works commissioned or produced by not-for-profit theaters.

In 2001 Shen decided to try his own hand at songwriting by studying with the musical theater composer Ricky Ian Gordon. That pursuit was brought to an abrupt halt in 2003, however, by the loss of his wife to breast cancer. Two chance encounters subsequently presented the opportunities to turn his life around, ultimately enabling him to use his studies and personal experience to write the book, music and lyrics for his musical, A Second Chance. First, he met Mary Jo, who inspired him to resume songwriting and in 2006 became his second wife. Then in 2007, “Stephen Sondheim suggested that if I wrote a musical or at least a song cycle based on the initial experiences that Mary Jo and I had shared after meeting in mid-life, there would certainly be no shortage of topics.”

Shen could see the opportunity, and A Second Chance began to take shape.The two-person cast, with the aid of 20 songs, tells the story of a recently widowed middle-aged New York banker who is grieving for the lost love of his life and unexpectedly finds a second chance at love, life and happiness. The musical has completed a successful run at the Signature Theatre in Arlington,VA, and is now scheduled to be produced by the New York Public Theater as part of its 2013-14 season.

“In writing A Second Chance I wanted to encourage people to believe that they should never give up on their dreams. Opportunities will be there for us to pursue what we want and need.

The trick is to recognize them when they arise, as opposed to not seeing, believing or acting on them.We have to take personal initiative and risk to create our next chapter and the chapter after that. Sometimes we just have to go for the brass ring.”

FRED CARLSON

he word “opportunity” comes up regularly in a conversation with Ted Shen ’62. Whether he is discussing his career in investment banking, his retirement, the romantic chamber musical he has written or his second marriage; according to Shen success begins with recognizing and pursuing opportunities as they arise.

“There is always a good thing sitting out there—available to you—and you just need to figure out what that is and how to make the most of it. Life’s opportunities often appear when least expected and can have rich possibilities well beyond what is immediately apparent,” he says. His positive approach has been inspired by, and eventually transcended, events that would have daunted others: a diagnosis of cancer, and the death of his first wife to whom he had been married for 35 years.

Shen says, “In 1996 I was diagnosed with and treated for prostate cancer. That experience prompted me to make a personal resolution to retire from my banking career within three years and begin a new chapter. My goal was to seek a way to return to my musical roots.” So in 1999, after a 31-year career at the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, he stepped down in order to find a way back into music as well as to oversee The Shen Family Foundation, which he had established several years earlier to channel his philanthropic activities.

Music had been a part of Shen’s early life: he studied piano with his mother, who was a concert pianist; he played jazz guitar at Exeter and performed regularly as a bassist and guitarist in a jazz group while a student at Yale. However, after college he drifted away from music as the banking world claimed his time and energy.

When he began to examine the opportunities offered by retirement, music re-emerged. “I saw that I had neglected many interests, but knew that I would need to focus on just one or two.

Although music was my main passion, I didn’t want to try to pick up where I had left off in jazz. I didn’t want to be a pale version of my youth.

“I had been an ardent fan of the work of Stephen Sondheim since 1970. Although I knew nothing of how the world of musical theater worked, I set out to discover what I might be able to do to help the current generation of young composers. I looked

By Julie Quinn

Exoniana D O YO U R E M E M B E R ?

Challenge your memory with this crossword puzzle of old and new Exeterisms. Exetercentric phrases and words may have kept you on the straight and narrow path during and since your days at PEA, and you might also remember the phrase, “The Academy has no rules—until they are broken,” which originated with Principal Gideon Soule, class of 1813.

All definitions are taken from either The New Dictionary of the Exeter Language (1977) or The Dictionary of the Exeter Language (1954).

Email us at Exoniana@exeter.edu. Or, send your responses to Exoniana, c/o The Exeter Bulletin, Phillips Exeter Academy, Communications Office, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833-2460. Entries may be edited for length and clarity.

Across

Down

2. An advocate to the point of excess 4.To have so squandered your time and efforts that you only managed to escape from failing by your dental epidermis 6. An English muffin in the Grill 7. A spasmodic muscular contraction associated with uncoordinated individuals who fall downstairs and drop dinner trays 8.The result of too much pinball, not enough sleep and a dollop of apathy

1. A little slip of paper that admits begrudgingly that you have finally paid your debt to society and are free to leave Exeter without out-of-towns, provided you don’t do anything ungentlemanly within 48 hours after receiving it* 3.The opposite of a poso; a cynic 5. A punishment at Exeter for deeds which at most schools would merit expulsion; a period in which the individual is being tested for his ability to stay out of trouble while he’s on pro*

E

War I and World War II memorials in the Assembly Hall and the Korean and Vietnam War memorial located between the Library and Gilman House.Their collective memories honored the bravery of their classmates who fought in wars and also paid tribute to those who sacrificed their lives.

Heartfelt memories ranged from playing musical instruments together, to treasure hunts to a visit from Queen Elizabeth II. One alumnus even pinpointed an additional memorial plaque dedicated to classmates who died in WWII and explained how a gift from his class funded the electricity to keep the bell tower lit throughout the night.

Thank you for your help and responses!

Our two randomly selected winners are: Sherwood E. “Joe” Bain ’41, Exeter, NH,

who received an Exeter pen.

“Photos A and B are in the Assembly Hall in the Academy Building: A is on the left, facing the stage, and B is on the right. C is on

the path, near Gilman House, the old Davis Library and the Class of 1945 Library. I was there when retired Army Gen. Wally Nutting ’46, in full uniform, dedicated it. Seven members of the class of 1941 perished during WWII. I knew Don Bruce ’41, killed in Europe, the best. We both played the slide trombone and were only children.”

The Rev. Hoyt Winslett Jr. ’52, Tuscaloosa, AL, who received an Exeter pen.

“The memorial tablets depicted are on the front wall of the Assembly Hall (which in my day was called the Chapel). Photo A is to the left as you face the stage and B to the right. Photo A is for World War I.Tablet B was actually installed during my time at the Academy (1948–52); I think rather early in that period. The grandeur of the first tablet indicates that its designers thought there would never be a successor.

The simplicity of the second, and the much greater number of names, is deeply poignant; it would seem to foreshadow the Vietnam Memorial.”

A

B

C

JOHN BURNS

Answers to the winter 2012 issue xonians correctly identified the World

MIKE CATANO (2)

*Definition predates admission of girls to PEA

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Around the Table

Letters Visit from Queen Elizabeth II

In your winter issue, page 16, you discuss WWII and various Exonians’ parts therein. Here are two reflections—Bill Kirk ’41 and brother Ely ’43.

Out of Haverford College, I commenced active duty in the U.S. Army Air Corps, January 1943. Spent the year training in Texas to be a bombardier. Graduated December 1943 and reported to Avon Park Bombing Range in Florida.Thence, a troop train to New Jersey/New York to board the Queen Mary for transport to Scotland. And from there by train to my ultimate air base in the village of Kimbolton in England’s Midlands area—the 379th Bomb Group of the U.S. 8th Air Force.

Of general interest, Queen Elizabeth II (age 19 then) and her parents (King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) visited our base once—much excitement. My father was also stationed in England with the U.S. Navy. His brother (my uncle, Adm. Alan G. Kirk, London-based) was commander of all U.S. Naval Forces on D-Day, June 6. So, we three Kirks were all involved in the Normandy Invasion.

Capt. George G. “Ely” Kirk ’43, U.S. Navy; Annapolis 1947: Ely missed WWII, but served in the Cuban Missile Crisis event, the Korean War and Vietnam. His last post was captain of a destroyer escort. He retired as a four-stripe captain. Died 1996.

William T. “Bill” Kirk Jr. ’41 Menlo Park, CA A Prescient Speech

I graduated from Phillips Exeter in June 1941. At that point in time, the world was in a chaotic state. France had fallen and Great Britain was under siege. In his address to the class, Dr. Lewis Perry said that each person was either in opposition to Hitlerism or in support of it; there was no middle ground. A failure to take sides was to support Hitlerism. He said that it was a choice between right and wrong. He said that throughout history, if men had been willing to fight only when the percentage was in their favor, where would civilization be today? A copy of the Bulletin story covering the speech can be found by going to www.exeter.edu/Perry1941 Graduation. This was a remarkable, pre14

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scient speech. Pearl Harbor came six months later. I was an officer in the Naval Reserve and served in the Atlantic and Persian Gulf theaters on a general class troopship as an engineering officer.

William C. McCoy ’41 Chagrin Falls, OH Memorable Lessons

Exeter taught me to take responsibility for my own actions, something that only happens as a possible outcome of freedom.

Because of the freedom we had between classes and elsewhere, all of us had to take responsibility for managing our lives— outside the demands of class attendance, Chapel attendance and church attendance on Sundays. Exeter was different from the structures imposed on students in schools such at St. Paul’s (where my father went) and Groton. I therefore learned to manage my time and to [suffer] the consequences when such time management was ineffective. Exeter prepared me for the vicissitudes of military life.

Dr. Russell Hunter ’43 Beverly Hills, CA

were both day students, and we entered the Academy at the same time, in the fall of 1945. He had just graduated from Exeter High School, president of his class, captain of the baseball team; a leader. I came from the eighth grade. He went on to Dartmouth, where he was president of The Players, and an English Honors student and student leader. I followed him to Dartmouth.

He wrote a marvelous script for the Dartmouth Winter Carnival Outdoor Evening skating show in 1950. I wrote a meager narration for the 1952 edition. In 1950, after graduation, Alan went through Marine Corps OCS [Officer Candidates School], was commissioned a second lieutenant and went to flight training at Pensacola. He then joined the 1st Marine Air Wing and flew combat missions in Korea. After my Dartmouth graduation, I went through Marine Corps OCS and went to Korea as an infantry officer. I came back. He did not.What a loss.

Norman R. Carpenter ’49 Minnetonka, MN Treasure Hunt

In 2010, two of the three war memorials became part of an Exonian treasure hunt that was arranged for the class of 1980 at its 30th reunion weekend. Two of the 16 tasks for the hunt were adapted from the names inscribed on the World War I, Korean and Vietnam War memorials. The following verse is the clue associated with the memorial to the Academy’s “Sons who fell in the Great War.” Extra points go to anyone who can decipher the clue without revisiting the Assembly Hall!

The Light Burns Bright

The lighting of the tower of the Academy Building is the gift of the class of 1944 in honor of their classmates who died in the service of their country: Robert William Berkhofer, Walker Syer Bradshaw, Harry Russell Flory Jr., James Sanford Ramze, William Hobart Labombarde and Robert Mulford Rowse. May 22, 1954.

Henry F. “Buzz” Merritt ’44 Redding Ridge, CT Editor’s note: Many thanks to Buzz Merritt for sharing this information about the memorial plaque commemorating the gift his class gave to fund the lighting of the bell tower.

Return again to the great portraits hall To cast your gaze on a list on the wall Sixty-two names in the wood are hewn To honor this World War I platoon Subtract the years two Exeter sons fell But to find them, of course, you will need to re-spell A couple of anagrams that describe the emotion Of these boys’ last full measure of devotion The first son perhaps exclaimed, “Oh! and world war” The day he was mustered into the corps And the second would never awake to a dawn Where he could have said, “Army tents gone”

A Great Loss

One of the names on the Korean War veterans’ memorial is Alan M.Tarr ’46.Alan and I

Daniel C. Oakley ’80 Charlotte, NC

Finis (continued from page 96) Our laboratory was a partitioned-off enclosure in a larger room that was used as a workshop by another club. On one shelf in our room was a test tube labeled “Lithium Chlorplatinate, Dolloff, 1923.”

This had become a sort of household god to us, and Mr. Dolloff was a guardian angel with us in spirit. No one knew what good lithium chlorplatinate was, and we had great respect for the man who could concoct such a curiosity and leave it to posterity. What other club could boast such a treasure?

Our enclosure was only about 20 feet by 8 feet, and this space was pretty well filled with tables, stools and apparatus. It is rather amazing that on one particular Saturday, six of us had managed to squeeze in and were busy at work in our own fiendish way.

Frank Snow, our president, Sam Brewster, Dave Dickens, Al Lynch and I were all legally present on the infamous afternoon. Also present was a boy who was called “Mr. X” in all of our records because our faculty adviser had banished him from the lab merely because he had blown it up once before.

Frank was attempting to prepare nitroglycerin. Even Mr. X, with his experience, was appalled by such a preparation, but Frank was playing it safe. Since it was so dangerous, he had decided to make it in quantities of only about 5 grams. We later learned to our astonishment that 1 gram of nitroglycerin can lift 9 tons, 1 yard in one-fortieth of a second. Fortunately, Frank had used the wrong proportions of materials, and the nitroglycerin was enervated by unchanged starting material.

Even so, it kept going off during the process. Frank would call out, “Here it goes!” and we would all scurry out into the shop. It never really exploded, but there was a “whoosh” and the contents of the tube sprayed around the room.We dissolved one window shade in this way. Al and Mr. X got disgusted and decided to do their work out in the shop.

Al was working with nitrogen iodide and nitrogen chloride, which are among the touchiest explosives known—a breath of warm air being sufficient to detonate nitrogen iodide. The first man to make nitrogen chloride lost an eye and three

fingers in the process.We thought that the iodide was great fun and had sprinkled it liberally all over the floor so that every step caused an explosion—not dangerous but quite surprising to anyone who didn’t know what was happening. Mr. X later made a name for himself by sprinkling nitrogen iodide on toilet seats, but that is another story.

Sam was doing the most constructive work of the afternoon. He claimed to have a process for the manufacture of synthetic rubber and had assembled an apparatus about 10 feet long that looked like a cartoonist’s idea of a laboratory. The one difficulty was that he had decided it would be best to do the reaction under pressure.

Every now and then, a cork would pop out and Sam would either jam another in or hold his hand over the hole until one could be found. Getting liquids to flow into the apparatus was quite a problem since the high pressure blew them out whenever it was attempted. Sam thought he could solve the problem by blowing the liquids in. However, he got a mouthful of hydrochloric acid when he discovered that the pressure inside was greater than the pressure of his lungs. This regrettable accident ended his synthetic rubber process right there.

Mr. X also had a synthetic rubber process, which involved heating an evilsmelling mixture of turpentine, linseed oil, sulfur and other inflammable materials in an open beaker over a Bunsen burner. He didn’t seem to realize that it might catch on fire and none of us was killjoy enough to suggest this possibility to him.

Dave’s only contribution to science that afternoon was running around shoving a test tube at someone and exclaiming, “See, I’ve transmuted copper to potassium!” He seemed greatly hurt and refused to disclose his process when we told him that it was impossible.

I had been reading about the new explosive RDX, which was said to be five times more powerful than TNT. I had discovered its chemical composition and an extremely simple method of manufacture. Naturally, I couldn’t resist trying to make it.

While the RDX process was going along, I amused myself by firing screws through our partition from a cannon made from glass tubing with a guncotton as a propellant. Of course, I needed a new

cannon each time since the force of the explosion turned the glass tubing into thousands of flying fragments that caused a good deal of unrest among my neighbors. Mr. X was also rather put out by the screws that came hurtling through the wall in his general direction every now and then.

The final step in the RDX process was evaporating a solution of it to dryness.

Naturally, I couldn’t wait for slow evaporation so I was heating it over a Bunsen burner—not exactly a safe procedure, but we were hardened to that sort of thing.

Just as the solution was almost completely evaporated, Frank called out, “Here it goes!” We rushed out into the shop amid the “pop, pop” of exploding nitrogen iodide. I left the Bunsen burner under the RDX, and Mr. X also [left] a Bunsen burner under his mixture. We were huddled in a corner waiting for something to happen when Frank, in a spirit of playfulness, banged a yardstick on the wall. Thinking that something had exploded, everyone except Frank fell flat on his face. At that precise moment the door opened, and in walked the chairman of the Science Department, followed by the entire Science Department faculty and the Trustees of the Academy.

This, you might say, was an embarrassing situation. Frank, being the only one in a vertical position, had the job of explaining things while expecting something to go off at any minute. The rest of us hastily picked ourselves up and hurried inside our partition where we could hardly keep from breaking into wild, insane laughter.

Our faculty adviser saw that all was not as it should be and realizing that any untoward activities might be blamed on him, he hurriedly convinced [the Trustees] that there was really nothing to see.

As he hustled them out we all heaved a sigh of relief and broke into uncontrollable laughter at the humor of the situation. Shortly after the door closed, Mr. X’s mixture flamed to the ceiling—to his amazement and our great glee.

Our merry activities finally ended when the Science Department discovered that we were using sulfuric acid at the rate of a gallon and a half a week, more than they used in a month. We were never able to discover where all the acid was going to, but I suspect that washing all our glassware in it had something to do with it.

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Exonians in Review

Redefining a Decade T H E 1 9 7 0 S : A N E W G L O B A L H I S T O RY F RO M C I V I L R I G H T S T O E C O N O M I C I N E Q UA L I T Y , B Y T H O M A S B O R S T E L M A N N ’ 7 6 A review by R. Bruce Pruitt

J

Thomas Borstelmann is a prize-winning author and history professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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une 1965 was a heady time in America. The previous summer had seen the passage of legislation redeeming a century-old promise of equality to African-Americans. In November, Lyndon B. Johnson swept into the presidency by the largest margin in U.S. history, bringing with him a two-thirds Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. Now the powerful reforming zeal spurred by the civil rights movement seemed poised to extend former President Abraham Lincoln’s “new birth of freedom” and transform the nation.With approval ratings of 69 percent, Johnson prepared a bold speech setting out the domestic program for his first full term. As he rose before the graduating seniors at Howard University, Johnson must have taken satisfaction that his words would find a receptive audience, not only that day in Washington, but throughout the land.

Together with the Civil Rights Act, the imminent passage of a voting rights bill would achieve freedom for AfricanAmericans, Johnson declared. But freedom (or liberty in the parlance of the Declaration of Independence) was not enough: “You do not take a man who, for years, has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe you have been completely fair. . . .[I]t is not enough to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity—not just legal equity but human ability—not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and a result.”

It was not to be. Johnson’s startling new definition of America’s foundational values of liberty and equality marked the high point of liberalism in the 20th century. The next day, Ambassador Maxwell Taylor cabled more bad news from Saigon; in July, Johnson publicly acknowledged that escalation would begin in earnest. In August, the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles exploded in flames and violence. In November, Ken Kesey began to invite the public to his “Acid Tests” in San Francisco and Oakland. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The centrality of the 1970s in recasting and, in important ways,

destroying the Great Society’s liberal vision becomes clear in Thomas “Tim” Borstelmann’s valuable new book. The author, who teaches at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, has written earlier about the intersection of the Cold War, race relations and U.S. foreign policy in Apartheid’s Reluctant Uncle: The United States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War (1993) and The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (2001). While other works have addressed his general subject matter, none provide so comprehensive a synthesis of original research and a vast amount of recent scholarship about the last four decades. Borstelmann’s commitment to studying the United States in a global perspective gives his treatment additional heft. The result is a book that clearly demonstrates just how deeply what’s past is prologue, and will engage anyone interested in understanding why Americans are the way they are today.

Far from being merely, in Borstelmann’s words, “a time of decline, uncertainty, and self-centeredness,” lacking the clear story line of the two decades surrounding it, the 1970s "Like a stone dropped into a pond, were a “crucial period of change and adjustthe force of the African-American ment that reshaped the contours of American history and indeed global history ever since.” civil rights movement continued and That reshaping comprised two fundamental spread outward in American life." elements: “a decisive turn to free market economics as the preferred means for resolving political and social problems” and the growth of a “spirit of egalitarianism and inclusiveness that rejected traditional hierarchies and lines of authority.”

During this formative decade, Americans were buffeted at home and abroad.Vietnam and Watergate drained confidence in public authority across the political spectrum.The end of the long postwar economic boom, the loss of U.S. manufacturing predominance and the decline of real wages—especially in an era of galloping inflation—undermined the buoyant prosperity that bolstered the distributive policies of the Great Society. Thus secular trends reinforced the role of events in the estranging of Americans from their government. Even during the heyday of liberalism, conservative intellectuals and economists had been working to establish the basis of a free market attack on John Maynard Keynes and the welfare state.The circumstances of the early 1970s prepared the way for a “sea change of principles,” as their ideas became the new orthodoxy.

In developing his second theme, Borstelmann shows that the egalitarian thrust of the previous decade persisted, even if its political economy ultimately did not. Noting that “[f]or most Americans, [the] ‘1960s’ really happened in the 1970s,” he recounts the persistence of the reform impulse. Activist government did not end with Democratic political defeat in 1968: Former President Richard Nixon, not Johnson, established the Environmental Protection Agency and proposed a guaranteed annual income; under his watch, the affirmative action implied in Johnson’s Howard University speech came into acceptance. Even more important (for the long run) was the continuation and elaboration of the ’60s legacy for American society. “Like a stone dropped into a pond, the force of the African-American civil rights movement continued and spread outward in American life,” as a “new tide of egalitarianism” lifted groups historically the subject of discrimination: Native Americans, immigrants, homosexuals and others. Along “the many frontiers of equality,” no change was greater than that in the lives and status of American women, in both public and private spheres. Multiculturalism, identity politics and successive waves of feminism—so much a feature of American life ever since—stem from this formative decade. So, too, do the culture wars, originating in the strong backlash against egalitarianism, which Borstelmann carefully (and respectfully) recounts.

Amid all the confusion and “crosscurrents of crisis” of the 1970s, Americans came to embrace fully “two profound yet in some ways antagonistic values: formal equality and complete faith in the marSPRING 2012

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ketplace.” The significance of this “transformation in American society. . . [whose] reverberations are still being felt decades later” is a further strand of Borstelmann’s argument. The embrace of both egalitarianism and the market had significant consequences. Most importantly, it reinforced an already powerful strain of American culture, promoting a “hyper-individualism” that privileged liberty over equality (or any form of equality other than legal). The misdistribution of wealth that has increased ever since 1974 provides ample evidence for Borstelmann’s central contention that America has become less equal, even as it became more free. The “peculiar convergence of egalitarianism and market values” in the 1970s resulted in a “striking reversal in the contents of public and private life.” Matters of state action such as taxation, military service and economic regulation were turned over to the government, while more private values “religious faith, family life and sexual behavior moved into the mainstream of public life.” Borstelmann also establishes links between the primacy of these convergent values and other aspects of contemporary American society and politics: the flourishing pornography industry (begun in the 1970s); the current state of the laws on The misdistribution of wealth that has abortion, birth control and school desegreincreased ever since 1974 provides ample gation; and more generally, the “turning inward” of Americans to a private world of evidence for Borstelmann’s central consumerism and disengagement from contention that America has become less civic or communal life.

A stimulating aspect of Borstelmann’s equal, even as it became more free. book is the question he raises about the relationships among the developments he recounts. He does not cast the story as one of victorious conservative backlash against liberal excess (or hubris, or idealism—take your pick), although he recognizes the political reality that the Republican Party has benefited enormously from an alliance between free market and social conservatives. Promoters and opponents of the “emerging individualistic synthesis” of the “dominant contemporary American values of formal equality and free market economics” can be found on both ends of the political spectrum. Moreover, he contends, in important ways these two values tended to support each other. Thus the counterculture and others on the left shared the libertarian economists’ disenchantment with government, undermining support for the activist state.

Conservative Christians spurred to political action by Roe v.Wade rejected the claims of egalitarian feminists but agreed that “the personal is political”; both groups brought into question long-standing ideas about the exclusion of individuals’ private behavior from governmental concern. It may be too much to claim, as Borstelmann does in citing Walter Benn Michaels, that “cultural liberalism and economic conservatism formed a de facto alliance. . . [that became] the contemporary American condition, the ground on which the vaunted American middle class continued to shrink,” but he gives us something to think about.

Although he emphasizes the United States, Borstelmann points to similar trends elsewhere in the world and devotes a separate chapter to “The Retreat of Empires and the Global Advance of the Market.” Borstelmann’s breadth of scope and research means that interesting surveys or explanations of a host of subjects appear along the way: the historical background to Osama bin Laden; the role of changing attitudes toward the Holocaust in shaping Jewish identity and contemporary U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East; and the place of former President Jimmy Carter as emblematic of the 1970s. This reviewer, at least, could not help but keep a running tab of all the striking facts and figures Borstelmann provides. His evenhandedness about subjects that still form the basis for bitter partisanship encourages us to think deeply about how and why the prospect held out by Johnson at Howard University is so distant today: Borstelmann tells the story, but leaves it up to us to judge its meaning and moral.

R. Bruce Pruitt P’95, P’00 is PEA’s emeritus Steyer Distinguished Professor in History, Cordingley Teaching Chair in History, Bicentennial Professor in History, director of studies and chair of the Department of History.

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Exonians in Review

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

ALUMNI/AE 1937—John Tyler Bonner.

Fifty Summers in Cape Breton.

(CreateSpace, 2011) 1943—Russell Hunter.

Heir Conditioning at Open Country. (iUniverse, 2011) 1944—Malcolm G. Alexander. To Reason Why

[memoir]. (Ghost River Images, 2011) 1950—Russell S. Reynolds Jr. and Carol E. Curtis.

Heads: Business Lessons from an Executive Search Pioneer.

(McGraw-Hill, 2012) 1954—Peter Leslie.

Aviation’s Quiet Pioneer: John Leslie [’22] and Pan American’s Flying Boats. (CreateSpace, 2012) 1956—William Peace.

Sin & Contrition. (Strategic Book, 2011) 1960—Robert Gambee, co-author, and others.

Princeton Impressions.

(W.W. Norton, 2012)

1960—Charles D. Kirkpatrick II. Time the Markets:

Using Technical Analysis to Interpret Economic Data. (FT Press, 2011)

1961—John Irving.

1967—(Richard) Gillum Ferguson. Illinois in the

War of 1812. (University of Illinois Press, 2012)

1967—Jonathan Galassi.

Left-handed: Poems. (Knopf, 2012) 1967—Curt Hahn, director, and Mark Ethridge. Deadline [film] [based on Grievances, a novel by Ethridge].

(Transcendent Productions, 2012) 1968—Neal Delmonico, co-editor, and others. The Song Divine or Bhagavadgita [a metrical rendering, translated by C.C. Caleb]. (Blazing Sapphire Press, 2011) 1968—Edward M. Hallowell. Shine: Using Brain Science

to Get the Best from Your People. (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011) —Easy to Love but Hard to Raise: Real Parents, Challenging Kids,True Stories [edited

by Kay Marner and Adrienne Ehlert Bashista, with foreword by Hallowell].

(DRT Press, 2012) 1968—Tony Seton. Just Imagine: A Novel. (CreateSpace, 2011) —The Quality Interview: Getting It Right on Both Sides of the Mic. (CreateSpace, 2011) 1971—Dan Hunter and others. Iowa? . . . It’s a State of Mind. (Hunter Higgs LLC, 2011) 1971—Roland Merullo.

The Talk-Funny Girl: A Novel.

(Crown, 2011) 1971—Kem Knapp Sawyer. Mohandas Gandhi

In One Person. (Simon & Schuster, 2012)

(Champion of Freedom).

(Morgan Reynolds, 2011)

1967—Mark Ethridge and Curt Hahn, director. Deadline

Trefethen’s Index Cards: Forty Years of Notes About People, Words and Mathematics.

(World Scientific, 2011)

[film] [based on Grievances, a novel by Ethridge]. (Transcendent Productions, 2012)

1973—Lloyd N. Trefethen.

1988—Carolyn (Barnett) Gibson. Catching Tongues:

How to Teach Your Child a Foreign Language, Even If You Don’t Speak One Yourself.

(CreateSpace, 2011) 1991—Anne E. Egger and

Anthony Carpi. The Process of Science. (lulu.com, 2011) 1994—Emily Pérez. Backyard Migration Route [poetry chapbook]. (Finishing Line Press, 2011) 1995—Keya (Lui) Guimarães and Roberto

Araujo Guimarães, illustrator. Second Wonder. (Four Stops Press, 2011) 1995—Alexandra Wilkis Wilson and Alexis Maybank.

By Invitation Only: How We Built Gilt and Changed the Way Millions Shop. (Portfolio, 2012) 1996—Vincent Pallaver, translator, and others. Pioneers of Bacteriology: Dictionary of the Great Scientists [by François Renaud and Jean Freney, translated from French by Pallaver]. (ESKA, 2012) BRIEFLY NOTED 1961—Geoffrey Craig. “An

Errand.” [poem] IN Tidal Basin Review. (spring 2012) 1981—Claudia Putnam.

“Blur.” [poem] IN Poetry East. (issue 71/72/73, fall 2011)

—“On the Agony of Not Being a Painter, in the Trench Between Autumn and Winter.” [poem] IN Barrow Street. (no. 22, winter 2011–12) 1994—Emily Pérez. “Further Thoughts on Abandon.” [poem] IN Crab Orchard Review. (v.16, no.1, winter/spring 2011) — “Advice to My Younger Self: Fall.” [poem] IN Crab Orchard Review. (v.16, no.1, winter/spring 2011) — “Advice to My Younger Self: Winter.” [poem] IN Crab Orchard Review. (v.16, no.1, winter/spring 2011) FACULTY AND FORMER FACULTY/FORMER BENNETT FELLOW Victor L. Cahn. Bard

Games:The Shakespeare Quiz Book. (Taylor Trade, 2011) —Romantic Trapezoid: A Novel. (Resource, 2010) Lucy Ferriss. The Lost Daughter. (Berkley Trade, 2012) Matthew Hartnett. By Roman Hands: Inscriptions and Graffiti for Students of Latin [2nd edition]. (Focus, 2012) Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler. A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith.

(Tupelo Press, 2012) Ralph Sneeden. “Live Free and Surf: My (Coastal) Slice of New Hampshire is Primary Indeed.” IN Zócalo Public Square. (http://zocalo publicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2012/01/08/, posted on January 8, 2012) Katherine Towler and Ilya Kaminsky. A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith.

(Tupelo Press, 2012)

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Technology and Harkness:

An

Experiment Using iPads as teaching tools

By Katherine Towler, Illustration by Stuart Bradford

n a bright November morning, a familiar and timeless scene takes place in a Phillips Hall classroom. Twelve students and an instructor gather at the Harkness table for a class on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. As they engage in a close reading of the play and explore its meaning, they are doing what Exeter students and instructors have done since the introduction of the Harkness method. In the course of 50 minutes, each member of the class will take a turn at defending a point of view, analyzing an idea, questioning an assumption, or simply wondering out loud. This is vintage Harkness, but there is something different about this Harkness classroom: The students are not holding books in their hands. They are reading the text on the screens of iPads.

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This scene took place last fall, when English Instructor Johnny Griffith and the seniors in his English 410 class participated in a pilot project to test the use of the iPad in the classroom. History Department Chair and Arthur A. Seeligson ’13 Professor in Business, Economics and History Meg Foley and the seniors in her history elective, Capitalism and Its Critics, joined the experiment. Each student was given an iPad to use for the semester. Students completed most of the reading assignments on their iPads; a number wrote their paper using the tablets as well. Beyond testing the applications of the device, the project posed larger questions: What is the place of technology in the Harkness classroom? Does it facilitate learning or is it a distraction? Can it become part of the Harkness conversation?

The pilot project got its start in January 2011 when 17 faculty members were given iPads. The group met regularly to exchange ideas and report on how they were using the tablets in their teaching. A number of instructors expressed an interest in supplying their students with the devices, in the belief that a truer experiment would involve access to the tool by everyone in the classroom.

Independently over the summer, the Academy Trustees voted to purchase iPad 2s for every faculty member. This generous gift freed up the first iPads used in the original pilot project. Coupled with a gift from a donor, it enabled the Academy to supply students in the two classes with the tablets.

Griffith, who was part of the faculty pilot, had been making regular use of the iPad for a year when he introduced it to his class. “I was interested in giving our students some sort of connected device,” he explains. “It’s hard to do a writing workshop in the classroom, for instance. I was looking for a device that would make this possible. Can we move to a classroom that’s essentially paperless? This is an exciting idea.”

Apple introduced the iPad just two years ago, in April 2010. Nine months later, The New York Times reported that schools across the country were testing it out. From firstgrade classrooms to colleges, educational institutions have been experimenting with the

What is the place of technology in the Harkness Opposite page: iPads, dictionaries, books, laptops and a chess board are all resources for an English class.

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iPad, in part with the aim of saving money on paper and textbooks. Among the features that have attracted educators are the large size of the screen coupled with a slim and lightweight case. Educational apps continue to mushroom, with estimates putting current availability at more than 20,000.

Griffith found that his students quickly recognized the usefulness of the tablets during class. “In the past, a student would grab the dictionary from the middle of the table to look up a word,” he says. “Now they look it up online. The students can click over to Safari [a web browser] to learn about a mythological reference. It’s quite seamless.”

The tablets worked for peer critiques, too, allowing students to share their drafts easily. Giving feedback posed a challenge, however. While it’s possible to make notes on a document, the notes are not as easy to access as handwritten comments on hard copy.

Some students had a similar complaint about reading on the iPad. “I thought everyone would fall in love with the iPad, but that wasn’t necessarily the case,” Ryan Baker, a senior in Capitalism and Its Critics, says. “I missed being able to make notes on actual pages.”

Foley acknowledges this point. “[The] eReaders are particularly bad for annotation.

You can add a note and see that you have done so, but you don’t see the note right there on the page, the way you do with a physical text.” In other respects, however, Foley found the iPad enabled significant innovations.

Foley describes herself as a late adopter of technology but she has easily integrated the iPad into her life. Capitalism and Its Critics relies on a heavy use of handouts. Foley appreciated the fact that she was able to save paper by creating PDF files and distribut-

ing reading assignments digitally. Receiving student papers digitally and marking them on the iPad using a stylus was another plus. In the classroom, students used the iPad to update the class blog, to view video and newspaper articles amid a discussion of current events, and to collaborate on projects by viewing the same screen on their tablets.

Kathleen Larkin ’12 felt that the iPad suited the content of the history course. Because much of the discussion focused on contemporary topics and news, the ability to stop during discussion and have the class read a New York Times article together was particularly valuable.

“As a tool in the classroom, it worked well,” Larkin says. She admits that out of class, she used a laptop to write her papers.

Heather Wilson ’12, who is in Griffith’s class, views reading on the iPad as fundamentally different from reading a book. A self-described “huge fan” of Shakespeare, she says, “I see how the iPad can be useful, and there were certain moments when it

freely. It’s a tool that’s more accessible for everyone. It provides the ability to have many different resources in one place with easy, quick access.”

Not so new...

Science Instructor Mark Hiza P’05, P’06 notes that technology has had a place in his classroom throughout his 28-year career. For the last seven years, he has been using a tablet laptop that allows him to write directly on the screen and project the image for the entire class to view. A wireless

classroom? Does it facilitate learning or is it a distraction? came in handy. But, when I come to a book, I want that book to be the only thing I am focusing on. I found the iPad to be a distraction.”

Among other things, the pilot project demonstrated the importance of both context and subject matter in the application of this technology. While the iPad may have been uniquely suited to the history class, it proved less adaptable in English, where students missed the immediate access to the notes that are standard in the pages of a Shakespearean text. Griffith acknowledges that they might have felt differently reading a contemporary novel.

Director of Studies Laura Marshall reports that the overwhelming response of faculty to the iPads has been positive. The athletic coaches have also been making innovative use of the iPad with their teams, including using it for instant replays with the diving team to critique divers’ style when they emerge from the pool. “The iPad is a user-friendly tool,” Marshall says. She adds, “It’s exciting to see [faculty] who were more resistant to embracing technology using it now

projection system—a more recent innovation— enables the tablet to move around the classroom with ease, so students can add their own notes for all to see.

Hiza has not used the iPad in his classroom because he finds it is not as well suited to science as the tablet he is already using, but there is no question in his mind about the role of these new technologies in teaching science. “Technology has helped to streamline the collection and analysis of data, so we can move on to understanding the concept.”

The iPad project may still be in the test phase, but it’s clear that technological devices have taken a seat at the Harkness table in many classrooms already.

Religion Department Chair Tom Ramsey P’04 allows students to access their smartphones to research information during the course of the discussion. Most of his students bring phones to class with SPRING 2012

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them. On one notable occasion, a student insisted on calling her mother, who happened to be an expert on a point of debate.

Ramsey prefers his laptop to the iPad for most of his digital work in relation to teaching. However, he regularly makes use of a large-screen monitor connected to a DVD player and a computer to project films and webpages for viewing by the entire class. He has also brought in visiting authors via Skype.

A significant issue in the implementation of connected devices is the lack of wireless access in some classrooms

Mandel is currently enrolled in the M.B.A. program at Harvard and plans to return to working in the technology industry when she completes her degree. She sees technology as a powerful force in enriching people’s lives and believes it’s the area where she can have the most impact. But Mandel views her Exeter experience through the Harkness table and has a hard time with the idea of an iPad in the classroom.

Is the iPad just a

and other locations on campus.The dormitories currently do not have wireless access, a conscious choice the Academy made some years ago. Spurred by the donation of the iPads, a committee is now reviewing this policy and working on plans to soon make the entire campus wireless.

An initial plan called for wireless access campuswide in the next three years, but the administration is investigating speeding up this process.

The experts' view

Alumni/ae working in the technology industry shared some interesting views on technology’s place in the classroom. After graduating from Yale, Katie Mandel ’03 worked at Google as a product marketing manager, helping launch and market new products for Google Maps.

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“The fundamental value of the Harkness approach is in allowing students to wrestle with an issue and to be fully engaged with their peers in discussion,” she explains. “This is unique in academic and work settings. [I think] having tablets and smartphones in the classroom detracts from the personal interaction.”

Mandel acknowledges that today’s students will need to be adept at technology to succeed in the modern workplace. “In the classroom, however, I think the phones and devices should be off. The Harkness method creates dialogue around a topic, and the face-to-face interaction is the most valuable part of that dialogue.”

Peter Durham ’85, the chief software architect for MSNBC and a former Microsoft software engineer, has a different take. “It’s interesting to compare what is happening today to the advent of calculators at Exeter,” Durham says. “The calculator allowed a higher-level discussion in math that wasn’t focused

on basic computing. The same is true today with the accessing of information. Because students can access information quickly, they don’t have to spend time on recall.There’s the potential to create a richer discussion.”

In the classroom, Durham believes, the iPad or any other connected device is simply another tool, one that students will need to master just as an earlier generation learned how to use a library card catalog.

Tom Cochran ’96 believes that his career in technology has been driven by his years at Exeter. He arrived at the Academy in 1993, a key moment in time for the nascent Internet. Cochran discovered the computer lab in the Academy Building and spent hours there surfing the Internet. His fascination led to his current position as director of new media technologies for the Executive Office of the President. He oversees the team managing the day-to-day operations of WhiteHouse.gov and supports President Obama’s communications objectives through web, social media and mobile platforms.

“The Harkness classroom makes for the best form of education one can receive,” Cochran says. “Each person at the table is an equal.” With the strengths of the Harkness classroom as a starting point, he argues that the objective is to make the use of technological tools truly productive. “It’s not all or nothing. The task is to figure out the best way to use technology in a system that works.”

In education, as in other areas of our lives, he sees the application of technology as a natural evolution. “The generation of today’s students—‘digital natives’—will use smart devices whether you support it or not. It’s best to find a way to make their use a learning experience, so it’s not a distraction.”

The pilot project at Exeter is continuing this term, with new classes trying out the iPads. It remains to be seen where this experiment will take students and faculty next.

Foley believes it’s only a matter of time before tablets are simply a fact of life, in the

modern-day tool like the calculator used to be? classroom and out. “I’m just starting to figure out how to use this device,” she reflects.

“It’s hard to imagine that in five years, we won’t all be using tablets all the time.”

For students like Wilson, there are valid reasons to resist the tide of change. She likes to take more time with her reading, something the physical book encourages. “The way we read digital texts is different,” Wilson says. “It encourages a more cursory reading and a faster pace.Yes, the physical text is clunky, and that’s a good thing. It slows you down.”

Griffith sees her point. “The iPad is not yet capable of giving a reader the same experience as holding a text and a pen in your hand,” he says. “It can’t replicate that experience. What is missing is the ability to flip from one page to another and having a pen to mark passages. So it has not completely replaced or changed my reading experience.”

Still, he feels that the tablets brought a lot to the Harkness table and did not detract from the discussion. “Some people wondered if it would be a distraction to have so many devices at the table. It wasn’t; the swiftness with which students adopted use of the [iPads] was amazing. They integrated them into the classroom. I came to see the degree to which it was just another tool they were using,” Griffith concludes.

We are living in a wired world, in which the pace of change is breathtaking. For today’s students, the ability to be connected anywhere, at any time, is simply what they have come to expect. Should the classroom be any different? Instructors and students at Exeter will go on weighing the pros and cons. One thing is certain. The Harkness conversation—about technology and about Shakespeare—continues.

Opposite page: Harkness conversations remain at the core of teaching and learning.

Katherine Towler, a former Bennett Fellow and frequent contributor to the Bulletin, is an author of three novels and is most recently the co-editor of A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith.

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Teenage Designing, programming and marketing apps— and getting to class on time By Karen Ingraham news search on Google

for “student web developers” yields some notable returns—at least for those of us born when the Internet wasn’t as ubiquitous as television or radio.

Especially noteworthy are the teenagers making headlines for their software design and development. From the 14-year-old in Singapore featured on CNET Asia for his Android smartphone coding to the 16-year-old Brit who is CEO of a startup company.

Exonians are no exception. Meet five students who, at an early age, took the initiative to learn the programs and programming languages they needed to unleash their creativity into the frontiers of cyberspace. They are Exeter preps and lowers, busy students who have somehow found the time to be computer graphic artists, web designers and app developers, as well as marketers and entrepreneurs.

Tyler Weitzman ’14

Website and Mobile App Developer In February, the site Lifehacker.com—which bills its content as “tips, tricks, and downloads for getting things done”—reviewed a new iPhone app, Black SMS.The application, available on iTunes for 99 cents, enables users to send and receive encrypted, hidden, password-protected texts. Lifehacker’s reviewer states, “This is a very helpful tool when you’re exchanging sensitive data,” and concludes, “When you’ve got something private to share, Black SMS can help you keep it that way.” It has also been written about on other sites such as ModMy, Redmond Pie and most recently on TechCrunch and Gizmodo.

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Lower Tyler Weitzman developed the app during Thanksgiving break last year and launched it in January. It is his most successful app to date, reaching a ranking in the top 100 among social networking apps in Apple’s App Store.

At 16 years old, Weitzman has already spent about a third of his lifetime as a computer programmer, tracing his initial interest back to early childhood when he could recall long strings of icons from surfing the web before he was able to read.

It was in fifth grade that Weitzman began to program. He took a course in Visual Basic, a programming language, with much older students. He was hooked.

“I love programming,” he says. “I go through interesting challenges and then finally get to see the lines of code that I wrote turn into an interactive program.”

Weitzman’s first programs were simple but also practical. “The most exciting for me at the time was a program that encrypts text with an encryption I invented that comes out different every time but always translates back the same. Later I discovered the exact method has already been thought of but it was still a great experience.”

Weitzman started focusing on iPhone apps in seventh grade, and that’s where he largely left formal training behind. He watched YouTube video tutorials on iPhone programming as he began to work in that medium.

Twenty-two iPhone and iPad applications later, Weitzman has learned a lot.

In November 2009, he launched his inaugural app, Dice Shaker, to be used with Hasbro’s strategy game Risk. Dice are rolled virtually—complete with visual, sound and motion effects.Weitzman markets the tool, which is not endorsed by Hasbro.

STUDENT PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHERYL SENTER

Techies Tyler Weitzman ’14 developed the iPhone app Black SMS, which keeps your texts private.

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“Dice Shaker took me about two months to make as I was following YouTube tutorials but making it taught me a new programming environment. Some of my other apps only took a few weeks, even though they are more complicated,” Weitzman says.

Those apps include Falling Pie, a free game first made as a gift for Weitzman’s eighth-grade math teacher who was born on March 14, or “Pi Day.” In the game, an avatar hurls forks at falling pies imprinted with the pi icon.

Weitzman’s other fee-based apps include Paint Bounce, iShoot Hoops, Angry Penguins, and one of his most successful—Glow Neon Doodle. Weitzman created a free version of this application to help market the full version. So far, it’s working. Glow Neon Doodle Lite, a free app, has been downloaded more than 180,000 times, averaging about 300 free downloads per day.

The main thing that slows Weitzman down now is lack of time. He is, after all, an Exonian. In addition to his course load, Weitzman is head of the Student

“I’m more interested in the bigger side of things,” Weitzman concludes. “I don’t want to be a programmer . . . rather, I’m more into getting things to market and getting a good business model. IPhone apps are a good experience, but [they’re] not what I’m going to be doing when I grow up.”

Matthew Daiter ’14

Back-end Programmer By his upper or senior year, lower Matthew Daiter thinks he may begin dabbling in viruses. “I used to get them all the time, and I’ve always wanted a way to stop them,” he says.

He’s talking, of course, about the malicious code that can infect computer systems and has led to a multibillion-dollar anti-virus industry where Norton, McAfee and Symantec are now household names.

But Daiter isn’t looking for a payday, at least not

Alex Weitzman ’15 designed her own website in third grade and Matthew Daiter ’14 discovered back-end programming in seventh grade.

Council’s Technology Committee and a member of the Inventions Club. He also serves as a peer tutor for students enrolled in PEA’s Computer Science courses.

One might assume that Weitzman’s career path is a given, but while he is quick to declare his love of programming, he is equally quick to clarify his current trajectory in life.

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yet. His motivation is more about pursuing a passion, and about non sibi.

“I like to think of the user when I develop,” he says. “I want to help protect people. I think that would not only be a good decision morally but a good use of my time and an interesting area to go into.”

Daiter’s penchant for aiding others is evident in

much of the computer programming work he does.

“I work on a lot of back-end stuff,” he explains.

“You generally don’t see my stuff as the front-page view. It’s more the driving force behind it. I basically provide front-end developers with back-end tools they can use.”

One such tool is Daiter’s html parser, which—in general terms—searches for specific objects or details on an html page. “[It] gives a section of the back end to people like Tyler Weitzman, which allows him to more elegantly display the content of his website on an iPhone.

“I love doing back-end work,” he continues. “It makes me feel like I’m supplying developers with these tools that help them facilitate not only app development but development in general, so they can get their projects out much more quickly to the users.”

It was in seventh grade that Daiter discovered back-end programming after he persuaded his parents to let him take a C++ programming language course with the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth.

“Once I started to actually go outside of the box and develop, it was sort of like taking the red pill in The Matrix,” he says. “You dive into the rabbit hole.”

Since coming to Exeter, Daiter, who is on the cross-country team and takes photographs for The Exonian, hasn’t checked his programming pace. In addition to enrolling in two Computer Science courses during the school year, Daiter spent last summer studying two other Computer Science courses with an Exonian who had already taken them.

This summer he plans to use what he’s learned to build a mobile app that allows users to “easily tour the [PEA] campus and have a full experience, just like you were here.” That’s when he’s not tinkering with actual hardware. He built his own desktop computer over winter break, and that whetted his appetite for more.

“I’ve been engineering a concept for a touch screen, and I want to put it into work,” he says, regarding his other summer project. “I’ve always wanted to get into hardware.”

Alex Weitzman ’15

Computer Graphic Artist When she was in third grade, prep Alex Weitzman found a website that provided templates and tutorials for a user to build his or her own website. So she did.

She also teamed up with her brother, Tyler, to create one. He did the programming and she did the design.

It wasn’t long before Weitzman was asking her father for a copy of Adobe Photoshop.The 8-year-old watched online tutorials about the image-editing software, which is widely used by professional graphic artists and photographers, and began experimenting with her own designs.

“It sounds kind of surprising that a third-grader would be doing all that, but back then it felt totally normal,” she says.

“Normal” for Weitzman included designing book covers for stories that she would write and then submit to fiction-writing forums. She even posted a submission form to one forum so that other writers could request a book cover design from her.The most memorable for Weitzman was a “creepy cover” she made for a girl who had written about vampires.

The unassuming teen finds it difficult to put into words why she enjoys the digital medium for her artwork, but creative freedom—the borderless digital canvas and infinite inspiration at her fingertips— is a driving force. It’s the reason why she chose to teach herself. “I like being able to do what I want to do,” she states.

That includes logo and icon design. This year, Weitzman designed the image imprinted on PEA’s class of 2015 sweatshirts.

“One really important thing is —Matthew Daiter ’14 the font that you use,” Weitzman says, as she explains her logo-creation process. “It can make a big difference.” So she often downloads custom fonts rather than rely on computer system fonts, which she finds too simple. “Once you [have] the font, you [can] add effects to the text,” she explains. “You can give it texture or bevel, or you can make it glow or have a shadow.”

Though she hasn’t entirely forsaken ink and paper, Weitzman continues to bring more and more of her artwork into the digital sphere. During the winter term she was enrolled in Drawing I as an elective art course, and the class used iPads. “I really enjoy drawing on the iPad,” she says. “There’s more flexibility with it because you can easily erase things and change the opacity of layers and move them around. Once you finish working on it, you can make copies to email to people. It’s hard to put stuff that you draw traditionally onto the computer.”

Doing so,Weitzman adds, is not professional-looking, and that standard is one she always thinks about while visiting websites or downloading apps. “It’s fun—seeing what I can make and being able to compare it to real websites—knowing I could make something like that if I wanted to.”

“I basically provide front-end developers with back-end tools they can use.”

Brandon Wang ’15

Website Developer and Designer In middle school, prep Brandon Wang became frustrated with the traditional, wire-bound academic planners. They didn’t cut it, he says, or he would lose them. So he began searching for an electronic planner that would clearly display his homework assignments.

The ones he came across were either too cumbersome, had more features than he needed, or didn’t have the functionality he was looking for. That’s when he decided to design his own.

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Schooltraq (beta.schooltraq.com), Wang’s online academic planner, is currently in beta with a general launch for a fee-based version expected soon.The site was featured on Lifehacker last August with an invitation for readers to test the beta version for free. According to Wang, the article generated hundreds of thousands of site views, which resulted in more than 5,000 user registrations.

Although Wang first designed Schooltraq for his personal use, some of his friends began to express an interest in it. He —Connor Bloom ’15 did an informal poll on Facebook asking more friends if it was something they would use.

The response got him developing in earnest.

“I spent the end of my school year last year and a large portion of my summer break working on Schooltraq,” Wang says, “pouring time and effort into writing code. I’m a design-oriented person, [and] I really wanted to [be meticulous] about how it looked.”

The teen, who has also dabbled in magazine design and photography, began developing web-

“Even though [Exeter] is really hard, I feel it's the place to be for this kind of stuff.”

Connor Bloom ’15 designs 3-D computer models of town houses, furniture and entire communities.

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sites when he was 8 years old. He also developed templates for WordPress, an online website-building tool, but he quickly discovered an interest in creating web applications.

“The nice thing about it,” Wang says, “is it’s like a Garden of Eden—the one place you can start with a clean slate. ... On the screen, the world is sort of yours.”

Like his peers, Wang gained entry into this digital world largely by teaching himself a suite of programs and computer languages. His “hobby” has extended to other ventures like Sponsr.Us, a nonprofit team of high school and college students whose mission is to generate resources and funding for student-driven social projects. Wang is the designer of the organization’s website. He also designed the website for ETV, a new PEA club where students can create original shows for broadcast on the site.

Wang took advantage of a Computer Science course during the winter term where he was learning Java—a programming language—which he really enjoyed. He is thankful he found Exeter and sees it as a motivator for the work he does both in the classroom and on his own.

“Even though [Exeter] is really hard, I feel it’s the place to be for this kind of stuff,” he says. “You’re sur-

Brandon Wang ’15 designed his own online academic planner because he didn’t like the functionality of what was available.

rounded by so many other focus-oriented students who just want to push something forward [that] you’re a lot more invigorated to work on stuff. At my old school, you just didn’t get that . . . [students] didn’t really understand the joy of having a big goal.”

Connor Bloom ’15

Digital Architect Asked to describe his artistic aesthetic, prep Connor Bloom has a ready answer: “modern, open, creative.” The Montana native adds, “I really tend to go for things near the ocean. I tend to do a lot of green architecture . . . comfortable and contemporary. Clean lines, not cluttered.”

Bloom is referring to the 3-D computer models he creates using Google SketchUp— free software that allows users to design and build anything from furniture and staircases to entire communities. Bloom began using the software four years ago after taking an introductory-level wood shop course in fifth grade. He enjoyed the process of design and construction so much so that he searched for ways to expand that interest. When he discovered SketchUp in sixth grade, Bloom—not surprisingly—taught himself how to use it.

“When you learn it on your own, you don’t learn the boundaries,” he says. “To teach myself, I’d ask my friends, ‘What’s the craziest thing you can come up

with?’ or ‘What’s your ideal house?’ People can really have some fun imagining when you don’t limit yourself. The more you relax and ask other people, you realize maybe [it] is possible; maybe [there] isn’t a limit at all!”

Student became teacher in eighth grade, when Bloom taught a quarter-long course on SketchUp for 20 peers, in conjunction with his school’s art department. He also created 3-D models of toy cars and planes for his school’s art and wood shop departments. The designs were used to mass-produce the toys so they could be sold through fundraisers.

A photographer for The Exonian and member of a PEA piano ensemble, Bloom has since moved on to designing houses and larger-scale buildings. It took him a total of about 12 hours to design a contemporary town house, and the furniture and interiors inside of it.

Daiter has asked Bloom to help him with the virtual tour mobile app he is developing. While Daiter works on the back end, Bloom will create 3-D models of the Academy’s buildings and grounds. The 16year-old doesn’t appear fazed by the prospect. In fact, he’s already begun another project to design his own school—one that is eco-friendly and about the size of Exeter, but on a hill along a seacoast.

“It’s really good practice,” he says. “It [will] help me push myself. I just have to keep thinking of bigger and bigger projects.”

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Sports

Second Synthetic Turf Field Proposed for PEA S P R I N G A N D F A L L AT H L E T I C T E A M S M AY G E T N E W P L AY I N G S U R F AC E

By Mike Catano

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wo years ago, the fall Exeter/Andover Homecoming Weekend contests were marred by relentlessly

MIKE CATANO

heavy rains. Despite the conditions, the boys soccer team struggled through its match on the increasingly muddy and slippery natural grass field. Meanwhile, coaches and players on the girls team, which was scheduled to follow the boys on the same field, grew increasingly apprehensive that they might lose their chance to play.They were right. Director of Athletics and Instructor in Health Education Rob Morris ruefully recalls that decision. “I had to cancel the girls soccer game due to heavy rains.That disappointed athletes and fans. Having an extra synthetic turf field available would have prevented that. At the last minute, you can move one or two games to the turf.”

A second turf field has been part of the Fields Master Plan of the Physical Education Department for many years. It would complement the existing stadium turf field, which is six years old. Another turf field is expected to significantly increase the flexibility to schedule team practices and interscholastic games, in addition to being available for use by the Physical Education Department for its many intrascholastic programs and classes such as its prep, intramural, fitness and club activities.

At their last meeting in October, the Trustees reviewed a presentation that outlined a concept plan and budget for a second synthetic turf field.The potential project was also discussed in May 2011 as part of a list of priority capital projects that would be financed through fundraising efforts. The Trustees decided to move forward with the field as funds are raised by the Institutional Advancement staff.

"With all of the rain during The Facilities Management the tryouts, there were times team will proceed with full when I had two soccer teams design work when funds are available, with construction to and a field hockey team on follow on completion of the the field at the same time." fundraising effort. In addition to the Trustees’ review, two community forums were held on campus to give the Academy community the opportunity to voice their opinions.

Synthetic turf fields are used increasingly by professional, college and other teams. The current generation of synthetic fields is constructed over an underlayer of gravel, which serves as a collecting bed for water drainage. The turf itself consists of synthetic fibers that make up the “grass” surface, with an infill of sand or rubber granules, along with a permeable underlayer for cushioning.The infill helps support the grass fibers and provides addi-

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ankle sprains, muscular strains and issues of tendonitis on turf than on grass. Similarly, inconsistent surfaces can cause bad hops of baseballs, lacrosse balls and even soccer balls that can result in injuries. Bottom line: Consistent surfaces result in fewer injuries. Regarding heat issues, our athletic schedule is late enough in the summer and early enough in the spring to not be a factor. As for skin abrasions and resulting infections,

today’s infill field turfs [neither] cause the wounds nor harbor the organisms that cause these problems.”

Environmental Stewardship Manager Jill Robinson and Sustainability Education Coordinator and Instructor in Science Elizabeth Stevens P’14 co-chair PEA’s Sustainability Advisory Committee.

After its study of relevant research regarding the environmental impact of synthetic fields, Robinson summarized the committee’s conclusions. “We reviewed studies from municipalities, colleges, and other peer-reviewed articles and listened to a presentation on the conceptual design of the fields from the field’s designer and engineer. The body of literature on synthetic turf covers a range of issues including infiltration, lighting, safety, turf field materials and recycling of those materials. We concluded that the benefits of the field to the athletic program outweighed the impacts to the natural environment, but suggested that sustainability be incorporated into the site design through consideration of energy-efficient and dark-sky lighting, site permits, recycling of field materials after the field’s useful life, and effective stormwater management.”

Use of the proposed synthetic field would vary with the athletic seasons. During the fall term, the field hockey program would be the primary user of the field for practices and games, as it currently shares Phelps Stadium with the football program. The soccer program would also use the new field on occasion, depending on the condition of the grass fields. If needed, the larger size of the field would support multiple practices simultaneously. For example, Morris described how the existing stadium turf field was used during team tryouts last fall. “With all the rain during the tryouts, there were times when I had two soccer teams and a field hockey team on the field at the same time. A new field will allow me to spread those teams out.”

Beginning in late February, the new field would be available for spring athletic team tryouts. In the spring, girls and boys lacrosse teams would share the turf fields for practices and games. Baseball and softball teams may also use the field for practice if the condition of the grass diamonds is unsuitable for play due to weather.

MIKE RYAN

MIKE CATANO

tional cushioning while helping to reduce wear on the surfaces.

Facilities Management is working with its engineering design firm, as well as the Physical Education Department and members of the Academy community, to determine the best site for such a field at Exeter. Considerations include how to least impact the environment and existing field installations, as well as the Academy community’s use of current playing fields. The proposed field and the existing synthetic field in Phelps Stadium would together comprise 14 percent of the Academy’s playing fields, the rest of which are natural grass.

Health concerns sometimes arise when programs consider a switch to synthetic turf. A substantial body of research on this issue exists, including a comprehensive study conducted by the Connecticut Department of Public Health in 2010.These studies address issues such as air quality, temperature, and infections and abrasions.

Academy community stakeholders have reviewed relevant literature, and concluded that health risks associated with the use of synthetic turf fields are minimal and the fields actually confer several important health benefits.

“There is nothing to suggest an increase in injuries associated with turf,” says Gordon Coole, head athletic trainer at the Lamont Health and Wellness Center. “And there is a good case for the opposite. Inconsistent field surfaces [like] potholes, frost heaves, loose chunks giving way especially after heavy rains—none of these happen with synthetic surfaces. As a result, we see fewer

Field hockey, lacrosse and soccer are three of the teams that will benefit from another synthetic turf field.

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Sports

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Winter Sports

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(A) Boys Basketball Record: 15-9 Qualified for the New England semifinals

(F) Girls Squash Record: 4-11 13th at the New England Championships

(B) Girls Basketball Record: 4-17 Head Coach: Johnny Griffith

(G) Boys Swimming and Diving Record: 4-4 in regular season dual meets 3rd at the New England Prep School Championships

Head Coach: Jay Tilton Assistant Coaches: Kelly Coder ’04, Jon Pierce ’05 Captains: Showly Nicholson ’12, Cameron Shorey ’12 MVP: Christopher Braley ’13

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Assistant Coach: Nat Hawkins Captains: Catherine Closmore ’12, Sylvia Okafor ’12 MVPs: Catherine Closmore, Sylvia Okafor (C) Boys Ice Hockey Record: 22-3-5 Qualified for the New England semifinals

Head Coach: Dana Barbin Assistant Coaches: Bill Dennehy, Mark Evans Captains:William Goss ’12, Brian Hart ’12 MVPs: Matthew Beattie ’12, William Goss, Brian Hart (D) Girls Ice Hockey Record: 14-9-3

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Head Coach: Melissa Pacific Assistant Coaches: Lee Young ’82, Steven Wilson Captains: Lauria Clarke ’12, Martha Griffin ’12, Naomi Richardson ’12 MVP:Yuna Evans ’13 (E) Boys Squash Record: 9-7 11th at the New England Championships

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Head Coach: Fred Brussel Captains: John Blasberg ’12, Evan Gastman ’12 MVP: Evan Gastman

Head Coach: Fred Brussel Captains:Tatsiana Ivonchyk ’12, Frances Rucker ’12 MVP: Frances Rucker

Head Coach: Don Mills Captains: Jackson Rafter ’12, Avery Reavill ’12, Brooks Reavill ’12 MVPs: Avery Reavill, Brooks Reavill

(H) Girls Swimming and Diving Record: 5-2 in regular season dual meets 1st at the New England Prep School Championships

Head Coach: Jean Chase Farnum Captains: Renee Wang ’12, Catherine Willett ’12 MVPs: Emma Nuzzo ’12, Sabrina Thulander ’12 (I) Winter Track Record: Boys: 8-1; Girls: 5-2

Head Coach: Hilary Coder Assistant Coaches: Hannah Byrne ’00, Hobart Hardej,Toyin Augustus-Ikwuakor, Brandon Newbould, Francis Ronan Captains: Jabari Johnson ’12, Jason Kang ’12, Max Payson ’12, Lisa Scott ’12, Grace Weatherall ’12 MVPs: Jabari Johnson, Lisa Scott (J) Wrestling Record: 11-12 26th in Nationals; 9th at the New England Championships

Head Coach: David Hudson Assistant Coaches: Ethan Shapiro, Ted Davis, Bob Brown Captain: None MVPs: Matthew Sullivan ’12, Michael Sullivan ’12

J PHOTOS BY MIKE CATANO

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Expressions of Thanks On the first Thank-aDonor Day, students, faculty and staff wrote notes of appreciation to the donors and volunteers who help keep the Exeter experience extraordinary. See story, page 42.

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Connections

News & Notes from the Alumni/ae Community

A G L O B A L C O M M U N I T Y, U N I T E D B Y W H AT M AT T E R S

By Eunice Johnson Panetta ’84

A ROUTE of evanescence With a revolving wheel; A resonance of emerald, A rush of cochineal; And every blossom on the bush Adjusts its tumbled head,— The mail from Tunis, probably, An easy morning’s ride.

—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

BRIAN CROWLEY

The Spirit of the Hummingbird

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ickinson’s description of the hummingbird reflected the lives of Americans who, in the period following the Civil War, had begun darting around the world, advancing new avenues in science and commerce and new views of humanity and nature.

In our age of global trade and instantaneous communication, we can relate both to the excitement and anxieties that Dickinson and her contemporaries must have felt as lives became more interconnected and faster paced.

How fortunate we are, then, to be part of a school family that, from its founding days, has insisted on looking outward, seeking “youth I hope each of you will take from every quarter” and encouraging a spirit of open intellectual inquiry among faculty and students. Today our student body and curadvantage of opportunities riculum are more representative than ever of the broader world to forge links with fellow community, and our commitment to diversity is profound.

As an alumna volunteer, I have had the joy of rediscovering Exeter’s Exonians in many lands. global community as I have traveled both for business and with my family.When I am abroad with alums whom I have only just met, the conversation always flows readily and encompasses topics that truly matter: how we are all trying in our own small ways to make a difference, and how we can make this world better for the next generation.

I hope each of you will take advantage of opportunities to forge links with fellow Exonians in many lands, both in person and online, as we all seek a fuller understanding of our own times and of the future of the school we love so much.

Eunice Johnson Panetta is vice president of the Exeter Trustees.

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EXONIAN PROFILE

DONALD LIGHT ’59

Universal Healthcare – A Symbol of a Just Society

W

hen the U.S. Supreme Court announces its decision as early as this summer on the Obama Administration’s Affordable Care Act, professor, author and bioethics researcher Donald W. Light ’59 will wonder what the fuss was all about. “For the other affluent countries that we compare ourselves to and trade with, this case is unbelievable. They can’t believe we are making this into a supreme issue,” says Light, a senior fellow with the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, professor of comparative healthcare and welfare systems with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the former Lokey Visiting Professor at Stanford University from 2009–2011.

After more than 30 years of examining the ethics of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, Light—an internationally known sociologist and health policy expert—will continue to research injustices in healthcare distribution and to promote universal access to healthcare. He regards universal healthcare as a symbol of a just society. “The Obama Care Act is a big step, even if the Supreme Court rules against the individual mandate,” he observes.

Ironically, Light was an entrepreneur early on at Exeter.

Entering as a lower, he started an Academy side business to help parents give their sons—Exeter was boys-only then—a birthday cake far from home. This enterprise paid for a third of Light’s education. He also served as business manager for The Exonian and graduated with a future, he thought, in business. In college, however, he realized he had another love.

“Unknowingly, taking Latin and reading books with lots of footnotes and annotations, I found I was drawn to scholarship. At Stanford, I realized I enjoyed the life of the mind and doing intellectual work with footnotes, so here I am a scholar instead of a businessman,” he muses.

Now he argues for the equitable distribution of medical costs, like Medicare. “In all of the countries’ healthcare systems that I’ve studied—Germany, England, Sweden, France, The Netherlands and Canada—everyone pays for healthcare

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coverage. Social fairness says ‘we all get older, all fall ill and have accidents, so that everyone should pay according to their means.’ That is fair,” he says.

In a co-authored 1996 book, Benchmarks of Fairness for Healthcare Reform, the concept of moral fairness was transposed into 10 benchmarks so that reform proposals could be measured and compared. In Light’s view, “A fair healthcare system is accessible to everyone and provides the same benefits of coverage for everyone regardless of age, race, and religion or health condition.”

In nations where all citizens receive healthcare benefits, the costs are substantially less because there are more opportunities to systematically control cost pressures without reducing benefits. Comparative studies find that France and Germany offer some of the best healthcare in the world, giving patients a greater choice of doctors than in the U.S. “In the U.S., patients have fewer choices of doctors they can see and stricter guidelines for length of hospital stays.Yet, these [European services] all cost much less than in the U.S,” Light observes.

“Paradoxically, America has some of the best trained specialists in the world and yet the system in which they practice leads to more avoidable deaths than other affluent countries.”

As healthcare costs cut into state budgets for education and other vital services, Light believes the weight of this expense will eventually bend toward nationalized care.

“There’s a lot more support than we think for universal care.

With medical costs rising three times faster than living expenses, ultimately, universal care is inevitable. For now, it appears things will go on the way they have with a slow, stepby-step move towards nationalized care,” he says.

—Famebridge Witherspoon

Read an overview of Donald Light’s course on the development of other universal healthcare systems, which he taught last fall as the Lokey Visiting Professor at Stanford, at www.kaiseredu.org/SyllabusLibrary.aspx?sort=topic&pageno=1&school=Stanford+ University.

Connections

EXONIAN PROFILE

T I M OT H Y P I T T M A N ’ 8 2

The Lure of ‘Danger, Excitement and Risk’

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hen Timothy Pittman ’82 traded his job teaching Germanic literature and languages at Mary Baldwin College for a career in the Foreign Service, he was intrigued by “danger, excitement and risk.” He probably didn’t anticipate that he would face all that and more on April 6, 2010, when mass uprisings against the government broke out across Kyrgyzstan.

As the American regional security officer for the U.S. Embassy in the Kyrgyz Republic, Pittman evacuated embassy families to the Transit Center at Manas International Airport, a U.S. Air Force facility near Bishkek, the capital. Twice, Pittman raced ahead of protestors to grab embassy families, including his own, from neighborhoods being looted.

“You can train for something like this, but when you go through it, it is still tough,” Pittman says. “I sent my family off in the middle of the night to the Transit Center.

It was a taxing time for everyone involved, but for all the stresses of going through a revolution, my experience is by no means the most traumatic. Several of my colleagues have lost their lives serving in Iraq.”

Pittman entered the Academy as a post-graduate from South Carolina planning to become a doctor or teacher. However, the pressures of Organic Chemistry and the routine of academia stirred in Pittman a desire for adventure that would make him an eyewitness to that Central Asian revolution.

At Williams College, Pittman double majored in English and German, but while pursuing graduate studies in German literature at the University of Virginia, he became dissatisfied. “I discovered I wasn’t necessarily the intellectual I thought I was,” Pittman says. “What attracted me to German was a fascination with the richness of German culture, history and literature. But I found that over time this career path would not be satisfying enough and wanted a different kind of challenge, yet one that still exposed me to other cultures.”

In 1996, Pittman applied to become a Special Agent with the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the law enforcement and security arm of the U.S. Department of State. DSS Special Agents are stationed overseas as regional security officers and serve as the principal security advisers to the ambassador.

Pittman joined the State Department in 1998 in Washington, D.C. He served as an assistant regional security officer in Vienna, Austria, before returning to Washington. Pittman and his family arrived in Kyrgyzstan in August 2009. “Kyrgyzstan is a small, landlocked, mountainous country with limited resources and a beautiful, if rugged, landscape, very far away from the U.S. Like a

number of former Soviet Republics, it faces numerous challenges brought by the transition to a post-Soviet society.

“When I arrived in Kyrgyzstan, every ruler of every Central Asian country had either been in power at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union or had left as a result of his predecessor dying in office or being forced out. There had never been a democratic transition of power from one ruler to the next.”

Kyrgyzstan had seen a transition of power in 2005 through a revolution, followed four years later by a reportedly corrupt election. In 2010, the opposition again emerged from revolution as the new government, except Pittman says this time the country has made remarkable strides toward democracy.

Back in Washington, Pittman expresses cautious optimism for Kyrgyzstan—its October 2010 election was the first in the Central Asian republics where the outcome was not known in advance—and fulfillment in his career choice.

“I wouldn’t trade my job for anything,” he says. “I certainly don’t sit back and nurse a cup of tea and wonder, ‘What if I’d stayed in academia?’ I get great satisfaction from the opportunity to serve my country. And I’m especially grateful for my Exeter education: It built the foundation for my successes and accomplishments.”

—Taline Manassian ’92

Pittman (center) with his local staff from the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Official disclaimer:The views expressed in this article are Timothy Pittman’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Government.

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EXONIAN PROFILE

C A N DY C H A N G ’ 9 5

The Public Spaces We Share

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RANDAL FORD

ake a minute and think about the public spaces you pass through: the sidewalks, the parks, the shops, the buildings you walk by.What do you wish they could be? If you could interact with these places—or the other people you see in them—what would you want to know about them? What would you want them to know about you?

It’s questions like these that occupy the mind and days of artist and urban planner Candy Chang ’95. She has made a career of querying local residents about the desires for their lives and their environment through quirky, thoughtful, interactive projects. She painted the plywood boarding up an abandoned home with blackboard chalk and stenciled rows and rows of the phrase, “Before I die I want to … .” Passersby obliged with responses ranging from “drive a solar-powered car,” to “get my wife back,” to “learn French,” to “be tried for piracy.”

A magazine insert offered readers a door hanger with an invitation for neighbors to drop by between certain hours to borrow or lend particular items, forging connections with shared resources.

Vinyl stickers reading, “I wish this was…” asked New Orleanians to weigh in on what they aspired for their neighborhood—bike racks, restaurants and grocery stores were popular themes. But some were more wistful: “full of people,” “not so scary looking,” “full of nymphomaniacs with Ph.D.s.” “It’s easier and easier to reach out across the world, but it’s still hard to reach out to your neighborhood,” she notes. “Where better to reach out to your neighbors than in the very public spaces we share every day?”

Her union of art and urban planning bloomed in New York City’s Chinatown, where she lived when she studied urban planning at Columbia University. “I was surrounded by storefronts and lampposts covered with all kinds of flyers, stickers and posters,” she recalls. “A lot of them are really useful, and yet they’re often illegal and discouraged. Communication tools are just as important an infrastructure system as roads, electricity and sewer drains. If our public spaces were designed differently, we might have more to say to each other than, ‘Have you seen my cat?’ ” Meanwhile, in her daily life she found significant barriers to participating in neighborhood planning as a private citizen. “At first my projects were mostly about how to improve my neighborhood,” she says. “Who knows a neighborhood better than the people who live and work there? We know what businesses our neighborhood needs. We know what things need fixing. And we need better tools to easily share these ideas.”

Over time, though, Chang has found her questions turning more personal. “I think it’s easy to get distracted by the little things and forget what really matters to you,” she says. “Public art has the power to snap you out of your routine. It’s about remembering why you want to be alive in the world today.The people around us can not only help us make better communities, but they can also help us lead better lives.”

While she notes that she never made any public art at Exeter (apart from carving her name on the desk in her dorm room), she acknowledges that the foundation for her work was laid here, particularly in the classroom of English instructor Fred Tremallo. “In his class we read everything from Joseph Campbell and T.S. Eliot to Lawrence Ferlinghetti. We watched Black Orpheus and Fellini’s Satyricon. He made me realize all these things were connected. I think that’s when I saw compartmentalized disciplines for what they were.There are many spaces between them, and no one says you can’t go outside of the lines. So it’s only natural we make our own disciplines out of the bits and pieces that we’re interested in.”

—Susannah Clark ’84

Connections

VOLUNTEER PROFILE

CHRISTINE SHIM ’93

Ambassador for Education

HAROLD HECHLER

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lass Agent Christine Shim ’93 is not only a fundraising volunteer for Exeter, she’s a fundraising professional at Columbia University School of Law. In both roles, she says, “I love connecting with people. I see myself as an ambassador for the organizations I work and volunteer for, and I want donors to have a rewarding experience when they make contributions.”

Shim selected Exeter based on the recommendation of her sister, Jean Shim Yun ’87. It worked out to be an excellent choice, both academically and personally. She recalls that when she entered Northwestern University, she was excited to continue her studies. “I felt very prepared for academic rigor,” she says. “At Exeter, I gained such an appreciation for learning and the discipline to focus.” The friends she made at the Academy remain among her closest. In fact, she became a class agent in 1999 because of the strong encouragement of her predecessor, Elizabeth Eakeley Arnall ’93.

It wasn’t until recently, however, that Shim became a professional fundraiser. After graduating from Northwestern, she worked in financial services at Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley and then entered the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Her aim was to gain the skills to be an effective leader and eventually apply them in the nonprofit sector.

During her second year at Darden, Shim served as class gift cochair and saw firsthand the importance of unrestricted gifts.

“They make a big difference in flexible and discretionary decision making,” Shim says. Since her business school graduation, Shim has served as a class agent for Darden.

Following business school and finance positions at McGraw-Hill and Citigroup, Shim decided she was ready to make the move to the nonprofit world. While still at Citigroup, she was recruited to apply and interview for a position with the Broad Residency in Urban Education, a national leadership development program that engages M.B.A. graduates in the cause of urban education reform. Upon acceptance into the residency, Shim was placed in the office of the chief financial officer for the District of Columbia public schools during the tenure of Chancellor Michelle Rhee, “an exciting but tumultuous era,” as Shim terms it. Shim left D.C. shortly before Rhee concluded her post as chancellor.

Returning to her home base in New York, Shim became deeply involved with the GO Project (www. goprojectnyc.org), an organization devoted to improving the futures of low-income New York City public school children through academic, social and emotional support. She currently sits on the GO Project’s board of directors and serves as treasurer, secretary of the executive committee and chair of the finance committee. Shim calls her involvement with GO “a big-time commitment, but one of the most rewarding experiences.”

Later, Shim accepted a newly created development position at Columbia Law focused on advancing annual giving from a broader base of alumni/ae. In her job, Shim enjoys the same rewards she does as a class agent. “Just as with Exeter,” she says, “it’s an opportunity to connect with really smart, accomplished and interesting people and to keep them engaged with their school and fellow alumni/ae. It’s really a people business, and I love that.” Shim is also a believer in personal outreach, participating enthusiastically in Exeter phonathons and sending handwritten notes to her most faithful donors during the holidays. “All the vehicles of personal communication matter, and the stewardship piece is critical. It’s important to recognize what donors have done and to let them know how much their efforts are appreciated. It’s never just about the money.”

—Susan Geib

“I love connecting with people,” says Class Agent Christine Shim ’93 (center), who gathered with her sister, Jean Shim Yun ’87 (right), and former ’93 Class Agent Elizabeth Eakeley Arnall at the Exeter reception in New York City in January.

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PHILANTHROPY

United in Gratitude O N T H E F I R S T T H A N K - A - D O N O R DAY, T H E C A M P U S C O M M U N I T Y R E C O G N I Z E S T H E G E N E RO S I T Y A N D I M P O RTA N C E O F S U P P O RT E R S

SAM O'NEILL

Following assembly, Allie Garceau ’14 stopped at a note-writing station in the Academy Building. She’s especially grateful, she said, for Exeter’s ability to welcome students from around the world. “Learning about their experiences and their cultures has been my favorite thing about being here.”

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ince arriving at the Academy last fall, Rachel Sachs ’15 has grown used to taking her place at an oval table and engaging in vibrant discussions with a skilled instructor and a small group of peers. It happens every day. It’s routine. But she certainly doesn’t take it for granted.

“To be in a class of 12 students as opposed to 20 or more, which is the case at so many schools—I’m very thankful for that opportunity,” she said.

Recently Sachs and hundreds of other members of the campus community paused to honor the donors and volunteers who help make Exeter an extraordinary place to learn, teach and grow.

“Just think of the tremendous caliber of Exeter’s faculty, curriculum, athletics and facilities,” said Ted Probert P’12, director of institutional advancement, as he kicked off the first Thank-a-Donor Day at assembly February 7. “Think about College Counseling, School Year Abroad, or the Exeter Social Service Organization (ESSO). All of that and much more is possible because of alumni/ae and parent support. Today is an opportunity for us to come together as a community—faculty, staff and students—to say ‘thank you.’ ” Probert explained that the generosity of others accounts for 62 percent of the Academy’s current-year operating budget. The endowment, built by generations of supporters, underwrites 52 percent, he said, and gifts to the Annual Giving Fund provide another 10 percent. By comparison, about 30 percent of school expenses are funded by tuition. (Auxiliary income constitutes another 8 percent.) “In a sense, every student is on scholarship,” he said.

Throughout the day at locations across campus, Exonians penned notes to supporters. Sam Yoo, a prep, made a point of stopping by the Agora in the Phelps Academy Center. After submitting his note, he said, “I’m most grateful to the donors and volunteers for helping provide such a culturally, racially and religiously diverse environment for us so that we can experience a sense of the bigger world beyond Phillips Exeter.”

During lunch in Elm Street Dining Hall, History Instructor Amy Schwartz wrote a note and reflected on the significance of philanthropic support to her continuing development as a teacher and scholar. “I’m about to go on a trip to India with eight other teachers, which is paid for by alumni/ae donations,” she said. “This is a pretty incredible place to work because of the generosity of our alumni/ae.”

In the evening,Thank-a-Donor Day went electronic as students grabbed their cell phones and gathered for a two-hour thank-a-thon, during which they called 325 alumni/ae donors and volunteers. “Whether they spoke

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with an alum in person or left a voice-mail message, the students made a lot of people’s days with their outreach and truly enjoyed the experience of speaking with alumni/ae from the classes of ’39 through ’11,” said Michelle Curtin, assistant director of alumni/ae and parent relations, who organized the day’s activities with colleague Lee Frank, assistant director of annual giving. They had scores of helpers, including fellow Institutional Advancement staff members, ESSO’s Giving Thanks and Pass it Forward clubs, the ESSO board and members of the senior class gift committee.

Momentum for the event began weeks in advance with an awareness-raising campaign that included posters, emails, ads in The Exonian and an original video. “In our communications we challenged people to imagine what Exeter would be like without donors and volunteers,” Frank said. “For example, we asked, ‘What if the Academy had to rely entirely on tuition and auxiliary income to cover its costs in a given school year?’ The answer is that it would run out of money by December 22.We owe the rest of the school year to the donors who give selflessly to support the school.”

The event spotlighted all forms of commitment to the Academy, including the work of more than 1,500 alumni/ae and parent volunteers who help organize Exeter events in regions around the world, plan class reunions, conduct admissions interviews, write class notes for The Exeter Bulletin, raise funds and help define the school’s priorities.

In all, 1,044 thank-you notes were written on Thank-a-Donor Day. While not addressed to specific individuals, they are being sent to randomly chosen contributors to the 2011-12 Annual Giving Fund as well as to volunteers.

“The day was a huge success, and we were overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the campus community,” Curtin said. “We hope to make it an annual event.”

—Sam O’Neill

Meshach Peters ’14 took time between classes to write a note of thanks.

To view video highlights from Thank-a-Donor Day, as well as a promotional video shared with students in advance of the event, visit www.exeter.edu/thankadonor.

Words of Appreciation A sampling of the 1,044 notes handwritten by students, faculty and staff on Thank-a-Donor Day: You have allowed me to follow my dreams and enjoy everything this school has to offer. Exeter has allowed me to play golf and soccer, tutor local children, and develop a love for economics, all because of you.Thank you for everything.

—Ryan Baker ’12 Theater and music are the most wonderful things in my Exeter career, and you have helped me express that passion.

Thank you for supporting the arts at Exeter.

—Marina Altschiller ’12

Thank you so much for all the time and effort you have given to Exeter. Our department would not be successful without volunteers like you!

—Allison Battles, Institutional Advancement staff Coming to Exeter was the best decision I ever made and I know I would not have had this opportunity without the hard work of volunteers like you.

—Christine McEvoy ’12

I quit a tenured college professor position to come teach at Exeter.This school seemed so special that it would be worth it. Four years later, the reality has exceeded my expectations. Not only do I get to teach wonderful students; as a dorm head in Webster I also get to serve as something of a mom-and-dad to 32 fabulous boys. It’s an occasional challenge, but sheer joy—multiplied by 32—on most days. I’m happy this place exists. I’m grateful that YOU help make it possible for this place to exist.THANK YOU! —Giorgio Secondi, instructor in history

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Finis Origine Pendet

The Day the Trustees Came

By Trevor Robinson ’46

Editor’s Note: Mr. Robinson, professor emeritus of biochemistry at UMass Amherst, passed away on May 12, 2011. His daughter, Heather, shared with us the following humorous essay.

She recalls how she and her family enjoyed listening to this story when she was growing up and is thankful her father wrote it down.

96

The Exeter Bulletin

S PRING 2012

FRED CARLSON

E

very school has a skeleton that should be kept in a closet. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to keep things secret, especially if they [involve] blowing large chunks out of buildings. The Chemistry Group of a certain private school was one such skeleton. It sounded like a very learned sort of group in [school] publications: “A select group of boys interested in doing experiments more advanced than those provided for in regular coursework.”

“Select” we certainly were not.

The officers would take in anyone who had the $1 dues. The meetings were often exciting, and “Chemistry Group” was a rather glamorous byline to put under one’s picture in the yearbook. So we managed to collect a group of members [that included] many who wouldn’t have known sodium from chlorine if their lives depended on it. On account of this motley assortment, our elections were most thrilling, surpassing even those of the political clubs.

We were divided into what might be called the scientific party (those really interested in chemistry) and the yearbook party (those who thought that “vice president of the Chemistry Group” would look impressive beside their name). Two or three elections a year made it possible for several people to carry this exciting title. Since all the members of the yearbook party wanted to be elected to something, “Split the vote!” was the rallying cry of the scientifics—and it seldom failed to work. Discouraged by their failure, the yearbook party stopped coming to meetings about midway through one year and left their dollars in our coffers, which was what we really wanted anyway. Perhaps the mercenary attitude was He didn’t seem to realize that it unbecoming to a scientific body, but it was most necessary might catch on fire and none of since our previous president (a yearbook man) had left us with a debt of about $30. This was rather disturbing since all us was killjoy enough to suggest of our chemicals and apparatus were supplied gratis by the this possibility to him.

Science Department.

As for being “more advanced,” the experiments may have been advanced, but I suspect that they were so far behind that all sense of relative position was lost. We were, of course, very proud of our work and were righteously indignant at the epithet “hackers,” which we heard rather frequently. In retrospect, our main ambition seems to have been to see how much we could get away with, without being caught or blown to smithereens. One such practice concerned the manufacture of stink bombs by filling old light bulbs with an evil-smelling mess and leaving them under mattresses or wrinkles in rugs. One of these infernal devices was discovered and dropped down a stairwell. We gave up the pastime when we learned that the powers (continued on page 15) that be took a dim view on such pranks.

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

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EXETER REUNIONS

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See old friends—and make some new ones, too Discover how Exeter has changed and grown Argue a point with passion at the Harkness table Show your kids your favorite spots on campus Reconnect with your teachers and meet today’s students

CONNECT THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE POSSIBLE.

REUNIONS 2012 REUNION DATE

YEAR

CLASS

May 4–6, 2012

10th 35th 55th 60th

2002 1977 1957* 1952

May 11–13, 2012

15th 20th 25th 30th

1997 1992 1987 1982

May 18–20, 2012

5th 40th 45th 50th

2007 1972 1967 1962*

65th 70th

1947 1942

* Starts May 3

* Starts May 17 May 22–24, 2012

For more information, please visit your online class page at www.exeter.edu/alumni or call the Alumni/ae and Parent Relations Office at 800-828-4325 ext. 3264.