The Exeter Bulletin, spring 2019

The Exeter Bulletin SPRING 2019

Discovery Zone EXETER STUDENTS THRIVE IN THE MAKER ERA

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Change a life.

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Support The Exeter Fund and make more life-changing opportunities possible.

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In the end, we do not grow only for ourselves. We grow for those who have supported us and sacrificed for us. — Ginny Little ’20

The Exeter Bulletin

Principal William K. Rawson ’71; P’08 Executive Editor Karen Ingraham Managing Editor Patrick Garrity Senior Editor Jennifer Wagner Class Notes Editor Cathy Webber Editorial Coordinator Maxine Weed Creative Director/Design David Nelson, Nelson Design 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 John A. Downer ’75 Vice President Wole C. Coaxum ’88 Ciatta Z. Baysah ’97, Suzi Kwon Cohen ’88, Marc C. de La Bruyere ’77, Walter C. Donovan ’81, Mark A. Edwards ’78, Claudine Gay ’88, Peter A. Georgescu ’57, Jennifer P. Holleran ’86, Sally J. Michaels ’82, Daniel C. Oakley ’80, Deidre O’Byrne ’84, Bill Rawson ’71, Dr. Nina D. Russell ’82, Peter M. Scocimara ’82, Serena Wille Sides ’89, J. Douglas Smith ’83, Morgan C. Sze ’83, Kristyn M. Van Ostern ’96, Nancy H. Wilder ’75 and E. Janney Wilson ’83 The Exeter Bulletin (ISSN No. 0195-0207) is published four times each year: fall, winter, spring and summer,

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

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

Copyright 2019 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

SPRING

“I DON’T THINK ANY OF US WOULD’VE BEEN ABLE TO DO THIS PROJECT OUTSIDE THE ENVIRONMENT EXETER PROVIDES.” —page 24

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IN THIS ISSUE

Volume CXXIII, Issue no. 3

Features 24 Beyond the Table The spirit of invention in Exeter’s students is not contained to the classroom.

By Patrick Garrity, Debbie Kane and Nicole Pellaton

30 Inside the Endowment A look at the financial engine that drives Exeter and the people who make it so.

Compiled by Karen Ingraham

38 Act I Playwright Charly Simpson ’04 sets the stage for change on MLK Day. 38 42

By Jennifer Wagner

42 Wild Harkness How Exeter prepared me to play the ultimate game of Survivor.

By Aubry Bracco ’04

Departments 6

Around the Table: Heard in Assembly Hall, My Happy Place, Meet an Exonian and more

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Inside the Writing Life: Kim McLarin ’82

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Connections: Catching up with our alumni

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Finis Origine Pendet: Bella Alvarez ’19 —Cover photo by Mary Schwalm

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Exeter crew practice gets underway on the Squamscott River.

PHOTO BY CHRISTIAN HARRISON

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AROUND THE TABLE

What’s new and notable at the Academy

Vital Work

By Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08

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s you read this issue of the Bulletin, I hope you find it inspiring to see the latest evidence

of both the joy and sense of purpose that comes with being a member of the Exeter community.

It is a great pleasure to be part of a community where high academic achievement is valued, where students accomplish as much outside the classroom as in, where exploration and self-discovery are what we do for fun, and where the spirit of non sibi runs deep.

These pages offer some wonderful examples: a robotics club formed by students who share a common purpose to give back to others; budding social entrepreneurs who craft business solutions to real-world problems; and seniors who design their own independent study electives to explore feminism through the arts.

I am amazed by the extraordinary work being done by our students, and by the passion they bring to these endeavors. To provide these young people with the opportunity to thrive in a community where everyone feels a true sense of belonging — that is the Exeter we strive for every day.

At a recent assembly, I told students, “We don’t wait until later to be the people we want to be.

You have to be the people you want to be today, and that starts not with how you relate to your closest friends — it’s how you relate to everybody.” I urged them to respect the dignity and equal worth of every person within our community, adult and student.

Our students do this work in the Harkness classrooms, in their dorms, or on the stage or playing fields. In January, during Exeter’s annual MLK Day, three PEA alumnae led workshops designed to break down differences and deconstruct cultural narratives. That same month, MacArthur Fellow and Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson delivered an impassioned Henry Bragdon Fellow assembly talk, urging students to engage with issues of social justice, saying: “Your hope is your superpower.” At the conclusion of Mr. Stevenson’s remarks, I offered students a copy of his memoir, Just Mercy. The response was overwhelming. We ordered an additional 600 copies to meet the demand.

It is wonderful and also serious business to renew our commitment each year to the mission of our school, and to live up to our responsibilities in a rapidly changing world. We must prepare our students for what John and Elizabeth Phillips in the Deed of Gift called “the great end and real business of living,” and reconsider each year what it means to help our students grow in knowledge and goodness and thereby lay the surest foundation for usefulness to humankind. John and Elizabeth Phillips expressed a certain urgency about the school’s mission in the Deed of Gift. The urgency of our mission is as great today as ever. E

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Masters of Music I N T E R N AT I O N A L LY A C C L A I M E D F I N E A R T S Q U A R T E T SHARES CHAMBER MUSIC EXPERTISE IN THE BOWLD

By Nicole Pellaton

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Fine Arts Quartet, who reinforces the message. “With t 6:50 p.m. on a wintry Monday evening, this piece, I like to hear fire. … I want to see the freedom.” students start trickling in to The Bowld.

Violinist Ralph Evans, another decadeslong member of The performance space in the Forrestalthe quartet, rounds out with humor: Feel the mood. Express Bowld Music Center is brightly lit and its the music with your entire body. Think about conductors: exterior glass wall plays tricks. By 7:02, two minutes after They use expressions to elicit a mood. To illustrate, he tonight’s master class was to begin, it’s a torrent of sneakconducts the first few bars of Beethoven’s Fifth — first with ers, sweatpants, blue jeans and puffer coats. smooth, placid movements, next with exaggeratedly aggresThe audience of more than 100 students and a sive ones. The Exonian musicians relax, laughing at the pseuhandful of adults settles down as Kenneth Lee, cello do-slapstick, and comply. instructor and director of The next student the Exeter Symphonia, ensemble, dressed in black, moves to the stage and hits a formal note as pianist raises his right arm for Zhaoran Chen ’20 presents quiet. He introduces the the quartet with a copy evening: The Fine Arts of the piece they are to Quartet, on campus to perform, Dvorzak’s Trio in perform a program of E Minor Op. 90.

Mozart, Beethoven and Formality quickly disapTchaikovsky in The Bowld pears, however, as their the following evening, are music moves swiftly from here tonight to critique staccato lightheartedness three piano trios prepared to lament. The players’

by Exeter students. bodies move rhythmically.

Loud applause greets Ralph Evans instructs a trio of students.

The violin enters pianisErin Choi ’21 (violin), Mia simo. The cello beseeches. The piano joins in with verve.

Glinn ’20 (cello) and Alexander Larrow ’22 (piano) as they As the piece comes to an end, violinist Brian Son ’22 and walk on stage. After a few moments of adjusting chairs and cellist Sophia Chang ’20 hold their bows raised in the air. instruments, Choi nods her head and the students launch The audience encircles them with cheers and applause. resolutely into Beethoven’s Trio in C Minor Op. 1 #3. The The last ensemble — Kiesse Nanor ’22 (piano), Sava audience listens intently.

Thurber ’22 (violin) and Bona Yoo ’22 (cello) — enters “Beautiful playing,” says ponytailed Niklas Schmidt, from stage left wearing jeans (black for the cellist, blue Fine Arts Quartet cellist, as he walks to the stage. His mien is the first indication of what will play out for the rest for the violinist), brightly colored shirts (red, blue), and lace-up sneakers and boots. Two minutes into of the evening: kind, firm, clarifying advice. And hugely Beethoven’s Trio in D Major Op. 70 #1, the piano notes expert: This quartet has performed to great acclaim for soar powerfully to The Bowld’s high ceiling. decades, and quartet members teach at conservatories in “You play with fantastic energy and passion” says Paris, London, New York and Beijing.

Evans stepping to the stage. Work on the softer sections Schmidt remarks on the feeling of the playing and and contrast, he advises. “Music is better with variety. focuses on the composer’s notation, allegro con brio.

Life is better with variety!”

“Your attitude at the beginning is more andante. Could As students start to depart the auditorium for dorm you start again? And try to feel everything, like the check-in, the older musician feels no rush to bring his sixteenth notes and the eighth notes.” critique to an end. “Relax and let it sing by itself,” he says. E Next up is violinist Efim Boico, a 35-year veteran of the

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Exploring the Globe on Spring Break

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s part of Exeter’s commitment to global engagement, the Academy offered six spring break trips designed to provide immersive and meaningful opportunities in a variety of subjects and cultures.

More than a hundred students took advantage. Groups journeyed to Cuba, India and Martinique to explore the vibrant scenery, language, culture and cuisine. Closer to campus, students toured American Civil War battlefields

PEA’s Chamber Orchestra and Concert Choir in Westminster Abbey.

in Pennsylvania, while others conducted marine biology experiments in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Sixty-nine members of Concert Choir and Chamber Orchestra traveled to London and Oxford to collaborate with musicians from local schools, study with internationally acclaimed conductor Simon Carrington and explore historic sites. The highlight: A once-in-a-lifetime chance to perform two movements from Tarik O’Regan’s “Triptych” at hallowed Westminster Abbey. E

A LOT HAPPENS HERE KEEP UP WITH IT ALL ON EXETER TODAY How many Exonians won gold medals in the national writing awards? What’s the new Goel Center doing to transform the arts at Exeter? Which basketball star won league player of the year honors? Who is the NASA physicist who recently visited campus?

Find all this and more in the new Exeter Today feed on our website. Go to exeter.edu/today to keep up with the latest.

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CHRISTIAN HARRISON

Walking into Grill, I instantly feel the comfortable, chatty and cheerful atmosphere.

Everywhere, friends huddle around tall tables to talk about yesterday’s hockey game, confused lab partners discuss data from a physics experiment, and roommates negotiate weekend plans as they read The Exonian. Grill’s environment demonstrates the community’s emphasis on inclusion. This is where people from all dorms, all grades and all identities come to socialize, study and relax. My fondest memories of Exeter have been created in Grill with other students who care just as much about PEA as I do.

— Emma Reach ’21

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Citizen of the World PEDRO COELHO ’22 IS IMMERSED IN HIS NEW EXETER C O M M U N I T Y B U T D E E P LY R O O T E D I N H I S N AT I V E B R A Z I L

By Sarah Zobel

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CHRISTIAN HARRISON

edro Coelho ’22 already appreciates what it means to be an Exonian, on campus and beyond — well beyond.

“What’s really special about Exeter is that it has this culture of always moving forward,” says Coelho, a native of Rio de Janeiro, who first sat at a Harkness table during the 2017 Exeter Summer session. “Exeter teaches you that when you miss your parents, you call them, address that, and then move on. But more than that, Exeter gives you a sense of who you are as a global citizen, both here on campus and in the world.”

Coelho says that at his school in Brazil, students didn’t get to choose their own classes, so when he came to Exeter, he “didn’t know the tips and tricks of course selection.” Yet his choices have proven successful and include Chinese, computer science, religion and pop culture, English, math and physics. Though most preps don’t enroll in the latter, for Coelho, it has stood out — both in the topics covered and because the course materials were created by Exeter physics faculty. The same is true of his math and Chinese coursework.

“You won’t find this level of dedication anywhere else.

The teachers, their life is teaching. They’re a huge part of what makes Exeter unique,” says Coelho. At the same time, he says they recognize that Exonians are more than just students, offering personal as well as academic support.

For instance, his physics teacher, Tanya Waterman, is known to regularly interrupt her own lessons to survey students to be sure they’ve all eaten breakfast.

Coelho has become a fast fan of Harkness learning.

It’s what truly sets Exeter apart, he says.

“Harkness is wonderful in the sense that it’s a skill you learn gradually and you get better at with practice,”

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he says. “At the beginning you might not be that good at Harkness, but you find out your strengths. Maybe you make really good points, but have trouble knowing the best time to speak; maybe you talk too little, but you’re talented at asking good questions that move the discussion forward. As you go along, you get better at it. It’s a skill that’s going to be much more useful in your life than being able to write notes really quickly.”

Coelho has plenty keeping him busy after class hours. He lives in Wentworth Hall, the largest boys dorm, where he’s made friends with students in all grade levels. Wentworth’s proximity to the gym is convenient for Coelho, a member of the JV swim team who competes in freestyle and butterfly.

He also takes private clarinet lessons on campus and offers lessons to a local 8-year-old.

“It’s wonderful to see his progress, and it’s really cool that I’ve been able to give him personalized advice in terms of what he can improve on,” says Coelho, who volunteers his clarinet teaching skills through the Exeter Student Service Organization, a student-led group that provides Exonians with a broad range of service opportunities.

Coelho may currently be focused on helping locally, but he’s already got bigger things in mind.

“Now that I’m here, I’m almost in a different world than Rio. But I still get to place myself in the context of coming from Brazil, and one day returning there so I can give back to the community that I’m from,” he says.

“I think that’s one of the most noble goals an Exeter student can work towards — embracing this one-of-akind education and using it to help others. That’s the best thing Exeter gives you: the sense of being here, while also being part of your original community and being able to give back.” E

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WILLIAM VIETOR

ON STAGE PERFORMING ARTS SHINED IN THE BOWLD AND GOEL CENTER Members of Chamber Orchestra prepare for a concert.

Chloe Minicucci ’21 puts finishing touches on her munchkin costume.

PHOTOS MARY SCHWALM UNLESS NOTED

The Winter Dance Company performs Mental Health.

Nina Webber ’22 and Anne Chen ’22 in Mental Health.

Liam Walsh ’20 (left), Pepper Pieroni ’20, Santiago Adams ’20 and Katie Reid ’21 star in The Wizard of Oz.

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Andrew Yang ’92, entrepreneur, presidential candidate “I’ve worked in technology and business for the last 20 years and it’s going to get really, really dark. We’re in the third inning of the greatest economic and technological transformation in the history of our country. … It is not immigrants, it is technology that is transforming the economy in fundamental ways. What are we going to do about it?”

To watch videos of these assemblies, go to exeter.edu/exeterlive.

Stevenson

Heard in Assembly Hall SOUND BITES FROM THIS W I N T E R’S S P E A K E R S E R I E S Compiled by Jennifer Wagner Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal

Justice Initiative, clinical law professor at NYU

“Hopelessness is the enemy of justice; protect your hope quotient. …When you get proximate to people who are suffering, who’ve been excluded, who are disfavored, who’ve been knocked down, who’ve been told their lives don’t have value or dignity or purpose, at a minimum you can wrap your arms around them and embrace and affirm their humanity.”

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Becca Stevens, social entrepreneur, founder of Thistle Farms

“When thinking about ways we can do something that makes a difference in the lives of others, one of the first questions we should ask ourselves is how would we want something done for us. So much of the work that we see in social justice doesn’t feel welcoming or sustaining or loving or lavish. Like, if we build a cathedral, it’s amazing.

But if we build a homeless shelter, it’s on the cheap.”

Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

of The Sympathizer

“For me, the basic contradiction is that we’re a country of the American Dream, of possibilities, but at the very same time, there exists another America, the America that was built on colonization, slavery, genocide, expropriation. These two Americas exist at the very same time and always have. Our challenge is to embrace an America that loves everyone, a complicated and contradictory America. A beautiful and brutal America.”

Stevens

Jason Kang ’12, CEO and co-founder of the biotech company Kinnos

Nguyen

“I want to tell you how important human relationships are in the field of innovation. You often hear about how the product is important, but don’t forget that you are building something for real people. We got close to the health care workers who were using our [disinfectant] product. Ebola is stigmatized in West Africa and health workers get ostracized from their communities. They have made that ultimate sacrifice.

Our product gave them a sense of confidence. To give them that little bit of peace has been a really powerful motivator. … Even though I am really young, I have the ability to impact someone else’s life halfway across the world.”

David Miller, former mayor of Toronto, Canada

“Mayors don’t see climate change in isolation. It’s part of their job as an elected official to ensure that their city succeeds for the future for everybody, which is a social justice issue. And one of the things about climate change is that it tends to impact low-income people much worse than high-income people. … That’s why mayors care so much about the plans to address climate change and are acting so strongly — because every single one of them has some impact. It might be creating jobs, it might be giving a woman a voice in the democratic participation of her city — or it might simply be making the city a far better place to live.”

Kang

Jo Radner, oral historian, storyteller

“I’m going to urge you to take history personally — to look into your own heritage to figure out who you are and how you got to be that way. ... As for me, I want to recognize all the monstrosities and kindnesses that lie behind me. I want to live without walls. I want never to forget the human cost of the privilege that I have right now in the world. I urge you find your own stories.” E

Miller

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Radner

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PHOTOS CHERYL SENTER UNLESS NOTED

CAMPUS LIFE AT A GLANCE

STUDYING IN COMFORT: Hanna Brigham ’20 gets some work done in her McConnell Hall dorm room.

LOOKING FOR A BOOK? Mr. Vorkink’s reading list is stacking up.

THE THINKER: Calvin Henaku ’19 listens intently during his Silicon Valley Ethics class.

FOUR-WHEELIN’: Ray Alvarez-Adorno ’19 rides through South Campus on the way to the gym.

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MAKER SPACE: Arun Wongprommoon ’19 works in the Design Lab in Phelps Science Center.

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CHRISTIAN HARRISON

A CONVERSATION WITH THE PRINCIPAL: Mr. Rawson speaks with Student Council leaders Elizabeth Yang ’19 and Ayush Noori ’20 during a Q&A session at a recent assembly.

AND ANOTHER THING: Aiden Silvestri ’22 makes a point during lunch.

NEIGHBORS: Sarah Ryu ’19 (left) and Nkemjika Emenike ’19 catch up in McConnell Hall.

EASY RIDERS: Big Red cycling gets ready to take an early-season spin.

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

By Patrick Garrity

ENO BRICKS Academy Library

Eno Brickyard of Exeter

ISTOCK

Famed architect Louis Kahn knew brick. Brick spoke to Kahn, and — as it turns out — Kahn spoke back.

“You say to Brick, ‘What do you want, Brick?’” Kahn told students at the University of Pennsylvania nearly 50 years ago, captured in a 2003 documentary made by his son. “And Brick says to you, ‘I like an arch.’

And if you say to Brick, ‘Look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel over you. What do you think of that, Brick?’ Brick says, ‘I like an arch.’ And it’s important, you see, that you honor the material that you use.

“You can only do it if you honor the brick and glorify the brick instead of shortchanging it.”

Kahn wasn’t the only one who appreciated brick. In 1966, shortly before Kahn was chosen by a faculty committee to design a new library, the Academy bought up the entire 2-million-brick supply of the Eno Brickyard of Exeter when the company went out of business. Many of the PEA buildings constructed during the first half of the 20th century, including the Academy Building and Dunbar Hall, are made of Eno bricks.

The Academy still owns two pallets from that last batch.

Eno produced distinctive water-struck bricks, famed for their durability, rough texture and irregular color. Boston architect David Fixler calls water-struck bricks the “essential building block of Georgian New England,” emblematic of the region’s mindset: “Hard, steadfast but unpredictable, and stubbornly able to withstand adversity.”

Eno’s water-struck bricks were the perfect building blocks in the hands of a craftsman like Kahn, and he used them liberally in his Exeter work. Fifty years ago this month, construction commenced on what would become the Class of 1945 Library (and its less-celebrated cousin, Elm Street Dining Hall).

More than 420,000 Eno bricks were used in the library’s exterior face, with hundreds of thousands more used in the interior and surrounding paths.

At the library’s dedication ceremony on Oct. 21, 1972, Principal Richard Day praised the architect’s creation: “We are grateful to Louis Kahn, whose genius quickly caught the spirit of the place and created the design for this beautiful building, which will stand as an encouragement to great human endeavor,” reported The Exonian.

The bricks were not quoted in the story.

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Getting at the Truth A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H P R O F E S S O R A N D AU T H O R K I M M C L A R I N ’8 2

By Jennifer Wagner

K

im McLarin crafts stories that make the

personal universal. With all of the vulnerability and honesty of a diarist, and the tenacity of a seasoned journalist, McLarin draws on her own experiences to explore race, rejection, parenthood and mental health in her latest work, Womanish: A Grown Black Woman Speaks on Love and Life.

In 13 frank essays, the 54-year-old author deftly dispels memes (“Who says online dating doesn’t work for black women?”), digs into cultural stereotypes (depression is some “white folks mess”) and invites readers along on her search for “a slice of the truth.”

Womanish is McLarin’s sixth book — including a memoir and the critically acclaimed novels Taming It Down, Meeting of the Waters and Jump at the Sun. She is a former staff writer for The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Associated Press, and regularly appears on the Emmy Awardwinning television program “Basic Black.” We caught up with McLarin, now an associate professor of writing at Boston’s Emerson College, between classes to hear about Womanish, just as it hit bookstores this winter.

Q: Can you tell me about the book’s title, Womanish?

What does that term mean?

McLarin. I grew up in the South, in Memphis, and the term “womanish” comes from a black folk expression. To be acting “womanish” means to be acting grown. Usually, it’s said by black mothers and grandmothers to a very young girl or their daughters. “Oh, you’re acting womanish,” which means you’re acting grown, you’re acting like you have more maturity and more thoughtfulness than you should at your age.

Q: Is it a positive word?

McLarin: It’s generally a kind of loving cautioning, a warning to stay in line. I’m using it in the sense of being fully in command of your womanhood. Audacious. Bold.

Thoughtful. In the black community, there’s also an expression “grown ass.” Like, “You’re grown ass.” That’s a positive. That doesn’t just mean you’re old, that means you’re grown, that means you have embraced what it

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means to be an adult. In America, we celebrate perpetual adolescence.

Q: You are embracing your adulthood in this book.

McLarin: People want to be young, like youth is something to be celebrated. I’m saying exactly the opposite, that we should celebrate true maturity and thoughtfulness. Wisdom comes with age, if you live right. That’s what the book is about.

Q: You share really personal thoughts, like feelings of suicide. Is it difficult to write about that?

McLarin: The essays are personal, but they are not, strictly speaking, personal essays. So even though the me in these essays is me, it is not a totality of me. I have no fear about exposing myself because I know that what other people think they know is both true and untrue. My model for what makes a powerful essay is James Baldwin, one of the great voices of the 20th century. He wrote through his own experience, but he wrote something larger than that. So even though I’m writing about my experience with depression, I’m really asking bigger questions about what it means for a human being to be depressed. In my opinion, that’s what a good essay does. It starts with the personal, but it doesn’t end there.

Q: Do you think about what the people reading your work will think about you?

McLarin: No. I have something that is very useful for a writer, a kind of amnesia. It’s like I forget the fact that maybe someday other people are going to read this. I really just am so focused on trying to get at the truth of what I’m trying to say. I cannot tell the truth about the society in which I live, or the world in which I operate myself, if I also don’t tell the truth about me. I just can’t do that.

Q: What do these essays reveal about you that is true?

McLarin: That I’m human.

Q: There’s truth in all of the data you add to your essays as well.

McLarin: I worked as a journalist for 10 years and so I understand the persuasive power of statistics. I use them both to back up what I’m saying and also to solidify the point that this is not simply my interpretation. We

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understand the truth both through our own discernment and through whatever evidence we can marshal to support that discernment.

Q: If the job of the writer isn’t to answer the question, but to ask the question precisely, what questions are you asking in this book?

McLarin: I’m asking about depression, about mass incarceration, about true sisterhood between black women and white women. I’m asking how some children fall through the cracks and some children are saved. My children are both in college, whereas my sister’s child is in prison. We come from the same family. How does that happen? The luck of circumstance? I go to Exeter, my child goes to Harvard. What kind of society allows the luck of the draw to determine not only an individual’s fate, but generations’ and generations’ and generations’ fates?

Q: Coming to Exeter was a matter of luck? Can you tell me more about that?

McLarin: I was in junior high and an alum came to the school to talk about Exeter. I didn’t know where New Hampshire was, literally. But my mother, who was trying to protect us all from the ravages of being poor and being black in Memphis, Tennessee, saw this opportunity and said, you’re going. But it was strictly the luck of that alum coming to my school and me being present that day, and me taking the material home, and my mother having the wherewithal to recognize the opportunity. That’s just a series of luck, right?

Q: Would you say you are telling your story for a particular audience?

McLarin: I don’t think about that consciously while I’m writing. But I do make sure that I am not subconsciously doing that, if that makes sense. Because we are, as black writers in this country, the default, the dangerous default that we can often fall into, is to write for what Toni Morrison calls the white gaze.

Q: You mean writing specifically for white people?

McLarin: That’s the only thing that I check myself on. Am I writing to explain black people to white people? That is something I do not want to do.

Q: You write in many different formats — novels, essays, newspaper articles, radio shows.

McLarin: And I’m writing my first play, too! I think different kinds of writing engage different parts of the writerly brain, and you want to keep them all active. You use your imagination more in a novel and you use your analytical brain more in an essay. A play is a completely different thing because it’s all relying on dialogue. And you have to get the point across in an hour and a half. I usually have at least three projects going.

Q: Did you always want to be a writer?

McLarin: I knew when I was 10 or 12 that I wanted to be a writer.

I loved books, I loved reading. It was one of the things that saved me during a challenging childhood.

Q: Was writing a strong suit of yours at Exeter?

McLarin: I had an English teacher, Mr. [Douglas] Rogers. He gave us an assignment to write a movie review. I don’t remember which movie I wrote about, but I remember the first line: You would think that people would have had enough of silly love movies. It was a play on the Paul McCartney song. He thought that was the cleverest thing and he told me at the end of that semester, “You are a writer.” He didn’t say you can write. He said, “You are a writer.” I will never forget that. E

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B U L L E T I N

Alumni are encouraged to advise the Bulletin editor (bulletin@exeter.edu) of their own publications, recordings, films, etc., in any field, and those of their classmates, for inclusion in future Exonians in Review columns.

Please send a review copy of your published work to the editor to be considered for an extended profile or review in future issues. Works can be sent to: Phillips Exeter Academy, The Exeter Bulletin, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833.

1952—Burton Chandler. How an Individual Citizen Can Legally Fire (Not Impeach) the President. (Self-published, 2018) 1953—Dwight Thirkield. Hey God! You Don’t Scare Me … Anymore! (Self-published, 2018) 1959—Terrence Murphy. Forty Steps and Other Stories. (Self-published, 2018) 1960—Allen B. Clark. Soldiers’ Blood and Bloodied Money. (Self-published, 2019) 1962—Brian B. Kelly. Tiare Tahiti at Harvard. (Self-published, 2019) 1966—George D. Kinder. A Golden Civilization and the Map of Mindfulness.

(Serenity Point Press, 2019) 1966—Alfred K. LaMotte. The Fire Of Darkness: What Burned Me Away Completely, I Became. (Sacred Spiral Press, 2019) 1968—John Gentry, with Joseph S. Gordon. Strategic Warning Intelligence: History, Challenges, and Prospects.

(Georgetown University Press, 2019)

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I N S I DEEX T OH N EI AWN RS I TI N I N RGE L V II FE EW

America. (University of California Press, July 2018) BEYOND BOOKS 1965—Norman Zamcheck. “Chekhov Shmekhov … The Musical,” music performed in New York at the 2018 Winterfest Theater Festival.

1997—Melissa Duclos. “Magnify: Small Presses, Bigger,” monthly newsletter celebrating small press books and independent bookstores.

2006 —Knar Gavin. “Vulture” and “After Matsubayashi’s Horses of Fukushima,” poems. (AGNI 88, 2018) —Vela, chapbook. (Medium, 2019)

1969—Bruce Kennett. W.A. Dwiggins: A Life in Design. (Letterform Archive, 2019) 1971—John Leslie Lange. Seven Malas: A Love Story. (Arjuna Press, 2018) 1981—Peggy (McKay) Shinn. World Class: The Making of the U.S. Women’s Cross-Country Ski Team. (University Press of New England, 2018) 1981—Nathan R. Selden, editor, with Lissa C. Baird. Pediatric Neurosurgery (Neurosurgery by Example). (Oxford University Press, 2019) 1982—Kim McLarin.

Womanish: A Grown Black Woman Speaks on Life and Love. (Ig Publishing, 2019) 1987—Christine Harper, with Paul A. Volcker. Keeping at It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government.

(PublicAffairs, 2018) 1997—Melissa Duclos. Besotted.

(7.13 Books, 2019) 2001—Maggie Cao. The End of Landscape in NineteenthCentury

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1966—Gordon D. Chase. “The Insanity of Violence,” drawings and sculpture on display at Regis College in the Carney Gallery, 2018.

1969— Kenneth Krushel. “Three Spaces and an Excursus,” essay. (Neither Here nor There: The Many Voices of Liminality, Lutterworth Press, 2019) 1971—Robert Rodat. The Catcher Was a Spy, screenwriter. (IFC Films, June 2018) 1976—Martha Nance. “Looking Through the Album” and “Why Compassion?,” essays. (Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, fall 2018)

FAC U LT Y / F O R M E R FAC U LT Y Willie Perdomo.

The Crazy Bunch.

(Penguin Books, 2019) — “That’s My Heart Right There,” poem. (Poetry Magazine, January 2019) Matt W. Miller.

“River Valley Hexaëmera,” poem.

Winner of the “Putting Chaos into 14 Lines” Sonnet Contest, 2019.

1979—Nelson Lee, editor. Juan Cabanilles and His Contemporaries: Keyboard Music from the Felanitx Manuscripts, vol.

3. (American Institute of Musicology, 2018) 1993—Greg Brown, with text

by L. Todd Hearon and others.

“Fall and Decline,” vocal and electronics music. (2019) — “Harmonies of Opposites,” orchestral work. (2019) 1994—Edith Ubuntu Chan. “The Dr. E Show,” podcast. (TheDrEShow.com) 1996—Jasmine Dreame Wagner.

“Lovely Guns of Glacial Shifting,” poem. (Bomb, winter 2018-2019)

James Ekstrom. Photograph. (The American Biology Teacher, February 2019) Mark P. Ott, editor, with Mark Cirino.

Hemingway and Italy: Twenty-First Century Perspectives. (University Press of Florida, 2019)

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S P O RTS

Teammates cheer Will Coogan ’20 on to the finish line.

Back on Track B I G R E D AT H L E T E S T H R I V E I N T H E F I R S T Y E A R O F T H E W I L L I A M B OYC E T H O M P S O N F I E L D H O U S E

By Patrick Garrity

W

ill Coogan ’20 charges around the final

turn, the narrow lead he has nursed throughout the race fading. The last 50 meters of the boys mile against his Andover rival seem like they might be 50 too many.

Then help arrives. Coogan’s Exeter teammates, the sprinters and jumpers and hurdlers, flood the final straightaway to urge him forward. A lovely racket rises around the finish line. A home-field advantage absent at Exeter for years kicks in.

With those friends and teammates providing the final push, Coogan fends off his Big Blue pursuer by a whisker.

It turns out to be one of the few suspenseful moments during an Exeter/Andover winter track runaway at William Boyce Thompson Field House on this February

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afternoon. Playing host to their historic rivals on campus for the first time since 2011, the Big Red boys and girls indoor track teams sweep to comfortable victories.

The occasion — let alone the impressive results — is testimony to the new field house’s impact on Exeter’s student-athletes. The track teams went five years between home indoor meets, foiled by a beloved but decaying Thompson Cage deemed unsafe for competition. Just a year removed from running sprints in hallways and heaving shot in an old squash court, Big Red is back on track.

“The word ‘trust’ comes to mind,” says Hilary Coder Hall, the teams’ longtime coach and a physical education instructor at the Academy since 1983.

The team “had to just ignore the fact that they knew

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we weren’t doing the training that we were supposed to do and blindly trust that it was going to be OK.” “Pride” is the word that pops into Hannah Brown’s head. The senior captain says having a space as “magnificent” as the new field house has drawn the teams closer together and lifted the level of pride the athletes have in the program. As solitary as toeing a starting line in competition can be, the team dynamic is very real during training.

“I’ll be doing hurdles and a distance runner will be running past me and cheering for me, or I can cheer for the throwers or the people who are doing jumps. It’s really awesome,” she says.

The Thompson Field House opened in January 2018. The 84,574-squarefoot building features a six-lane, 200-meter track oval that expands to eight lanes at the straightaway for sprints and hurdles. The dedicated NCAA-regulation areas for shot put, high jump, long jump, triple jump and pole vault allow for safe, simultaneous training and competition.

Beyond track and field, the $40.02 million facility accommodates four tennis courts, a multipurpose infield, two batting cages, bleacher seating for 500 spectators and an 8,000-squarefoot wrestling center overlooking the oval on the mezzanine level.

Magnificent, indeed.

“When I first walked into this building, it brought tears to my eyes,” Brown says.

The cost of the building — covered by the generosity of Exeter donors — wasn’t the only price; to make room for the field house, the venerable Thompson Cage had to come down.

For many, “the Cage” was Exeter. Cutting-edge when it opened in 1929, the Cage oozed Academy athletic history. Icons such as Ralph Lovshin and Ted Seabrooke coached generations of Big Red athletes within its walls.

Countless baseball and softball seasons began with infielders gobbling up grounders on its dirt floor while waiting for the snow to melt. And every other winter, the indoor track season culminated with a visit from Andover.

The notion of knocking down the Cage was a difficult one to embrace.

But if the memories were fond, the realities facing Coder Hall and Big Red athletes by the time the Cage neared its ninth decade were less than. Frequent flooding made parts of the building inaccessible. The running lanes developed lumps and potholes, and attempts to

even out the surface resulted in soft, “beachy” spots, according to Coder Hall. By 2013, the Cage had played host to its last meet.

Road trips and away meets became the rule, even as Big Red continued to train in the old building.

“It’s hard for me even to remember it now,” says Ogechi Nwankwoala ’19, who was a prep hurdler during the Cage’s final winter. “What I do remember is that somehow we always got our work done. Even with the dirt and the mud and people going this way and that in that small space, we made it work.”

The Cage was demolished in June 2016. The team without home meets became the team without any home at all. For all of the following season and the beginning of the next, as construction progressed on the new field house, the team was forced to improvise. It padded walls in Love Gym’s hallways to soften the impacts of decelerating sprinters and laid down yoga mats under hurdles to protect the basketball courts’ hardwood floors. Distance runners were relegated to slippery sidewalks. Shot-putters commandeered a decommissioned squash court.

Artist renderings and active imaginations were leaned on heavily. The silver lining was just around the corner — or the corner after that. “You just kept saying that to the kids: ‘It’s going to be amazing,’” Coder Hall says.

Now, Coder Hall and her team train and compete surrounded by that silver lining every day.

The new field house has flipped the script for a program that made do for many years. It is a state-of-the-art facility that affords ample training space at optimal hours and a schedule filled with home meets — eight this past winter alone. Road trips are rare.

“That’s allowed us to have a much more normalized schedule,” Coder Hall says. “Kids now get their Sundays back to get their work done.”

The students have taken notice. One hundred forty kids — an eighth of the student body — stuffed the boys and girls track and field rosters this winter. Dozens showed up on the first day of practice having little or no experience in the sport. And those newcomers, they’re talented. Fourteen lowers and preps earned top-three finishes in events during that E/A varsity sweep. Most of them are competing outdoors this spring.

None of that is coincidence, Brown says.

“People come see this and they’re like ‘This is amazing; we want to be part of it.’” E

“WHEN I FIRST WALKED INTO THIS BUILDING, IT BROUGHT TEARS TO MY EYES...”

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WINTER SPORTS HIGHLIGHTS BOYS BASKETBALL RECORD: 17-6 NEPSAC CLASS A CHAMPIONS

Head Coach: Jay Tilton Assistant Coaches: Rick Brault, Bill O’Malley Captains: Jake Blaisdell ’19, Matt Hawke ’19, Alex Swett ’19 MVP: Preston Maccoux ’19

GIRLS SWIMMING & DIVING RECORD: 6-2

Head Coach: Lundy Smith Assistant Coaches: Chelsea Davidson, Steve Altieri Captains: Tina Wang ’19, Liz Williams ’19, Issy Wise ’19 MVPs: Sydney Kang ’22, Liz Williams

BOYS SWIMMING & DIVING RECORD: 7-1 3RD PLACE NEPSSA

Head Coach: Don Mills Assistant Coach: Avery Reavill ’12, Steve Altieri Captains: Peter Tuchler ’19, Jared Zhang ’19 MVPs: Andrew Benson ’20, Jared Zhang P H O T O S : B OY S B A S K E T B A L L , C H R I S T I A N H A R R I S O N ; A L L O T H E R S M A R Y S C H WA L M

BOYS HOCKEY RECORD: 19-11-2

Head Coach: Dana Barbin Assistant Coaches: Mark Evans, Brandon Hew, Tim Mitropoulos Captains: Garrett Foster ’19, Michael Pitts ’19 MVPs: Garrett Foster, Ryan Welch ’19

BOYS SQUASH RECORD: 8-9

Head Coach: Fred Brussel Assistant Coach: Paul Langford Captains: Alex Mangiapane ’19, Sam Michaels ’19 MVP: Weldon Chan ’19

BOYS INDOOR TRACK & FIELD RECORD: 2-0

Head Coach: Hilary Coder Hall Assistant Coaches: Toyin Augustus, Brandon Newbould, Ron Edmiston, Hobart Hardej, Steve Holmes Captain: Raj Das ’19 MVP: Will Coogan ’20

GIRLS BASKETBALL RECORD: 13-11

Head Coach: Hadley Camilus Assistant Coaches: Ross Brodsky, Veronica Moceri Captains: Eva Carchidi ’20, Claudia Lee ’20, Bethany Lucey ’20 MVP: Angelle Diamond ’20, Bethany Lucey

WRESTLING RECORD: 7-2

Head Coach: David Hudson Assistant Coaches: Bob Brown, Ted Davis, Brandon Thomas MVP: Tabor Wanag ’19

GIRLS HOCKEY RECORD: 12-8-4

Head Coach: Sally Komarek Assistant Coaches: Taylor Devan, Lee Young Captains: Lydia Anderson ’19, Chiara Christie ’19, Kathryn Kester ’19, Michaela O’Brien ’19 MVP: Michaela O’Brien

GIRLS SQUASH RECORD: 11-6

Head Coach: Bruce Shang Assistant Coach: Mercy Carbonelle Captains: Chandler Jean-Jacques ’19, Caroline Matule ’19, Ursula Sze ’19 MVPs: Euwie Park ’19, Katie Yang ’19

GIRLS INDOOR TRACK & FIELD RECORD: 2-0

Head Coach: Hilary Coder Hall Assistant Coaches: Toyin Augustus, Brandon Newbould, Ron Edmiston, Hobart Hardej, Steve Holmes Captain: Hannah Brown ’19 MVP: Kaylee Bennett ’22

Beyond the

TABLE

EXETER STUDENTS FEED THEIR HUNGER FOR DISCOVERY W I T H PA S S I O N P R OJ E C T S OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM

N

ot every inspiration occurs at the table.

Harkness works up an appetite for ideas and possibilities, for figuring out how things work and why things happen. That hunger for understanding continues to grow beyond the classroom door. Like a flame given oxygen, Harkness and its lessons spread.

Whether it’s inventors flocking to Design Lab during open hours or a blossoming poet filling her free blocks with verse, Exeter students are constantly exploring. Many of their biggest discoveries and brightest ideas are of their own making. Our fledgling robotics team tried-and-erred its way straight to the world championships. The collapse of a family beehive inspired a trio of seniors to study causes and seek solutions. Two members of the class of 2019 took advantage of the senior independent study program to pursue their arts in self-designed projects.

They represent a culture of invention and ingenuity at Exeter. Here are their stories.

ROOKIE ROBOT TEAM HAS ALL THE RIGHT STUFF

By Nicole Pellaton

The robotics team’s creation is “never done,” with improvements being made continuously.

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“

hey are VERTEX!” shouts the ref in a red Hawaiian shirt as he announces

this match of Rover Ruckus, the regional FIRST Tech Challenge event held in February. He points to three Exeter students wearing protective goggles, nervous smiles, and red T-shirts emblazoned with VERTEX and the lion rampant: Vincent Xiao ’22 and Joy Liu ’20 (robot drivers) and Neil Chowdhury ’22 (match coach). Whoops from the crowd of thousands resound through Southern New Hampshire University’s athletic complex as VERTEX’s partner for this match and their two opposing teams are introduced.

As the racing bugle sounds, the teams’ four robots, simulating lunar rovers, drop from their tethered parking spots on the red landing craft to start their three-minute navigation of the pitch. The rovers, with long metal extenders and heavy-duty wheels, are designed to pick up “minerals” (in reality, Wiffle balls and plastic cubes) and deposit them in designated spots. After 30 seconds of entirely autonomous driving, buzzers blare and the driver-led portion of the match begins.

Clutching an Xbox controller wired to an Android phone that communicates with a second Android on the rover, Xiao gives robot 15534 a burst of speed. Its intake pulls in two balls, maneuvers one into the robot’s carrying cabin and releases the second back to the “crater.”

15534 swiftly backs up 4 inches, extends a long ladderlike arm above the

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“IT’S THE IMPACT WE MAKE ON THE COMMUNITY. DIVERSITY IN STEM WAS REALLY AN ISSUE WE WANTED TO FOCUS ON.”

landing craft and tilts the ball onto the craft’s roof. It bounces off. Again 15534 tries, this time with a cube. It goes in, but to the wrong spot.

Two more attempts and success. “Nice job!” intones the ref.

The VERTEX alliance has won the round.

Begun as a PEA club in September 2018, VERTEX walked away from Rover Ruckus with the prestigious Inspire award, given to the team that, in addition to being strong technically and creatively, is an ambassador for FIRST programs, showing graciousness on and off the pitch, and sharing knowledge, excitement and experience with other teams and the community. Judges commended the work on autonomous operation and the engineering notebook, as well as the extensive community outreach programming. VERTEX was also praised for its inclusiveness: members hail from around the world and half identify as female or nonbinary.

The Inspire award guaranteed VERTEX a spot at the FIRST World Championship in late April, where 1,400 robot teams from more than 70 countries gathered. (See how the team did at exeter.edu/vertex.)

Although they call themselves “rookies” — about half the VERTEX team had no previous robotics experience and seven are new to Exeter — they bring hours of teaching programming and robotics to peers, and hours more in self-taught skills. It clearly shows. The FIRST regional judges singled out the team’s work with open source image recognition software — the robot must be able to “see” where it is going and what to pick up — because the students had mastered the software and identified flaws in the algorithms.

But when you ask the students what really counts, it’s not the technology.

“It’s the impact we make on the community,” says Penny Brant ’20. “Diversity in STEM was really an issue we wanted to focus on.” Through presentations and interactive events, VERTEX showed community groups that robotics is fun and everyone can do it. Brant is most proud of STEM Day, a student-run event in January that gathered more than 100 Exonians and community members for presentations by Harvard and MIT researchers, a tech fair of student projects and participatory challenges.

“STEM Day was a revolution,” adds David Song ’21, the self-taught CAD guru who is widely credited with jump-starting the robotics team. The turnout and excitement, he explains, especially on a Sunday, showed the pent-up demand among students for opportunities to collaborate on STEM projects outside of the classroom.

Kai Lockwood ’21 remembers coming to Exeter as a prep and asking, “Where’s the robotics club?” A year later Lockwood, who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronoun they, joined the fledgling FIRST robotics team as its electrical lead, happy to be working with their hands again, something they craved. Lockwood is fulfilled and inspired by the robotics demonstrations for local organizations including Girls Who Code, the YMCA, FIRST LEGO League, ESSO robotics club and Seacoast Outright, a LGBTQIA+ support group.

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Team VERTEX earned a spot at the world championships in its first year of competition.

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“I WAS EXCITED TO SEE HOW MY RESEARCH COULD BE APPLIED IN THE REAL WORLD.”

Seniors Cooper Wolff, Jenny Yang and Vinny Kurup credit their complementary talents for much of their success.

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On a Wednesday afternoon in late February, a few weeks after the regional win, VERTEX members gather in the busy Design Lab on the third floor of Phelps Science Center.

Xiao, the mechanical captain, stands next to the table where 15534, currently shorn of many components, is undergoing major redesign for worlds. The table is strewn with colorful zip ties, wires, screws, gears, clamps and bands. Xiao works silently, and, as people approach the table, he connects. Two students have recently joined the project, and he talks to them about mechanical priorities. “If you use this, remember that you need to get the screws out of the way — they need to be in really tight,” he explains as he holds a metal fitting in the air.

Liu comes over to the table and picks out a part from the box labeled “Mech Kit.” She wonders aloud if it will adequately maintain rigidity if they use it to fix the intake.

“The robot is never done,” Liu frequently points out in conversation. The team’s try/ fail/regroup/try approach is in clear evidence today as she and Xiao discuss what has worked, what has not, and paths for moving forward. This openness to challenge and change has successfully survived several serious tests already, including an unexpected software breakdown during Rover Ruckus, and the disruptions to progress that occur every time the team disbands for school breaks.

Lockwood wanders in around 3 o’clock, cheeks still flush from swim practice. They immediately bend down to the table and get busy — hands confident and strong as they pull apart wires, then brace them on the robot with duct tape. Lockwood notices that a new part has arrived. Soon, Lockwood and Nico Gallo, the Design Lab coordinator and VERTEX adviser, are holding ends of the large blue coiled air hose, flexing it and talking about tensile strength and where points of resistance will occur.

Panda Atipunumphai ’20, a CAD specialist, is over by the window working on a project that is a direct offshoot of her robotics work. Although she doesn’t yet know it, in a few days she and her team will receive the Innovation award from LaunchX, an MIT entrepreneurship program, for their plan to reuse single-use plastics as 3D printing filament.

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Song, tall and quiet, wanders fluidly from the robotics group to another table where an AI-driven recycling sorter is undergoing a final build for presentation at LaunchX. Recognized for his leadership and dedication at the state championships, Song is waiting to hear if he will make the FIRST Dean’s List at worlds, an honor given to only 10 students.

Liu has left the Design Lab, carrying a part that is not working as predicted. Suddenly, a question comes up and Xiao asks, “Where’s Joy?” There’s a ripple of disruption as team members query each other, across tables busy with activity, to see if anyone knows where she has gone. “There she is!” announces Xiao with relief as Liu returns a few minutes later. VERTEX gets back to preparing for worlds.

CREATING BUZZ IN THE FIGHT TO SAVE BEES

By Debbie Kane

I

t’s a startling statistic: Approximately one in every three mouthfuls of food comes from crops pollinated by bees. But commercial honeybee colonies around the world are failing at an alarming rate, declining by 30 to 40 percent over a seven-year period in the United States alone.

Vinny Kurup ’19 hadn’t heard the buzz around honeybee die-off when he started fall term in Social Innovation, a senior elective. But three months of collaboration, many hours of research, one video and an oral presentation later, he has in-depth knowledge of how this impacts food sources worldwide. In January, Kurup and classmates Jenny Yang ’19 and Cooper Wolff ’19 unveiled their solution, BeeInnovative, at the New Hampshire Social Venture Innovation Challenge (SVIC). The trio captured first place in the competition’s high school track for their proposal to create a mobile application and monitoring device that alerts beekeepers of hive health issues. “I was a little nervous about the competition and didn’t know what to expect,” Wolff says, “but we were really prepared.”

That preparation is thanks, in part, to their teacher, Director of Service Learning Liz Reyes, and the way Social Innovation is structured. The course is designed to get students out of the classroom and into the community. “The students have to study root causes of problems in society, like environmental concerns, health care, refugee rights — issues that negatively impact well-being,” says Reyes. Students are challenged to understand issues by engaging one-on-one with stakeholders. “I ask them to partner with people in the field to develop solutions,” she says. The class breaks into teams during the course to study a specific problem and propose a potential solution. The culmination is the SVIC. The BeeInnovative team came together around an issue that Yang was already studying: the failure of one of her family’s beehives. Last summer, she programmed a computer to identify hive-health problems by interpreting images collected from other beekeepers and disseminating her findings on social media. But she was eager to dig deeper into the problem. “I was excited to see how my research could be applied in the real world and figure out how this system could really look,” Yang says. “I knew there was still a long way to go.” The project also intrigued her classmates. “We’d heard about Jenny’s work with bees and knew we wanted to expand off her research,” Wolff says.

To get started, Wolff interviewed Exeter staffer Linda Safford P’12, P’14, a local beekeeper who explained the effects of mites on honeybees and how timely monitoring of hives could prevent their failure through early identification of disease. Combining this knowledge and additional research with Yang’s efforts, the students developed an early-warning

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A prototype of BeeInnovative’s app.

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Nat Love’s serigraphy on display in Mayer Art Center.

solution designed to identify disease before it spreads and triggers a hive failure.

The BeeInnovative team proposes placing a small camera connected to a Raspberry Pi (a single-board computer) at the entrance of a hive to continuously monitor and record bee activity. The camera sends video footage of bees traveling in and out of the hive in real time to the Raspberry Pi, which uses machine learning technology to inspect the video frames for behavior or appearances that may be indicative of disease. The data is sent to the BeeInnovative mobile app so that beekeepers can monitor their hives’ status. Should an anomaly be detected, the app alerts the beekeeper, displays potential treatment methods and provides a listing of beekeepers within the app’s community.

Yang’s strong STEM background and her knowledge of honeybees, Kurup’s public speaking and coding abilities, and Wolff ’s writing and interviewing experience were complementary skills during their project’s development phase. Yang worked on the project’s written summary; she and Kurup presented a two-minute oral overview to a panel of judges during the competition; and all of them worked on a three-minute video.

Based on positive feedback from the SVIC judges, Kurup, Wolff and Yang are continuing their research and creating a business plan for BeeInnovative. They’ve turned the project into an independent research course for their senior spring term. Using their skills in physics, computer science and electrical engineering, they’ll delve further into the project, building a mobile app as well as a prototype hive monitor. “There are so many variables we don’t know,” Kurup notes. “We have to make sure we’re using the right kind of camera, whether it’s recording the information we want, and if its relaying that information to the app.” They’re excited about the possibilities.

Support from Exeter students and staff has been key. “I didn’t envision the project coming this far when I started it last summer,” Yang admits. “The fact that I’ve been able to continuously work on it at Exeter with the support of the school, Mrs. Reyes, and my friends and teammates is really energizing.”

Kurup agrees. “Exonians are used to being challenged in a narrow sense but we also have the support of the school to take risks in fields we’re passionate about,” he says.

“The truth is, I don’t think any of us would’ve been able to do this project outside the environment Exeter provides.”

HARKNESS FOR ONE: SENIORS HONE SOLO PROJECTS

By Patrick Garrity

K

ate Denny ’19 knots a salmon-pink apron around her waist, grabs a dish cloth

and sops up an imaginary spill from an empty diner table. She complains about her manipulative mother, who, it just so happens, she murdered.

Moments later, she beseeches her husband, Agamemnon, to spare their daughter and not sacrifice her to the Greek gods.

In another moment, she sings at Don Quixote in a scolding alto to see her for who she really is, not a lady but a prostitute. “I am not any kind of lady!” she chides.

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“ULTIMATELY, THE WAY YOU DECIDE TO CREATE A CHARACTER FOR YOURSELF AND CREATE A PERSONA IS ALL UP TO YOU.”

This shape-shifting performance, carried out on the stage of The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center’s Actors Lab, is Denny’s senior independent study project on full display. For weeks, she worked to memorize six monologues and two songs from disparate sources, all with one commonality: They are the words of strong female characters. The show, presented three days before spring break, is Denny’s de facto final exam.

At an institution where collaboration is canon, the independent study program for seniors remains a popular outlet to go it alone. The goal of the program is to allow Exeter students the opportunity to explore areas of interest that fall outside traditional course descriptions. Seniors, with approval from the faculty, may design individual projects of comparable value and scope to those of an academic course. Each student keeps a faculty adviser updated on their progress but generally works independently throughout the term. The time and resources poured into projects often exceed those dedicated to many senior-level classes.

Recent projects have included writing and producing a bluegrass album, designing and conducting a Harkness class for adults on campus and constructing a 150-squarefoot tiny house on wheels. During winter term, eight students devised independent study projects ranging from Denny’s one-woman spectacular to Yasmina Abukhadra and Tony Ye’s exploration of ways to harness solar energy.

For Denny, a solo project comes naturally. Theater is a passion she hopes to make a career one day, and she sees the acting process as an independent study each time she tackles a role.

“I love Harkness. I think it works really well in a lot of subjects,” she says. “I love Harkness math. … I love it in history, I love it in English.

—continued on page 110

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Kate Denny ‘19 performs during her one-woman show in the Goel Center’s Actors Lab.

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INSIDE THE

ENDOWMENT

A L O O K AT T H E F I N A N C I A L E N G I N E T H AT P O W E R S E X E T E R Compiled by Karen Ingraham

CHRISTIAN HARRISON

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O

n March 9, hundreds of students eagerly waited to learn if they had been accepted to Phillips Exeter Academy. When the welcome packets arrived at their doors, for many there was an additional piece of good news: a letter from Director of Admissions and Financial Aid John Hutchins outlining their financial aid award.

When the academic year begins in September, nearly half of Exeter’s student body will be recipients of tuition-based financial aid — a sum totaling over $21 million. That money comes largely from the Academy’s endowment: a composition of about 1,400 individual

All data is from the previous fiscal year, which ended on June 30, 2018.

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FA M I LY C USTO M THE BROWN FAMILY A tradition of giving spans generations It was the end of World War II, and Gladys and Isidore Brown wished to mark the momentous occasion with a forward-thinking act of generosity.

In a letter to Ezra Pike Rounds, Exeter’s dean of admissions, the Browns wrote, “We know of no better way of showing our gratitude to our beloved country or of celebrating the end and outcome of World War II than by making the enclosed unrestricted contribution.” Their sons, Roger ’43 and Howard ’42, who were still enlisted in the armed services, “join us and thankfully approve of our method of celebration,” the letter concluded.

A family tradition of philanthropy was born, and it has since impacted generations of Exeter students and teachers. In 1973, the Brown parents and their children established the Howard J. Brown ’42 Scholarship Fund to increase the school’s financial aid offerings. In 1979, in honor of Isidore Brown’s 90th birthday, they created the Isidore & Gladys J. Brown Book Fund to expand the Academy Library’s holdings.

Roger Brown ’43 and his wife, Barbara, contributed to the school in additional ways. First, as parents of five Exonians (Jeffrey, Owen, Andrew, Henry and Vanessa) and as aunt and uncle to several more.

And then, in grateful recognition for the education the Brown children received, the couple established the Brown Family Faculty Fund in 1985 “to reward and retain outstanding teachers.”

“The Brown Award was the first I had ever received specifically for teaching,” wrote Kathleen Brownback, Vira I. Heinz Distinguished Professor and Instructor in Religion, in a letter of thanks to the Browns. “It had the effect over time of elevating my sense of what I was doing into a true profession, rather than as a job I did because I loved the subject of religion and philosophy and enjoyed the school.”

Exeter’s instructors had made an indelible impact on Brown himself during his school years. “The Math Department was really great when I was there,” he says.

“I remember Professors Leighton, Major, Butterfield and Weeks — they were great teachers. I was stuck with those guys — [and] I was really lucky.” He went on to apply those skills in college, earning a B.S. at Yale and an MBA at Harvard Business School. Brown rose to the position of vice chairman of the executive committee

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at investment bank A.G. Becker & Co. in his native Chicago. He later moved to Harris Associates as president and CEO before retiring in 1990.

Brown remained equally fond of his senior year roommate, and in 2011 created the Otis Pease Professional Development Fund for History in his memory. Pease ’43, who died in 2010, received a Purple Heart for his service in World War II’s Battle of the Bulge and had a distinguished career as a history professor and trustee at Stanford and the University of Washington.

History Department Chair William Jordan recently used the Pease Fund gift to make a trip to Germany that included stops in Nuremberg, Munich, and Heidelberg, as well as a visit to the Dachau concentration camp. “It seemed like every corner I turned stimulated a new connection to the history I teach, to the history I don’t teach and thus a broader perspective, and to the whole point of studying history,” Jordan says.

Brown gives his late wife, Barbara, who died in January, credit for suggesting the establishment of their most recent gift, in 2017. The Barbara and Roger Brown Teachers’ Education Fund is an endowed fund earmarked to support Exeter’s summer teaching conferences: weeklong professional development opportunities that more than 400 teachers from private, parochial and public schools participate in.

It’s the latest in an incredible string of gifts, a history of generosity that was most fully acknowledged in a collection of thank-you letters from past recipients of the Brown Award. Faculty members were clearly moved by the reassurance that their work mattered, the “heartfelt pat on the back for all [the] unseen moments,” the “gift of confidence” the Browns bestowed, and the recognition “not for doing something extraordinary in that particular year, but for making possible the extraordinary things that happen every day in the Harkness classroom.”

—Sarah Zobel

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investment funds, most of which are restricted by use, established by generations of generous donors. Financial aid is the single largest designated use of endowment income (34 percent); hundreds of funds support student grants for tuition, room and board, and experiential learning opportunities. It is a fundamental resource for making Exeter accessible to “youth of requisite qualifications from every quarter” (see page 35).

The remainder of the endowment is designated as such: Twenty-two percent for teaching funds; 22 percent for programs supporting the student experience; and 22 percent for general purposes. The latter purpose is designed to provide some flexibility in spending. What the school needs to fund 100 years from now will be different from what its needs are today.

With a market value of $1.3 billion as of June 30, 2018, the endowment is a critical financial engine on which the Exeter experience is run. It is a diversified portfolio of investments that balances two competing priorities: the needs of the school today and the needs of generations of Exonians to come.

Other Purposes

22%

General Purposes

A SOURCE OF STRENGTH

22%

Exeter ended its fiscal year in 2018 with a balanced budget, a modest surplus and strong overall financial health. Standard & Poor’s consistently assigns the school its highest rating of AAA, an indication of long-term fiscal responsibility. That coupled with a committed, generous donor base has enabled the Academy to maintain its margin of excellence year over year.

Exeter’s greatest strength — its community of people — is rightfully one of its largest expenses. Since the Deed of Gift’s stipulation that “the attention of instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care … ,” Exeter has consistently maintained a world-class body of faculty: Of the 182 instructors on campus today, 65 percent hold master’s degrees and one-quarter have doctorates. Many are published authors, recognized researchers in their fields of study and professional artists. More than 400 highly qualified, full-time

Financial Aid

34%

Teaching Funds

22%

Endowment

by Purpose Restriction

Performance Summary as of June 30, 2018 1 Yr.

5 Yr.

10 Yr.

20 Yr.

Investment Return

10.1%

7.9%

5.9%

8.4%

CA E&F Median

8.1%

7.0%

5.5%

6.5%

60% MSCI ACWI/40% Barclays Aggregate

7.3%

6.6%

5.1%

5.5%

S&P 500

14.4%

13.4%

10.2%

6.5%

MSCI ACWI

10.7%

9.4%

5.8%

5.8%

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For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018, the endowment returned 10.1 percent. Strong equity market returns drove performance for the most recent fiscal year, and Exeter saw strong returns across most parts of the portfolio.

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Real Assets

8%

Absolute Return

Private Equity

39%

9%

Cash

9%

Public Equity

35%

Endowment Asset Allocation

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employees also contribute to the Exeter experience. This investment in human capital comprised 56 percent of the Academy’s operating expenses in 2017-18 and includes compensation, benefits and professional development opportunities. Funds like the Steve and Jeanne Kurtz Faculty & Staff Fund help to cover the costs of faculty and staff salaries, and others, like the Brown Family Faculty Fund, recognize and support exemplary teachers across disciplines (see page 32).

Last year, endowment income funded more than half of the school’s operating expenses ($104.4 million), including a portion of the cost of maintenance and upkeep of the school’s physical plant and technology infrastructure. When new facilities are built, such as the William Boyce Thompson Field House and the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance, they not only have fundraising targets for construction costs, but also come with an endowment goal to ensure that funds are available for future renewal and maintenance of the Academy’s facilities (see page 36).

The endowment also supports myriad programs dedicated to student wellness, academic support, experiential learning and residential life. In March, for example, 10 students traveled to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to study marine biology at world-renowned laboratories. The trip was fully underwritten by The Hessel Innovation Fund, established by Aileen and John Hessel ’52. At the beginning of the academic year, students participated in an annual, daylong orientation program to strengthen bonds amongst classmates, thanks to the new Class of 2018 Exonians Connect and Explore Fund. And each week The Exonian, the nation’s oldest, continuously published independent school newspaper, arrives on campus newsstands because of ongoing support from the Class of 1973 Exonian Fund and other endowed gifts.

THE DELICATE BALANCE

Every Exonian today benefits from the generosity of those who came before them. The endowment is managed with two goals in mind: to provide consistent support for Exeter’s annual operations while maintaining the purchasing power of endowment gifts in perpetuity. This dual approach helps support Exeter today and continues a tradition of responsible stewardship that provides for Exeter’s future.

To achieve this, the Academy has selected over time a team of outstanding investment managers focused on long-term return generation (see sidebar, page 37). The portfolio is diversified across asset classes and investment strategies. As a result, investment performance is expected to lag in periods of rising equity markets and outperform in periods of declining equity markets.

Exeter’s endowment spending policy is designed with two goals in mind. First, we aim to maintain the

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PAY I T FO RWA R D PANG LEE ’93 Scholarship recipient knows ‘power of gifts’ When Pang Lee ’93 established the Kity and Pang Lee,

Class of 1993, Scholarship Fund earlier this year, he drew his inspiration directly from the Academy’s Deed of Gift.

“John [and Elizabeth] Phillips decided to deed [their] land and fortune to create this thing that changed a lot of people’s lives, including mine,” Lee says. “I always knew it was a gift, and I never took it for granted.”

Lee’s permanent endowed fund aims to “advance this historic mission” by providing another source of financial aid for students in need. “Special consideration” is given to those who matriculate from New York City’s Prep for Prep, a program for academically gifted students of color that helps facilitate their enrollment in Northeast independent schools and provides leadership development and college guidance.

Lee, himself a Prep for Prep scholar before Exeter, values how “youth of requisite qualification from every quarter,” as defined by the Phillipses, can shape the ethos of a school.

As written in Lee’s deed of gift, The Kity and Pang Lee, Class of 1993, Scholar will “contribute to the learning and growth at Exeter that arises from diversity in all its dimensions of its student body and faculty,” and ultimately “enhance the Exeter experience for all Exonians.”

Lee’s personal story begins in China. His parents met in the 1970s after separately escaping mainland China by swimming to Hong Kong. They sought asylum and then married; Pang was the first of their three children. The couple emigrated to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, working in the garment factories and restaurants of Chinatown. Growing up in a cramped, railroad-style tenement, where the bathtub was inconveniently and openly exposed to the kitchen, Lee’s primary motivation to attend Exeter over options closer to home was to have a room of his own and a proper private bathroom. Once on campus, however, it was the joy of being surrounded by peers who were unabashedly interested in learning that really motivated him. That propelled him to MIT and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Lee is now a Shanghai-based corporate lawyer and partner at Cooley, an international firm, with a practice in venture capital and other private investment

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funds. He and his wife, Kity, who also grew up on the Lower East Side, have already crossed the Pacific twice, arriving at their current home from California and, before that, Hong Kong and New York City. Their three young children attend the Shanghai American School while immersed in a fast-changing China, so different from the country their grandparents escaped.

It is a balance that fascinates Lee, who observes that living abroad as an adult has strengthened his ties back to America and to the Academy.

“You can see the power and promise of America,” he says. “You can also see the power of gifts and the power of education, and how that really changes people’s lives. It’s transformative.”

“I always appreciated Exeter as a special place, but I didn’t fully realize how extraordinary the gift [I received] was until I traveled back to Hong Kong and China to fully understand how many talented people there are who aren’t afforded even a glimpse of the opportunities that I enjoyed,” he says. “This scholarship is our way to show gratitude and pay forward for future generations of young people, particularly those who may not have the means, to benefit from the Exeter experience.”

Lee’s eponymous fund is a significant contribution to an ongoing, vital tradition of alumni endowment support. Such generosity enables Exeter to continue welcoming “youth from every quarter.” This year alone, Exeter will award more than $21 million in tuition-based financial aid to nearly half of the student population.

“Exeter enables its students,” Lee says. “They feel that all kinds of possibilities are within reach.” Thanks to Lee’s gift, that opportunity is even greater.

—Sarah Zobel

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P E R F ECT P I TC H LEONARD EGAN ’59 Support for the arts grew from reunion weekend When the curtain rose on A Midsummer Night’s Dream last fall, the first mainstage performance in The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance, few in the audience were thinking about how the Leonard Egan (center) with fellow 1959 classmates building would age or how Exeter and donors outside the new addition. would fund its ongoing maintenance. In that moment, it was years of my life — there’s no question about it,” he says. about the students, the magic they were creating on After the reunion, Egan quickly signed on to help stage, and the anticipation of all that is now possible plan the next one. He has since served as a class agent, in this new venue. reunion fundraiser and, most recently, class president.

Thanks to alumni like Leonard Egan ’59, students’ Perhaps his greatest impact was early in his tenure, in creative potential can flourish for years to come, in 2014, when he volunteered to contact scores of classspaces that remain vibrant. Egan generously made mates, collaborating with Rauch to inspire donations an irrevocable bequest pledge in support of the Goel from 45 alums. That lead gift of more than $4.5 million Center endowment to help fund the building’s longhelped fund the addition named in honor of the class’s term care in perpetuity. It is not the first institutional extraordinary generosity. priority that Egan has chosen to support.

The new space features a recording studio, teaching Just a few days before the Goel Center opening, the and rehearsal spaces, a media and technology center, student Symphony Orchestra had given its first perforand The Bowld. Both faculty and students have raved mance of the academic year in “The Bowld.” The 250about its impact on the arts at Exeter. seat performance space’s glass wall and the campus “The creation of this Bowld definitely uplifted the framed beyond it served as a magnificent backdrop, Exeter music experience,” Sophia Oguri ’18 said before and its exquisite acoustics allowed both musicians and she graduated. “It makes me excited to come in here audience members to hear and feel the music as never every morning and every night to rehearse. It’s just a before. The Bowld is part of the Class of 1959 Music great space.”

Center Addition to the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center.

Professional musician and Music Instructor Peter Egan, in partnership with classmate Dudley Rauch ’59, Schultz agrees: “The benefits have been enormous. was instrumental in fundraising for this building addiThe Bowld provides us with a beautiful space, perfect tion, which opened in 2016. for our concerts, as well as a lovely rehearsal area. In Egan’s support of Exeter was sparked when he fact, it’s hard to imagine a more stunning and congereturned for his 45th class reunion in 2004. Prior to nial environment in which to make music.” that, he had not been back on campus since his gradThough a classical music fan, Egan says he can’t put uation. After two years at Exeter, he graduated from a finger on what, exactly, inspired him to contribute to Harvard College and then from Harvard Law School. the arts at Exeter in this way, other than that he saw a Thereafter, establishing a law practice in Washington, need and wanted to help out.

D.C., kept him busy. In reconnecting with his former “I look back on Exeter,” Egan says, “as probably the classmates, seeing student life and the campus itself, best educational experience of my life.”

Egan appreciated more fully Exeter’s impact on him.

—Sarah Zobel “I learned more in those two years than in any two

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purchasing power of the endowment over the long run. At the same time, we seek to provide relatively consistent support to the school’s operating budget.

Under the policy, the amount spent in any one year is based 80 percent on the prior year’s spending (increased by inflation) and 20 percent on the market value of the endowment (as determined by a four-quarter trailing average) multiplied

by Exeter’s endowment draw rate of 5 percent.

Because it is only partially based on the current market value of the endowment, this spending policy helps shield the operating budget from shortterm market volatility.

Endowment

AN INVESTMENT IN OPPORTUNITY

In his Opening Assembly last September, Exeter’s 16th principal, Bill Rawson, told students, “the Deed of Gift fundamentally is a statement of belief that endowed with knowledge and goodness, in equal measure, you will be able to make a positive difference in the world, where you work, where you live, or on whatever scale you might choose.”

He continued, “As we believe in you, so you should believe in yourselves. Believe that, like generations of Exonians before you, you are laying the surest foundation for your own useful lives.”

This belief in the potential of youth, and of education to have a profound and lasting influence on it, compelled John and Elizabeth Phillips to make their first gift to the Academy. They began a 238-year-old tradition of philanthropy that has been sustained by generations of Exonians. The endowment is a reflection of that generosity and the enduring commitment to support every student … from every quarter. E

53%

Net Tuition

30%

Exeter Fund & Gifts Other

8%

9%

2017-2018 Revenue Sources

THE INVESTMENT COMMITTEE Exeter’s Investment Committee — comprised of

current and former trustees as well as non-trustee alumni, all of who serve in a voluntary capacity — partners with the school’s internal investment staff and external advisers to oversee the endowment.

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Committee members

Morgan C. W. Sze ’83, chair K. Tucker Andersen ’59 Meredith Landers Barth ’93 Brad Briner ’95 Suzi Kwon Cohen ’88 Walter Donovan ’81 John A. Downer ’75, ex officio Eiichiro Kuwana ’82 P. Andrews McLane ’65 Katharine Procter ’88 Richard L. Smith ’66 Remy Trafelet ’88

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ACT 1

P L AY W R I G H T C H A R LY

S I M P S O N ’0 4 S E T S T H E S TA G E F O R C H A N G E

By Jennifer Wagner

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T

here are moments — foundational and prismatic — that

inform life’s trajectory. For playwright Charly Simpson ’04, one such moment struck during her upper year at Exeter as she was reading lines for a part in an upcoming play.

Midsentence, she understood that she’d never get the role — and it wasn’t a matter of talent. It was simply because of the color of her skin.

“I remember doing the monologue and the instructor not looking at me,” Simpson recalls. “Then realizing, oh, well, it’s The Crucible, there’s only one part for me, technically, if this is going to be cast realistically. It’s Tituba, the black woman. There’s no other role for anyone else of color. Why? In an educational setting, why can’t I play whatever role?”

Luckily, it wasn’t a question she wrestled with alone. Simpson went to her instructor, and then her moment became a moment for him, too. “Charly Simpson is a student I will never forget,” says Theater and Dance Department Chair Rob Richards. “I’ll always remember how she made me feel — deeply grateful.” Richards explains: “Years ago, I was directing Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible and had what could be described as a literal, or limited, vision, which was to cast the puritanical Salem townsfolk as an all-white community. With daring and thoughtful insight, Charly asked, ‘Mr. Richards, what about reading students of color for the traditionally white parts?’ Here was a powerful teaching moment.

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Students perform the play Hottentotted (left), written by Charly Simpson ’04 (above) during MLK Day 2019. (Bottom) Simpson performing in With Their Eyes during her senior year at Exeter.

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Go online to hear what students say about MLK Day 2019 www.exeter.edu/MLK2019

MLK DAY 2019 MARY SCHWALM (ALL)

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Each year, Exeter celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with discussions on race, equity and inclusion.

Andrea Taylor (top left) of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute delivered this year’s keynote address.

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Here was a brave young woman of color asking her older white male instructor to consider another perspective. ... I shifted to see the different perspective. … She made it happen. The student taught the teacher, and I am a better teacher for it, a better man.”

Simpson went on to have that conversation many times, as an undergrad at Brown University, as a master’s student at the University of Oxford, and in her professional career in the theater. But having it first as a teenager was vital. “I’m grateful to have had that initial conversation at Exeter, rather than when I was older,” Simpson says. “It had a profound effect on me,” she adds, saying that it helped her understand the role she could play in creating the next story a student or teacher told. “That conversation had a lot to do with why I’m a writer,” Simpson says. “If I just wrote the plays, with characters like me in them, then there wouldn’t be any excuse to not cast people of color.”

I

n January, Simpson returned to Exeter

for a performance of one of her own plays, Hottentotted, which she developed and wrote based on interviews she held with friends over the past few years. The play unfolded on the minimalist Actors Lab stage in The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center with a group of students of color sitting together, learning the history of Sarah Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, a South African woman who was brought to Europe for exhibition during the 19th century, and sharing painful, humorous and ultimately hopeful stories of what it’s like to be a black woman in the United States today.

The performance was part of Exeter’s 2019 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day programming.

Over two days, students, faculty, staff, alumni and thought provocateurs gathered to honor the legacy of the slain civil rights leader. Through dance and theatrical performances, poetry readings, lectures and interactive workshops, the community explored issues of race, equity and inclusion through the lens of this year’s theme: “Gen Z Activism: Responsibility, Accountability, Intersectionality.”

“When [English Instructor] Mercy [Carbonell] reached out about work of mine that would be in line with MLK Day, this one stood out,” —continued on page 111

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A LU M S A N D M L K DAY

RACHEL RHOADES ’04 Workshop: “Indigenous and Black Youth Art Activists” As an educator, youth worker and

doctoral candidate in curriculum studies and teacher development at the University of Toronto, Rachel Rhoades ’04 is devoted to artsbased, nonviolent civic action.

Rhoades returned to campus on MLK Day to inform and inspire Exonians on the ways young people can band together to incite change. In an interactive workshop, Rhoades introduced students to “intersectionality” — a term coined

by Kimberlé Crenshaw decades ago to describe the interconnections among different social categorizations such as race, class and gender that lead to oppression or discrimination.

Then she asked attendees to not just talk about issues of social injustice, but embody them. In small breakout groups, students and faculty developed tableaus or short theatrical scenes that depicted their “real,” “ideal,” and “transitional,” visions for a more just future. Each group enacted three vignettes, lasting less than five minutes, on one of three themes: climate change, indigenous rights or antiblack racism.

The resulting performances sparked spirited conversations as viewers commented on others’ work and shared personal stories of when they had experienced injustice.

It was an experience that stuck with Ursie Wise ’21. “Of all the activities I went to during the day, this workshop stood out to me the most,” Wise wrote in a reflection piece for her English class. “Growing up, I wasn’t educated on the drastic difference in living conditions on reservations. I was taught about Native American history, but not about the current conditions of reservations. This workshop made me realize not only that I have so much to learn about oppression and racism in this country, but also helped me understand why some young people can find themselves uneducated on racial injustice. To put it simply, it just isn’t being emphasized enough in our childhoods and early educations.”

Rhoades hopes her workshop offered an alternative way for students like Wise to engage in social justice issues and embody empathy. “When you act these ideas and experiences out with your body,” Rhoades says, “it really stays with you.”

—Jennifer Wagner

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Wild Harkness

H OW E X E T E R P R E PA R E D M E TO S U RV I V E O N R E A L I T Y T V

By Aubry Bracco ’04

M

ornings in the Cambodian jungle are like a

scene out of Jurassic Park. By noon the air is as thick and humid as pea soup. Come nightfall, the mosquitoes are as aggressive as parents trying to score the hottest toy during the holiday season. But, in April and May of 2015, when I actually lived in the Cambodian jungle, the mosquitoes weren’t the only creatures with bite — the humans were out to get me too.

I was on the Cambodian island of Koh Rong to compete for the first time on the CBS television show Survivor.

Being a contestant had actually been a dream of mine since the show first aired way back in the summer of 2000, just before I started my prep year at PEA. For those who’ve never seen Survivor, essentially the premise is this: 18 Americans jump off a boat with only the clothing on their backs, are marooned on a remote island for up to 39 days, and struggle to survive — competing in challenges and voting each other out one-by-one, hoping to be the sole remaining contestant and win $1 million.

Even though I was as far away from Exeter as I could possibly be, doing something that wouldn’t remotely fall under the category of academic, my maneuvering and planning to survive smelled distinctly of the Academy Building and Phillips Hall.

WHAT I TOOK FROM THE HARKNESS TABLE TO TRIBAL COUNCIL I SEE YOU: SOCIAL NETWORKING

On Survivor, my fate was in the hands of a diverse group of people. This wasn’t something new to me. My ability to assemble Goonies-esque squads of allies had become somewhat of my specialty, one borne 15 years earlier around the Harkness table. At Exeter, I was a classic floater. A captain of the field hockey team, I’d run back to campus during my free G format to the music building and get in a half-hour practice on the harp before my H format lesson. And, somehow, I always managed to find just the right friends to help me through the terror that was AP Chemistry.

I’d always been this kind of person — the type to connect with anyone from any corner of the world.

The Harkness method challenged me to harness my ability to socialize with others in a more conscious way; hone it so it remained authentic to my own personality; and

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infuse it into each and every interaction I encountered on my life’s journey, including those on Survivor.

I HEAR YOU: LISTENING

In this world full of yelling, noise and social media updates, I still get nostalgic for those days in English class in Phillips Hall. A full 50 minutes with nothing but a table to lean on, a book to reference, 12 other mouths and sets of ears — imagine that!

On Survivor, I could imagine that. With the campfire as our Harkness table and fellow tribemates’ tall tales of lives back home as replacements for novels, we had fat blocks upon fat blocks of time to talk and/or listen.

It was then I realized just how artful and special the brand of listening I learned at Exeter actually was.

Around the Harkness table, I would often speak. But first, I listened. On Survivor, I noticed I wasn’t just listening to understand the words other people were saying.

I was listening to understand what their silences meant too. I could tell who I wanted to work with based on who I could sit with comfortably in silence.

Enter Cydney, a bodybuilder from Atlanta. We were both able to communicate in our observance of the space between words. We’ve all heard of the Harkness Warrior.

For every Harkness Warrior, there are the Stealth Bombers — those who find their common ground with classmates in the spaces and silences, speaking only when the time is just right. That was Cydney and me.

I FEEL YOU: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

It’s a funny thing when you’ve been stripped of everything — food, shelter, family, adequate clothing — your senses start to shift. As my Survivor experience crept out of the “days” and into the “weeks” category, I (surprisingly) lost the ability to smell the stench of my fellow filthy castaways and gained the ability to physically feel what they were feeling.

Weeks into the game, I felt the energy of Tai, a gardener from San Francisco. When I met him, his allegiance was with the majority alliance that was aiming to get me out of the game. I quickly realized, however, that the brashness of my opponents was in opposition to the peaceful way Tai moved through the universe, a way I strove to move too. The only way to save myself in the game was

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COURTESY CBS

Castaway Aubry Bracco ’04 on the TV show Survivor.

to identify that energetic congruency with Tai — a person with a very different background — and articulate it to him so he would leave his alliance and work with me.

Though I didn’t know it at the time, this was a skill I first learned during upper- and senior-year English classes, when conversations meandered into profoundly complex territories like politics, religion and race. Beyond listening, Exeter taught me how to feel the emotional texture around the Harkness table; to empathize with what I was able to pick up; and communicate on a profoundly human level with anyone.

I WILL NOT QUIT: TENACITY

This one’s a no-brainer. I knew the second [Principal] Ty Tingley handed me my diploma in May 2004. There’s no time to dwell on a bad day, and there’s certainly no time to complain. For every terrible performance trying to explain Alex in the Desert to a math class, there are three more AP Chemistry tests to get through before winter thaw. Survivor wasn’t very much unlike the roller coaster that was Exeter.

On the show, I had a panic attack on the second day. I had an infection on my leg. I lost several major allies. Name

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an obstacle or possible parasite and I had it.

But Exeter taught me that when my logic tells me the tank is empty, it is not. When it feels like a relationship or conversation around the Harkness table can’t possibly take another turn, it will. Commit. Persevere. Move forward with moxie and doors will open to places you never thought possible.

I placed second on my first season of Survivor and fifth on my second season, lasting a total of 76 days. I did go back to play a third time, but you’ll have to tune in for more on that.

Through it all, I realized my Harkness training wasn’t just a skill. It was a superpower. It’s funny how you don’t realize how one experience has affected you until you’ve given it some distance. I’d been a listener, empath and hard worker my entire life, but Survivor taught me that Exeter had transformed these innate gifts into tools with which I could better navigate the world and connect with the humans I meet. E Editor’s Note: At time of publication, Bracco’s third season of Survivor, themed Edge of Extinction, was airing on CBS.

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CHRISTIAN HARRISON

CONNECTIONS

News and notes from the alumni community

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Taking Exeter with Me H OW N O N S I B I B E C O M E S PA RT O F L I F E

By Geoffrey Cheng ’12 Los Angeles Association regional president

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s a new upper, I sought community when I arrived at Exeter.

Maybe it was because I am Asian and grew up in a home prioritizing family. Maybe it was because I am Christian and had gone to weekly meetings since childhood. Either way, I wanted community. And I found it — around the Harkness table, in student groups like Christian Fellowship and Model UN, and in the ultimate Frisbee team.

The constant influence throughout my Exeter communities was non sibi. Healthy Harkness requires listening to others before sharing your thoughts. Flourishing student groups such as ESSO, CF and Model UN encourage students to engage with causes larger than themselves. Even ultimate (and any other team sport) requires selflessness to win.

After I left Exeter, I realized non sibi is more than a catchy motto; it’s a mindset that is applicable to any aspect of life. When I attended university in St. Louis, my Christian student group made “blessing bags” — brown paper bags filled with bottled water, protein bars and fruit cups — to engage with the local homeless community. Everyone with a car had four or five blessing bags to give to homeless people they met while stopped at red lights, a small yet significant gesture to remind those less fortunate that they’re seen and valued. That’s non sibi.

I’ve seen the power of non sibi in my career as well. When I moved to Los Angeles, several alumni got coffee with me, volunteering their valuable time while knowing I couldn’t offer anything in return. One alumnus in particular stood out to me. During our lunch, he shared how he champions hiring diversity candidates. A few months later, he was recognized for leading an industrywide initiative to increase diversity in the entertainment industry. That’s non sibi.

Non sibi has also changed my mental health for the better. When I began considering the needs of others before mine, I moved away from competition and toward collaboration. Since doing so, I am no longer preoccupied with measuring my successes against others’. Instead, I can genuinely celebrate other people’s accomplishments. When my classmate Jason Kang ’12 was recognized in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 a few years ago, I quickly shot him a message congratulating him for his work. That’s non sibi.

As alumni, it can be difficult to build authentic community, but it’s not impossible. When I moved to L.A., I wanted to help grow the alumni community and quickly volunteered to coordinate events. Although they were small gatherings — a happy hour in Santa Monica, a Dodgers game and a Harkness discussion — those who came always left saying how grateful they were to connect with other Exonians. Inspired, I continued to work with Graham LippSmith ’95, president of the alumni association in L.A. for the past 15 years, to build the Exeter community there. I’m now honored to follow Graham as the association’s regional president.

There’s so much more to Exeter than the time we spent in New Hampshire, and I’m excited to bring a little piece of it to Southern California. E

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By Jennifer Wagner

ention mushrooms and most people think of food. Maynard Wheeler ’57 thinks of the future of biodegradable building materials, environmental waste cleaners and alternative medicine. “Mycelia can digest cigarette butts much cheaper than chemicals,” he says. “And then there’s mycofabrication, using mycelia networks to build supporting structures.”

The semiretired ophthalmologist-turned-amateur mycologist has spent the past 16 years studying the amazing attributes of fungi. “Someone once told me that when you get old you should learn a new language,” he says. “Mushrooms are certainly a new language.”

More than a language, mushrooms have become the 79-year-old’s lifestyle. Wheeler attends regional mushroom conferences to meet up with fellow mycophiles and is president of the Montshire Mycology Club, located in the Sunapee area of New Hampshire where he lives with his wife. “It’s a whole subculture,” he says, and one he heartily embraces.

From spring through late fall, Wheeler leads foraging forays through the woodlands, including the Fells Historic Estate & Gardens in the foothills of the White Mountains. Possessing an almost intuitive sense for spotting markers in the vegetation or in the placement of trees in the landscape, Wheeler urges his group to peer at the edges of rain puddles or turn over decaying leaves as they search. On good days, they find Caesar’s amanita, oysters, puffballs, lion’s mane, black trumpets, chanterelles and turkey tails. “Sometimes at the end of the walk we have a mycophagy, which is myco, mushroom, and phagy, eating,” he explains. “It’s really quite social.”

Mushroom hunting both keeps Wheeler in good physical shape and feeds his intellectual curiosity. “This hobby is about lifelong learning,” he says. “We live in this

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environment; we might as well learn from it.” Honing skills he first developed in pre-med biology class at Dartmouth College, Wheeler brings a decidedly scientific approach to his endeavors. He meticulously photographs, catalogs and studies the thousands of specimens he has collected over the years. At a little table in his family room, he says, he carefully inspects his discoveries through the same microscope that got him through medical school at Columbia. He also makes a point of knowing all of the fungi’s proper names. “Every year I have to re-memorize the Latin names of the mushrooms,” he says. “At my age, I forget them over the winter.”

Wheeler has spent his life helping others see more clearly — as a guide, mentor and doctor.

More than 40 years ago, he opened Connecticut’s first pediatric ophthalmology practice, a new sub-specialty designed to treat children afflicted with vision and eye muscle impairments. In 1980, he broadened his outreach, volunteering for Helen Keller International, work that spanned a decade and included biannual travel to Peru to combat the causes and complications of blindness. Wheeler has a deep and long connection to the South American country, having also spent two years there as a physician in the Peace Corps.

(He was first exposed to Peru by fellow Exonian Fred Truslow ’57, who kept Peruvian artifacts in their Dunbar dorm room.)

Wheeler made his first attempt at retirement last November but was drawn back in by colleagues who cited his specialized knowledge of how eye muscles work. “It’s hard to give up on helping people see,” he says. As for mushroom foraging? The hunt never ends. “There’s a choice edible mushroom called hen of the woods, which I’ve never actually found myself and it’s as big as two large handfuls,” he says. “It would be nice to find that one.” E

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or the first 20 years of her career, Julie Scolnik ’74 played the flute for many of Boston’s leading orchestras. But after the birth of her second child, she stepped away from the large ensembles, moved north of the city and focused on a more personal form of music making.

With her husband, physicist Michael Brower, Scolnik launched Andover Chamber Music (later renamed Mistral Music) in 1997. “I started the series thinking it was a way to play the music I loved the most with the most amazing musicians I knew,” says Scolnik, who first picked up a flute in fourth grade. “Then it turned into something much deeper than that. I realized that I’d found a way to really connect to people through the intimate concert experience.”

Often described as the “music of friends,” chamber music is performed by a small ensemble — usually three to 11 people — who play without a conductor, relying instead on cues from one another. “The experience of watching musicians engaged in fervent musical conversation in such intimate venues gets the blood pumping,” Scolnik says.

Scolnik personally curates each of the dozen or so concerts Mistral puts on each year in its own series and in touring programs. In her role as artistic director, she carefully selects the pieces and the musicians, uniting both with an unconventional theme — such as “The Gypsy Spirit” and “In Search of Marcel Proust,” inspired

by Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time.

“We try to break down the barriers between the musicians on stage and the audience by introducing the works in a fun and appealing way,” Scolnik says. And she asks the musicians to join in the banter as well. “There’s a

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lot of laughter during our concert Q&As,” she says. “The musicians become more human and people see a different side of them. We pride ourselves on our unstuffiness.”

The familial vibe of these performances reflects Scolnik’s own musical youth in Lewiston, Maine. Her father was a serious tenor saxophonist (he still plays in a jazz band at 96) and she spent many formative summers at the Amherst Summer Music Center. “My parents filled the house with beautiful children’s records, records that had Greek myths narrated to some famous piece of music in the background. That was really the soundtrack of my childhood. I remember being so steeped in music, it must have soaked into my DNA in some way.”

Scolnik works tirelessly to share her love of music with others. She often takes a small ensemble into the Lawrence elementry schools and extends her outreach to the elderly, persons with disabilities and families in need by ensuring free Mistral concert tickets are always available. Following treatment for breast cancer in 2005, she also began organizing benefit concerts for underserved women battling cancer.

The next fundraiser, in November, will be a full orchestral concert led by world-famous conductor Sir Simon Rattle in Boston’s Jordan Hall.

Two decades after founding the series, Scolnik’s verve for music and the community it fosters hasn’t waned.

“Every time we come together for one of our concerts, it feels larger than that,” she says. “There is a buzz in the air. … When I greet my audience and see 300 smiling faces of people who are just so happy to have put aside their techno-busy lives to come together with loved ones and friends to enjoy something that is lasting, it’s nothing short of miraculous.” E

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Non Sibi Eats

By Jennifer Wagner

Hojung Kim ’14 (left) and Kevin Zhen ’16 have been connecting and collaborating since their days as dormmates in Cilley Hall.

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hen Hojung Kim ’14 learned that nearly half of all meals in the United States

are eaten alone, the 22-year-old entrepreneur could almost taste the business opportunity to do well and to do good. “I’m personally dedicated to solving the problem of social isolation in the way that’s closest to my heart,” Kim says, “by bringing people together through food.”

In 2017, Kim, who personally struggled with feelings of loneliness, took time off from his studies at the University of Chicago to develop a smartphone app that would do just that — organize small group meals at the homes of local chefs, amateurs or pros, that would be inclusive and supportive. He reached out first to longtime friend Kevin Zhen ’16, an undergrad at Yale. Kim and Zhen were dormmates in Cilley Hall and previously collaborated on a venture to bring wind energy to rural areas in developing countries. But when Kim floated his latest idea, “I told him in these exact words, ‘That’s the dumbest idea ever,’” Zhen recalls. “And thought that was the end of it.”

Kim didn’t take no for an answer and registered Zhen to give a one-minute pitch at Yale’s entrepreneurship night. “At first I was pretty mad,” Zhen says, “but then the idea clicked for me and the audience loved it.” Buoyed by the positive reaction, Zhen and Kim put together a

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business concept and applied to Yale’s Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking summer program.

Their efforts earned them a spot in the accelerator as well as a $15,000 seed grant.

Six months later, they launched their pop-up dining app, Homecooked, in New Haven, Connecticut. We invited the co-founders to our table to discuss the startup experience.

What’s it like to be an entrepreneur?

Kim: For us, being an early-stage startup seeking funding and finding our footing, it involves

a lot of learning and growing. Kevin started learning [user interface/user experience] design. I took a crash course in accounting to put together our financial statements.

What’s the biggest roadblock you’ve faced so far?

Kim: Critical mass is always a huge challenge. For multi-sided platforms, critical

mass is the point where the marketplace’s network effects start driving growth by themselves. Before that point, we have to drive growth as much as we can.

Zhen: And the personal challenges are no joke either. Startups are stressful by their nature, and they can amplify personal conflicts. Hojung and I have had a lot of tough moments where we’re at odds over direction or decisions, but we always come back stronger for it.

Do your different styles complement each other?

Zhen: We call ourselves Yin and Yang. We’re actually completely opposite

“ULTIMATELY WE BUILD FOR OTHERS, NOT JUST OURSELVES.”

people — who we are, how we act, how we think. It definitely has us clashing at times, but helps us innovate through diametrically opposed creative differences.

What’s one key to success?

Kim: I took my entire junior year off of college to work on my first startup and compete on the

professional squash world tour. I was not good enough to play professionally at the outset, but I quickly improved and started competing well enough to win a couple of matches and achieve a world ranking of 342. That experience cemented this idea that skill or achievement had little to do with natural talent and everything to do with hard work and effort. E

Save the Date:

EXETER LEADERSHIP WEEKEND SEPTEMBER 20 – 21, 2019

If you are a current Exeter volunteer or interested in helping to plan your 2020 reunion (classes ending in 5 and 0), please join us on campus. Highlights include: • Remarks by Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 • Important news and updates from campus • Breakout sessions with volunteers to plan for reunion and nonreunion activities • Dinner with the class of 2020 and awarding of the 2019 President’s Award S P R I N G

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and Special Collections opens in the basement of the Class of 1945 Library in 2020, a chunky, 20-pound portable television with a three-inch screen will be among its prized artifacts. Produced by Pilot Radio Corporation in 1950, the treasured piece of Exeter nostalgia will be displayed alongside other rare objects from the library’s collections in a 700-square-foot, glass-fronted vault named for the set’s donor, the late Jay N. Whipple Jr. ’51.

Much more than a historical relic from a bygone time, the television represents the Whipple family’s multigenerational connection to Exeter; an adolescent’s coming of age; and a unique man’s lifelong curiosity about science, electronics, technology and the future.

How the TV originally got to Exeter is quite a tale. In 1951, returning from Christmas break, Whipple smuggled the set into his Peabody Hall dorm room in a duffel bag (televisions were forbidden at Exeter at the time).

Whipple, his roommate Sabin Robbins ’51, and some friends were eager to watch a fight featuring legendary boxer Joe Louis. Unfortunately, the reception inside the dorm was lacking. Whipple knew the solution was to raise the TV’s antenna, but how? The enterprising senior had an idea: climb onto the roof of Peabody, hold the antenna and drop a lead-in wire down a chimney to the fireplace on their floor. The catch: “There were fireplaces on each floor and we had to figure out which chimney on the roof led to ours,” Whipple said in a family video recounting his adventure.

So up Robbins and a friend clambered onto Peabody’s roof, into a frigid winter night. They dropped a stone down each chimney and listened for voices to tell them they had the right one. They succeeded on their third try. Robbins dropped down the wire and his classmates attached the antenna. Robbins, however, missed the fight. “I spent 30 minutes clinging onto the chimney with one hand and holding the antenna with the other,” Robbins said in his 2009 autobiography, A Life of Fun, Romance and Wild Adventures.

Exeter staff eventually learned about the television.

Instead of it being banished, Whipple was allowed to set it up in the science building to use as the basis for a project. He took it with him upon graduation and added it to his burgeoning electronics collection. Years later, after

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Jay N. Whipple Jr. ’51 at his 65th reunion.

recounting his adventures to Exeter staff, he donated the TV to the school.

Whipple’s youthful prank will be forever remembered in the new, climate-controlled vault, named in his honor through a generous gift by his family. Whipple learned of the gift during an emotional video conference with Principal Bill Rawson ’71, P’08, and librarian Gail Scanlon — just two days before Whipple passed away in September 2018 at age 85. “Jay II’s adventure is a fabulous story about being young and testing limits as well as the camaraderie that’s forged among Exeter students,” Scanlon says. “The family’s gift is a reflection of how deep Exeter connections go.”

Whipple was the second generation of his family to attend Exeter — his father, Jay N. Whipple Sr. ’15 was an Exeter trustee and established the Jay N. Whipple Class of 1915 Teaching Fund. “Exeter is an integral part of our generational experience,” says son Jay N. Whipple III ’75.

(Whipple’s son William C. Whipple ’81, as well as stepson Whitson McNulty ’78, and niece Myra Donnelley ’75, are also Exeter alumni.)

Far more than an educational influence, Exeter shaped Whipple’s character. “When Dad first attended Exeter, he felt inadequate and vulnerable,” says daughter Betsy McKenna. “He believed that the school helped shape the person he became — adaptive, curious and resilient.”

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Electronics, computers and outer space were among Whipple’s passions.

As a child growing up in Lake Forest, Illinois, he loved tinkering with radios and crystal sets, imagining life on other planets.

His childhood exploits became family legend.

Foreshadowing his Exeter escapade, he cut a hole in his family home’s slate roof to hang out an antenna, “crazy” student was Bill Gates, co-founder hoping to get better reception for his Jay Whipple Jr. (second of Microsoft. “Dad was a visionary,” says favorite radio show, “Captain Midnight.” row, far left) and the Jay III, who credits his father for inspiring In an attempt to listen to “Superman,” he 1950 all-club football his own tech industry career. “He had an strung a thin wire from his parents’ radio team pose for their intuitive sense that technology was going to to his bedroom. Once, while experimentyearbook photo. be important.” ing with his chemistry set, he inadverWhipple was a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan and also a tently caused a small explosion. lifetime member of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, where After Exeter, Whipple graduated from Yale University, he served on the board of trustees (fittingly, the Adler is earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management naming several new makerspaces after Whipple, recogat Northwestern University, and served in the U.S. Army. nizing his role as a “maker” long before the term became He later became a partner in his father’s Chicago-based popular). Whipple amassed an extensive collection of investment firm, where he researched investment opporantique radios, crystal sets and televisions and attended tunities, always with an eye toward what was happening radio and electronics conferences around the country. in the burgeoning technology industry.

He also collected futuristic paintings and illustrations Whipple once recruited Jay III, a freshman studying by artist Chesley Bonestell, whose space art has been computer science at Yale, to visit a Harvard student featured internationally in science fiction magazines, building a compiler for APL, a computer programming books and exhibits. language. “Dad wanted to invest in what this student Through it all, Whipple stayed connected to Exeter, was doing,” remembers Jay III. “But I thought he [the attending reunions and chatting with old friends and student] was a little crazy.” Whipple continued to follow teachers, as well as current students, curious to know the Harvard student’s progress but, ultimately, didn’t what they were learning. A favorite annual ritual was invest in his work. The watching a live stream of opening day assembly, often with tears in his eyes.

Perhaps Whipple’s greatest legacy, embodied by the old Pilot portable television that will forever be associated with his name, is his ability to bring ideas and people together.

“Exeter meant so very much to Dad,” McKenna says. “I think he’d say he wasn’t the smartest student or best athlete at Exeter. But he knew how to bring people together by making connections and generating energy around something of interest.” E

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FROM EVERY QUARTER E XO N I A N S M A K E C O N N E C T I O N S AT H O M E A N D A R O U N D T H E WO R L D Please note, all photos are identified left to right unless otherwise indicated.

NEW YORK CITY The Exeter Association of Greater New York welcomed over 375 members of the Exeter family to its annual reception at The University Club.

Henry Bonner ’82, Instructor in Dance emerita Linda Luca and John Lane ’52

Eiich Kuwana ’82; P’15, P’16, P’18, Instructor in Religion emerita Kathy Brownback P’08 and Hojung Kim ’14

Dean of Faculty Ellen Wolff P’17, Beth Vanderslice P’20, Charis Edwards ’17 and Cathy Schuyler P’17

Jamie Cassidy, Jolina Marie Dimen, Wendi Yan, Anzi DeBenedetto and Amanda Sherwood, all class of 2018

Michael Bamah ’18 and Amanda Sherwood ’18 with English Instructor Ralph Sneeden ’98, ’03 (Hon.); P’07, P’09, P’13

Ida Piyale ’15, Nina Meyers ’14, MacKenzie Lawrence ’14 and Ade Ajanaku ’14

For a full listing of upcoming events, please go to exeter.edu/alumni.

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PHOTOS BY HAROLD HECHLER

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Trustee Wole Coaxum ’88, Director of Institutional Advancement Morgan Dudley ’77, Julio Peterson ’86 and Andre Francois ’86

Adrienne Harrison ’97, Ashley Benner ’98 and Sue Huang Ehrenfeld ’97

Al Forsyth ’49 and Paul Dietche ’49; P’80

Stephie Morris ’02, Christina Murdock ’05, Philip Kalikman ’04, Shelly Bhowmik ’03 and Micheal Somersel ’03

David Lim ’88 with Exeter Association of Greater New York President Jeremy Bates ’86 and Jai Chandrasekhar ’83

Christine Shim ’93, Tucker Andersen ’59 and Jean (Shim) Yun ’87; P’22

Leigh Bonney ’76 and Tom Eisele ’75 Alan Jones ’72, Beth Bean, Deb D’Arcangelo ’82, Jonathan Bean ’81 and Ed Dippold PHOTOS BY HAROLD HECHLER

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COAST TO COAST Exonians connected at events across the country.

BOSTON Exeter’s trivia night with Nate Testa ’03, Lars Ojukwu ’03, Trevor Marrero ’12 and Burt Bryan ’61

NEW YORK Randy and Corky Frost ’52 joined Billie Tsien at the studio she shares with architect Tod Williams. Billie and Tod are the architects of Exeter’s David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance and they hosted an Exeter event.

Heather and Jonas Lee P ’21 with Robert Lynch P’21

PHILADELPHIA Alums from the Philly area enjoyed their annual skating party, including Gregory Zhu ’18, Steve Robinson ’73, Judd Levingston ’82, Margaret Spencer ’77, Lucas Fraser, Simon Fraser P’21 and Mike Mahoney ’88.

EXETER Laura Schwartz ’82; P’20, P’22, director of parent giving, with Dan Brown ’82, Andrew Fletcher ’82 and Margaret (Bravar) Demopoulos ’82; P’18, P’20 at the annual Seacoast skating party.

CHICAGO President of the Exeter Association of Chicago Joe Duffy ’07 (back row, left) hosted a meeting to plan events for Exonians in the area.

See more event photos at www.exeter.edu/receptions.

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MARYLAND Jon Baker ’82; P’18, P’22 and Amy Krulak ’82 at a reception hosted by Jon, his wife, Dorothy (Beattie) Baker ’83; P’18, P’22 and their son, Jack Baker ’18, for the Exeter Association of Maryland

SAN FRANCISCO The Exeter Association of Northern California continued a tradition of gathering for holiday cheer in December. Pictured are Terry Vogt ’64, Bill Ferry ’65 and Mary Vogt.

Maryland Association President John Faulkingham ’85 with Lori Lincoln ’86, president of Exeter’s Washington, D.C. Association

Young alumni met at the Hollow Cow for a happy hour.

HARKNESS IN CALIFORNIA Director of Equity and Inclusion Stephanie Bramlett and English Instructor Alex Myers ’96 led Harkness discussions on learning from LOS ANGELES Marybeth and Graham LippSmith ’95, Stephanie Bramlett and Jeremy Iversen

SAN FRANCISCO Claudia Cruz, Onna Lo, English Instructor Alex Myers, Jordan Brand and Tina Bou-Saba, all class of ’96

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our differences.

Kevin Staley P’04, P’08 and his daughter, Dana ’08

Andra Pligavko ’92, Julie Felner ’87, Farralon Udom ’01 and Wendra Liang ’01

Stephanie Bramlett and Alex Myers ’96 led an inspiring Harkness discussion for parents in San Francisco.

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CALIFORNIA, THE PENINSULA The Exeter Association of Northern California held a reception at the Peninsula Golf and Country Club that included remarks from Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08.

Principal Bill Rawson with Michael Notaro ’81.

Desmond Lee, Bo Wreden ’58, Carl Jukkola ’58 and Kenny Grove

Steve Menge ’60; P’95, P’97 and his wife, Delores P’95, P’97

Hayden Giles ’22 and his father, Robert Giles P’22

Yon Sung ’93, Jessica Wu ’96, Daphne Ross ’95 and Laura Lee ’95

Emeritus History Instructor Jack Herney ’46, ’69, ’71, ’74, ’92, ’95 (Hon.); Beau Trudel ’05; and Associate Director of Admissions emerita Susan Herney ’69, ’74, ’83 (Hon.)

Christopher Lee P’16, P’18, P’21 with son Nathan ’21 and wife, Clare P’16, P’18, P’21; and Jenny Yang ’19 and her father, Zhiping Yang P’19.

See more event photos at www.exeter.edu/receptions.

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SAN FRANCISCO The Exeter family had another opportunity to connect in Northern California at The Golden Gate Club in San Francisco.

Robert Pringle P’96, P’98, Barry Baron ’63 and Martha Brigham W’52; P’80, P’82, GP’19, GP’19, GP’20 with Ron O’Connell

Albee Stein ’79, Mike Shim ’91, Creighton Reed ’90 and Trustee Scotch Scocimara ’82; P’16, P’18

Oishi Banerjee ’14 and her mother, Maitree Banerjee P’14, with Emily Lemmerman ’15

Principal Bill Rawson giving an update on Exeter

Christian Ayscue ’13, Chris Keating ’13, Henry Cilek ’13, Charlie Gill ’12, Ozzie Ayscue’80; P’13, P’14, P’17, Max Eberhart ’12 and Luke Brugger ’12

Erin Metcalf ’09, Lexi Kalikman P’04, P’19 and Mike Shim ’91

Madge Tan ’14 with her father, Gary Tan P’14, P’19, and brother, Henry Tan ’19

Follow us at /phillipsexeter COMPASS PHOTOGRAPHERS

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LOS ANGELES This year, the Exeter Association of Greater Los Angeles held its annual reception at the Peterson Automotive Museum.

Katy Kinnon and Stefan Kohli, both class of 2014, with Geoffrey Cheng ’12

Dan Kwon ’89, Jeff DeMartino ’96, Christen Currie and Chris Sandeman ’96

Preble Ware ’64; P’87, P’90 and his wife, Paula P’87, P’90, Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08, Marleen Scheffy P’89, P’91 and her husband, Hugh Scheffy ’58; P’89, P’91

2018 classmates Nick Song and Maya Kim

Susan and Alan Robinson ’59 with Jenny Johnson P’21

Trustee Doug Smith ’83, Robin Jones ’88 and Valerie Kosheleff ’95

Exonians listened intently to remarks by Principal Bill Rawson.

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LONDON The historic Stationers’ Hall was the setting for the Exeter Association of the United Kingdom’s reception. Trustee President Tony Downer ’75; P’06, P’06, P’07 and his wife, Amy ’75; P’06, P’06, P’07, joined alumni and parents at the event.

Kris Johnson, music department chair, led a performance by music students at the reception. A trio from the orchestra also performed. The choir and orchestra were part of a group of Exeter students who were on tour in the U.K. over spring break.

Joe Puthenveetil and wife Christianne Amodio with Susan MacDougall, all class of 2003

Amy (Chan) Downer with Miriam Block ’77 and Chrissi (Winkelbauer) Kelly ’77

John Turner ’88 with Jose Buera ’93

PARENTS

HINGHAM Hosts Mel and Hugh McLaughlin P’21 welcomed local parents to a Harkness class at their home.

EXETER Amy McLaughlin P’22 and Mary Carr P’22 enjoyed a Coffee and Conversations event for parents at The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance.

IPSWICH Paul and Susan Fortin P’18, P’21, P’22 hosted a Harkness class for parents led by Woodbridge Odlin Professor in English Becky Moore P’03, P’05, P’08.

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Exeter parents hosted or attended gatherings recently, including some that offered the chance to experience learning at the Harkness table.

LOS ANGELES Sarah Ream Myhill ’75; P’09, P’11 (front row, third from right), instructor in theater and dance, and Aviva Halani (front row, right) instructor in mathematics, joined a parent gathering in California.

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Act 1

—continued from page 41

Simpson says. “To see how this piece, this idea that I had, has a place and can have an impact far beyond what I imagined, especially on MLK Day — I feel very proud and honored to be part of it.”

Simpson collaborated with Richards in his role as faculty director and with eight students over the course of two terms to produce the play. Simpson stressed to the budding thespians the importance of tapping into feelings that they had experienced that were similar to those of the characters in the play.

“This play only works when you connect to it on a personal level,” she says. “We can’t actually just discuss our way out of it. One of the things I’ve learned as a writer and an artist is that you have to commit to a work on an emotional level. I hope that the play offered the students an opportunity to step into that place, too.”

Student director Olivia Ross ’19 certainly stepped in. In the playbill she wrote: “Creating Hottentotted with this group of people these past two terms has been one of the most beautiful experiences of my Exeter career. … Embracing and coming to terms with the story of Sarah Baartman was a difficult journey for all of us — tears were shared but also laughter. …We saw ourselves reflected in her history, in her yearning and loneliness. …. Charly’s gorgeous words are a prime example of the power of performance art for healing, catharsis — liberation.”

Stage manager Rose Martin ’19 agrees. “Even though we were acting out a very serious play and talking about our personal lives and what it means to be a black woman, there was an underlying sentiment of happiness and just being alive in our play and in our rehearsals.”

By blending the history of Sarah Baartman with today, Simpson’s play makes the historical relevant.

Hottentotted makes people aware of history, aware of race-based assumptions, Simpson says. “It is important to know that piece of history so we can prevent it from happening again in whatever form that may take,” she says. “Knowing that empowers us to have a different response or a different way of fighting against those thoughts and beliefs.”

Sharing this work with the next generation of students was a main motivator for Simpson. “The fact that different generations of students feel as though the play connected to them, that was really, really impactful,” she says. “It was nice to go back and have these conversations and see that the school, and also the students, are in a different place and are having these conversations much earlier. And thank God they are.” E

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A LU M S A N D M L K DAY

JULIE CHUNG ’16 Workshop: “Asian American Activism: Where Do We Fit?” A third alumna joined Charly Simpson and Rachel Rhoades in returning to campus for Exeter’s MLK Day 2019: Julie Chung ’16 led a workshop titled “Asian American Activism: Where Do We Fit?” for dozens of students and faculty in a packed Latin Study.

A junior at Harvard studying social anthropology with a secondary degree in global health and health policy, Chung guided a discussion that touched on themes of identity, privilege and racism within the Asian-American community. Chung set a welcoming tone and prompted students to think about what their ethnicity means to them in terms of identity.

Twenty-five percent of Exeter’s student body is Asian or Asian-American.

“The Asian-American identity is so complex, but it is what you make out of it,” Chung said.

A prevailing topic throughout the discussion was racism, at both a structural and personal level, and what can be done to combat it. Chung acknowledged how uncomfortable it can be to confront racism, especially when it comes from a relative or loved one.

Present for the session was Khine Win ’20, who shared her feelings about the challenge of speaking up against racist sentiments.

“I don’t always feel like I’m in the position to correct someone when I haven’t had the same life experiences as they have,” Win said.

Chung ended the session by asking students to pledge a “commitment to change.” Each student wrote a personal statement with various ways they vowed to get involved at a personal, community and political level to promote a positive change in race relations.

— Adam Loyd

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Beyond the Table —continued from page 29

I think it’s really important to get all of the different perspectives and opinions when talking about a subject.

“But in acting, you kind of have to analyze a piece for yourself. You can’t let other opinions influence what you think about a piece, you can’t let other influences tell you how to play a role. Obviously, a director is there to guide you along the way, but ultimately the way you decide to create a character for yourself and create a persona is all up to you.”

Denny worked with Theater and Dance Department Chair Rob Richards to choose the roles. She wanted variety — different eras, different ages, fictional and actual — as long as the voice was that of an inspirational female character. She called her project “Femme Play-Tale: Exploring Strong Female Leads in the Theater.”

A day student from Exeter, Denny juggled her regular course load, playing the Wicked Witch of the West in the Mainstage production of The Wizard of Oz and singing in Concert Choir, all while trying to organize and memorize the monologues. She then mapped out the order of a show that wound up being 38 minutes long.

Between each act, she gives the small audience a brief description of the character, the challenges the role presented and why she chose it. She closes the performance with a song from the Broadway hit Rent.

“The only thing to do is jump over the mooooon,” she sings.

Natalie Love’s independent study project also revolved around female characters. She chose six young women on campus — friends, dormmates, one of her younger sisters — to serve as the subjects of a series of portraits Love re-created using serigraphy, or silk-screening.

Unlike Denny’s personas, however, Love’s subjects did not have overt statements to make. Her inspiration came from studying essayist Leslie Jamison in a creative nonfiction class during fall term. Jamison, in her introduction to the collection Best American Essays 2017, laments that the only art worth making it seems in this charged era is “political with a capital P” — “a pointed commentary on mass shootings, a vocal critique of our current administration, a harsh op-ed about race relations.”

Love, a senior from Arlington, Virginia, has focused on having “deeper meaning” with her art projects in the past, but this time she wanted to zero in on the individual.

“I just wanted to look at people up close, just as people,” she says, “not with any sort of agenda behind it or extra meaning, but that people in themselves, just being people, have meaning.”

Many seniors choose to focus on a calling for their independent study, a project that serves as a precursor to a college concentration. Love chose a hobby. She is an aspiring physicist and mathematician; she’ll study both at Brown. The printmaking project offered her a chance to step outside exploring electricity and magnetic fields in her Advanced Physics class and the geometry of polyhedra in her Math 690 course.

But Love insists her interests in science, math and art all go together.

“I don’t really believe in this whole right brain-left brain thing. Type A, Type B, whatever,” she says. “Because the thing is, there is a science in doing this kind of art.”

She proceeds to explain how forcing ink through the tiny holes of a screen onto a canvas requires a scientific approach — and a weather report.

“Like when you do the photo-emulsion, when you coat a screen, how long you let it rest will determine how long you have to cook it for, to harden the emulsion on to the screen. If I coated some screens a week ago, and today I’m going in to shoot the screens, you have to think about, is it a sunny day?

Because if it’s sunny, it can change the chemistry of the emulsion.”

And as math and science seep into her art, art informs her science and math.

“For anything, creative thinking, creative problem-solving is really important,” she says.

“And I think that doing the arts can help foster that creative-thinking spirit.”

Love was drawn to the freedom of essentially being her own teacher — for one class, at least. Art Instructor Mary Claire Nemeth served as her adviser on the project, but as is typical in the independent study format, the oversight was mostly hands-off.

“I wanted that sort of trial and error, figuring it out,” she says. “I wanted to sit there and think, ‘What are the variables here, what can I adjust, and what effect will that have to solve the problems I’m faced with?’

“When you get out into the real world, you really are just accountable to yourself and your deadlines. And I set the deadlines for this project. … It’s nice to have that level of trust with a faculty member, where she’s like ‘You do you.’” E

“I DON’T REALLY BELIEVE IN THIS WHOLE RIGHT BRAINLEFT BRAIN THING. THERE IS A SCIENCE IN DOING THIS KIND OF ART.”

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F I N I S

O R I G I N E

P E N D E T

Brown-blood

By Bella Alvarez ’19 The summer water ran red, postapocalyptic picket signs screamed go home.

As if with one crooked finger Mexico could beckon her love-children back, wrap barbed-wire snares around thin ankles and lift bodies past clouds.

We sweat dollars here, shedding pennies when the AC breaks; yellow teeth stained by Backwoods and Bud Light, prophetic spit wads landing at bare feet.

We familiarize family by scent: Papi comes home reeking of fertilizer and antifungal, Mami smells like lemons and ammonia. In the evenings sisters braid sunshine into black hair, hands thick and steady, DAVID NELSON

beating rhythms into scalps. In the evenings brothers gather to forget, beady-eyed and stumbling, empty 40s swinging from fingertips. On Sundays we peel away a layer of skin, tuck bruises behind cowlicks, baptized by the promise of new dawns and distant deserts.

Someday Mexico will come calling for us and we’ll return, fold into her rheumy eyes and let the cicadas lull us to sleep.

The hollow ache of her absence burns deep tonight, tamarindo juice dripping down chins like blood, and we whisper a silent prayer. Go home.

E

Editor’s note: The Bulletin is spotlighting student writing throughout the 2018-19 school year. This poem and three other pieces of writing by Bella won gold medals in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, recognizing the most outstanding work in the nation.

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IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, JOHN AND ELIZABETH PHILLIPS STARTED A REVOLUTION OF THEIR OWN. THEY BELIEVED IN THE FUTURE OF OUR NEW COUNTRY, AND IN THE POTENTIAL OF THOSE WHO WOULD SOMEDAY LEAD IT. THEIR BEQUEST HELPED A FLEDGLING ACADEMY PROSPER.

WHAT WILL BE THE LEGACY OF YOUR ESTATE PLAN?

Many Exonians choose to put Exeter in their wills.

Our Planned Giving Office will help you and your advisers as you consider a lasting gift to PEA. Please contact Phil Perham at 603-777-3594 or pperham@exeter.edu

PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY 20 Main Street Exeter, NH 03833-2460

Parents of Alumni: If this magazine is addressed to an Exonian who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please email us (records@exeter.edu) with their new address. Thank you.

HONORING EXTRAORDINARY SERVICE Joh

llips Award is

bestowed upon an alumnus or alumna for outstanding contribution to the welfare of community, country and humanity.

Founders Day Award