Around the Table
PEA’s Muslim Prayer Room Formally Dedicated
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cially celebrate the renovated Muslim prayer room, located on the ground floor of Phillips Church. Installed last fall, the central addition to the room is the mihrab, a decorative wall niche that mirrors a doorway and is built into the mosque’s eastward-facing wall, or qibla, to indicate the direction of Mecca. PEA’s mihrab is a reproduction of an Iranian mihrab on display in an Israeli museum, where Albert Hinckley Jr. ’51 first saw it. Compelled to provide a more authentic space in Phillips Church for Muslim students after he toured the prayer room during his 60th reunion, Hinckley and classmate David Rush worked together to obtain a scaled, photographic version of the original mihrab. The classmates also collaborated with the Academy and the parents of a student to install new carpeting, lighting and bookcases. “I hope that the prayer room will be well received by the broad Exeter community,” Hinckley says, “and will also serve as a bridge for the Muslim students to the members of the other religions, and vice versa. Further, the mihrab provides a superb example of Islamic art to a degree that may be enlightening to the Muslim students, as well as the whole community.” The renovations are dedicated in memory of Hinckley’s late brother, George Fox Steedman Hinckley ’49; P’78, P’91, and Rush’s father, Samuel Hersh Rush P’51.
PEA Earns National Award for Sustainability Efforts U.S. Department of Education Names it a Green Ribbon School
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The Exeter Bulletin
S UMMER 2013
NANCY SHIPLEY
The Academy is one of 64 schools nationwide to receive recognition by the U.S. Department of Education for its efforts to lessen environmental impact, which include installation of geothermal wells, LEED-certified construction practices, elimination of plastic water bottles, composting of food waste and environmental education. Chief of Planning and Facilities Roger Wakeman and Environmental Stewardship Manager Jill Robinson presented the 2013 Green Ribbon Schools award to Principal Hassan in June. The Academy is one of only 10 independent schools in the country to be honored with this distinction this year. To learn more about PEA’s sustainability practices, visit www.exeter.edu/sustainability.
ADELA LOCSIN ’13
(Above, left-right) Muslim Student Association co-heads Vahid FazelRezai ’14 and Amina Kunnummal ’14, Albert Hinckley Jr. ’51, MSA co-head Milton Syed ’14 and David Rush ’51.
n June 3, alumni, students and faculty joined together to offi-