Longtime English teacher and Global Initiatives founder takes on new challenge.

Music has been an integral part of Eimer Page’s life since she was a child in Northern Ireland, when she traveled the country playing the viola in youth music ensembles. At the time, the country’s vibrant social music program was the rare space where young people of different religious backgrounds were allowed to interact, and Page got to know her future husband and many of her close friends by playing together. “It absolutely changed the course of my life,” she says of the experience.

Page had another life-changing moment in 2004, when she interviewed for a job teaching English at Exeter and saw the Harkness method in action for the first time. Since earning her doctorate in post-colonial literature from Trinity College Dublin, she had been teaching for four years at a school in England, but was immediately struck by the difference.

“The freedom that both students and adults had to follow the lines of inquiry wherever they chose to take them was just shocking to me,” Page says. “It fit my style as a teacher, but it wasn’t something I had ever seen elsewhere.”

Now a veteran instructor in the English Department, Page also served as Exeter’s first director of Global Initiatives, overseeing the growth of the program over the past decade to its current slate of 31 program destinations in 11 countries around the world. In 2022, Page was named dean of faculty. We caught up with her for a conversation during her first term in her new role.

What do you see as the most important parts of your role as dean of faculty?

I think the most important part of my role is just being there for the faculty. Being aware of how they are being impacted by whatever’s going on, whether it’s a global pandemic, changes to our policies and procedures, or the things that might happen in the life of a faculty member when they’re here with us over decades. Being the person who is able to help someone…if they need a leave or FMLA, and also being there to support and champion them at times when they’ve done something that we should be letting the whole community know about and giving them the honors that they are due.

What are some of your goals and/or focuses, short and long term?

The thing that I’m really trying to work on this year is a sense of belonging and community, after the difficulties and challenges of separation, isolation, and the need to be distant. Figuring out how we come back to be together and trust one another and work together is really important to me this year.

How does the faculty mentorship program help cultivate that sense of belonging?

Each new teaching faculty member is assigned a mentor, and the official relationship is a two-year relationship. Having that mentor assigned as you come means you’ve got a point person you can go to, and they also are involved and informed in the welcome. The first year is very much a supportive relationship where the mentor is visiting the mentees classes very frequently. They’re meeting weekly, talking about the rhythms of the school year, and everything to do with the departmental work. It’s a lot about explaining what we’re doing here, providing resources, and then also possibly being an advocate as needed, if a new colleague is having difficulty figuring out where to go with an issue either in or outside the classroom.

In the second year [the mentors] step back slightly. There’s not quite the same level of expectation for meetings or visits, but it’s still a very strong resource and there are still class visits built into the mentorship program. I think for many of us that relationship lasts long beyond the official two-year program.

Could you talk about the importance of equity and inclusion when it comes to the faculty community?

We have to figure out ways to allow people to really and truly feel that they are seen and valued here, and that we are supporting their specific needs. We also need to make sure that we are truly representing our student body and our faculty. When you have a small number of, say, faculty members of color or faculty members of a particular sexual orientation or whatever, an additional burden falls on those faculty, because students will understandably seek them out and want to talk to them. We need to make sure that the workload is evenly distributed, that it is not falling disproportionately on the shoulders of some of our colleagues and not others.

I’d say this is among the most fundamental work of the dean of faculty. It’s one of the reasons why [Director of Equity and Inclusion] Stephanie Bramlett and I do our hiring interviews together, because that gives a message to our colleagues as they come into this community that this is something that we truly value. We have our school commitments to being an anti-racist institution, and we want to make sure that that’s really at the heart of what we’re doing when we’re hiring and retaining faculty.

You were a longtime dorm head in Dunbar Hall, but you’re not living in the dorm and you’re not teaching any classes right now. How have you maintained connections with students?

I’ve been affiliated with Dunbar since year two here, so I have a lot of knowledge of that dorm’s history. My children [Oscair ’22 and Cormac] grew up in the dorms. We moved out after year 10, so my younger son didn’t live in the dorm all that long, but that’s still their early childhood. That’s what they remember. The thing that for me truly distinguishes working in a boarding school is the residential piece — actually living among the students.

Our interview is happening as I’m just coming off advising time, where I was with my advisees. I think both the fact that I meet them over in the English Department and the fact that they are young people with their own concerns and things going on — it really does help to ground me to still have those interactions with advisees in the dorm community. I miss and will continue to miss the teaching. I love teaching and look forward to a time when I perhaps might be able to roll that back in.

Exeter Athletics celebrated the first wave of college commitments for the class of 2023 this week, honoring 28 seniors who have received a National Letter of Intent, Likely Letter, or early admittance to their play their respective sports at the collegiate level. The Athletics Department will hold another ceremony as more student’s make official decisions.

“This was a great night to celebrate and honor what has taken years of dedicated training and hard work by our students to reach their ultimate goal of playing their sport at the NCAA level,” Director of Athletics Jason Baseden said. “It was great to see students supporting their classmates with their family, friends and coaches in the crowd. We look forward to celebrating the rest of the senior class later this year.”

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The 28 students celebrated this past week will go on to compete at programs in some of the top conferences in the nation, including the Pac-12, Ivy League, ACC and NESCAC. The full list of students is listed below. Click here to watch the ceremony on-demand.

Rollie	Castineyra	Boys Basketball	University of Massachusetts
Michael	Loughnane	Boys Basketball	Davidson College
Weiyi	Huang	Boys Crew	Cornell University
Nico	Berger	Boys Lacrosse	Amherst College
Drew	McClutchy	Boys Lacrosse	Bates College
Ryan	Nagle	Boys Lacrosse	Williams College
Casey	Realini	Boys Lacrosse	Fairfield University
Atticus	Ross	Boys Soccer	Williams College
Henry	Liu	Boys Swimming	Amherst College
Grace	Puchalski	Field Hockey	Amherst College
Uber	Ajongo	Football	Wake Forest University
Dylan	Almeyda	Football	Harvard University
Xaviah	Bascon	Football	Harvard University
Joshua	Johnson	Football	Dartmouth College
Aaron	Morris	Football	Stanford University
Delaney	Miller	Girls Crew	Skidmore College
Kate	Nixon	Girls Crew	University of California at Berkeley
Izzie	Riccardi	Girls Crew	Cornell University
Lassiter	Foregger	Girls Cross Country	Babson College
Shauna	Vadeboncoer	Girls Hockey	Brown University
Samantha	Smith	Girls Lacrosse	Wesleyan University
Eden	Welch	Girls Lacrosse	University of Pennsylvania
Ryan	Pate	Girls Soccer	U.S. Air Force Academy
Amy	Benson	Girls Swimming	Trinity University
Coco	Barton	Girls Volleyball	Colorado College
Morgan	Smith	Golf	Georgetown University
Nate	Puchalski	Wrestling	Johns Hopkins University

 

 

A blend of artists and analysts will grace Exeter’s Assembly Hall stage during winter term as guest speakers.

Each term, the academy hosts a variety of voices and perspectives to share at all-school assembly. Past speakers have included Nobel laureates, Pulitzer winners and civil rights pioneers. Although this winter’s roster may not feature any one speaker as star-spangled as that, the list promises to engage, entertain and push students past their comfort zones. All Exeter assemblies can be viewed live or on-demand here.

Among this term’s assembly speakers are:

• Adolphus G. Belk, Jr., a political analyst and professor of political science and African American studies at Winthrop University and a leading researcher of white nationalism in American government and politics. Jan. 13.
• Safia Elhillo, a Sudanese-American poet known for her written and spoken poetry. She is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Jan. 20.
• Jane Holl Lute, an American diplomat and national security expert and a former deputy secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 through 2013. Jan. 27.
• The Whiffenpoofs, Yale University’s famed all-male a cappella group, the world’s oldest. Jan. 31.

As the school year calendar turned from fall to winter term, dozens of students spent their Thanksgiving breaks scattered across the country for immersive experiences as part of Exeter’s Global Initiatives program. From Philadelphia to Maui, Phoenix and New Orleans, each location provided the perfect backdrop to explore a specific area of study and for hands-on-learning opportunities.

Students in Arizona spent time at a local refugee shelter as part of this community service-centric program. Supplementing the service work, students attended seminars about topics especially important in the region — immigration and sustainability. Highlights from the trip included a stop at the Heard Museum, “the world’s preeminent museum for the presentation, interpretation and advancement of American Indian art”; and a hike through the rugged dessert terrain. “The nature was different from anything else I have ever seen. We saw lots of different kinds of cacti, and other native and exotic plants that can only be found in Arizona,” said Laurie Chung ‘24.

In Philadelphia, the city with the highest incarceration rate of any large jurisdiction in the country, Exonians explored the structure and pitfalls of the American prison system. Throughout the week students learned about demographical disparities of the incarcerated and met with nonprofit organizations working to establish criminal justice and prison reform in Pennsylvania.

“It was inspiring to watch our students grapple with the idea of Justice in American,” said chaperone and Instructor in Physical Education Kerry McBrearty. “They were constantly confronted and in turmoil over two conflicting theories. One, the justice system is working as it is intended to work and needs advocates to in fact break the system and change it. Two, the justice system is broken and needs to be reformed.”

Over 2,000 miles from the contiguous United States, eight students spent the week exploring the geography and biodiversity of the Hawaiian island of Maui. The group spent time hiking, snorkeling, visiting cultural sites and studying endangered plant and bird species.

“We all got to learn by talking with native Hawaiians who are fiercely proud of their heritage and wonderfully generous in sharing it with young people. The kindness and hospitality of Hawaiians of all races have made a deep and abiding impression on us,” said chaperone and Instructor in Science Townley Chisolm.

Synonymous with the American South and New Orleans, the roots of jazz and blues music can be traced back through past of slavery and segregation. Students traveled to the “Big Easy” to learn more about these alluring musical genres and their sordid pasts. Accompanied by Instructor in Music Marcus Rabb and Instructor in Modern Languages Diego Ardura, the students took in live performances and saw iconic sites like the National Civil Rights Museum.

Award-winning poet and translator A.E. Stallings visited Exeter’s campus last week as the latest in a long line of distinguished poets to visit Exeter through the Lamont Poetry Program.

Known for her skilled use of rhyme, meter and traditional verse forms, Stallings employs frequent allusions to Greek and Roman mythology in her depictions of modern-day life.  She has published four poetry collections, including Like (2018), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and verse translations of works by the Roman poet Lucretius and Greek poet Hesiod, among others. The recipient of a 2011 MacArthur “genius grant,” Stallings has also held fellowships from United States Artists and the Guggenheim Foundation. A Georgia native, Stallings has lived in Athens, Greece since 1999.

In addition to a reading in Assembly Hall, Stallings worked with students and faculty in the Classics Departments during her visit. She made time to be interviewed by Kaylee Chen, a senior working toward a Classical Diploma and a fellow poet.

Could you talk a little bit about where your inspiration for writing and classics came from and what drew you to those?

I entered college knowing that I wanted to be a writer, and I was originally an English and a music major. I had not taken Latin in high school, but…I just felt like I should take Latin 101 and learn a little bit about things. I had this amazing teacher, Dr. Harris, who was very eccentric and very fun. I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll take another course, then I’ll take another course.’ Finally, I was taking a lot of Latin courses and the head of the classics department said, ‘Why are you majoring in English? You’re taking all these courses, come to the dark side.’ So I ended up switching my major and did not regret it, because I felt like I was getting a lot of the things that I wanted. In the literature class, we would analyze how sounds contributed to meaning and things like that. I felt it was actually very good training for being a working poet.

How does translation impact your writing process, and vice versa?

For as long as I’ve been writing poems, I’ve been doing translation…. I think you learn more about a poem from translating it than almost any other way of reading, because you can’t fudge things. If something is ambiguous, you’re going to have to come down on one side or the other, unless you can pull over that exact ambiguity into English. You have to think about what the cultural references are…. You think about vocabulary, you think about diction, you think about register and you think about syntax. It’s a way to keep those muscles in good working order. It’s [also] a way to try on different identities, learn different things, and write about things that you wouldn’t write about yourself. That can open the door to possibilities. You suddenly realize, ‘Oh, maybe I could write this different kind of poem.’

You mentioned before that meter and structure are a big part of your poems. Recent creative writing movements have gravitated towards a more structureless kind of form, in which people take a lot more liberties with capitalization or punctuation or rhyme or those kinds of things. Do you have any thoughts on what kind of direction poetry in general is taking in this regard?

I think free verse will always be with us, and I think formal choices will always be with us. I think poets will kind of flow back and forth over that. The struggle is always to sound modern and contemporary…. I think it’s more to do with subject matter and diction, syntax. You can write a very modern-sounding sonnet and you could write very fusty, antiquated-sounding free verse. The struggle is always to sound fresh, and that’s everybody’s struggle, from Keats to Shakespeare. If you’re lucky, you write something that continues to sound fresh 2,000 years after you’ve written it. That’s seen in very few cases; Catullus is one of them.

There’s been a question recently as to whether classics should be studied in higher education. Because of the nature of the field, some argue that it’s inherently exclusionary — race-wise, gender-wise and class-wise. Do you have any thoughts on [this]?

I think it’s kind of nonsense. I’m not saying that classics hasn’t been used for classist and gatekeeping purposes. Yes, it has. That’s one of the reasons you have so many fantastic 19^th-century women novelists, because the novel did not have the prestige of poetry. To be a poet, you had to know Greek. Keats is criticized because he doesn’t really have a gentleman’s classical education. Women who were not given the classical education…channeled this talent into a less prestigious genre, which they then raised to a more prestigious genre.

But what I love about classics is that wherever you study it, it’s the same. I find it very democratic and anti-elitist in a sense. If I study Latin at a public high school in Georgia and I am reading Cicero, I am reading Cicero as someone at Eton is reading Cicero…. Obviously if your school does not offer Latin and so forth, then that becomes a barrier, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the nature of classics in and of itself. There certainly is quite a lot of racism and classism and sexism in classics, but I think it’s also open to people to grapple with that.

You said one thing you like about Catullus is that he’s able to appear modern even though, clearly, he’s long gone. With your own work, is that the feeling that you wish to impart to your readers?

You hope that you are speaking to someone directly, that you are speaking to your ideal reader, someone who would totally get you and get your work. But that person might be dead, or might be not yet born. The cool thing about literature is that you’re having this conversation with all of the most interesting like-minded friends that you could ever have, but it’s not restricted in time or space. I feel like you’re speaking backwards and you’re speaking forward. You hope, but again, it’s out of your hands.

The undefeated and top-seeded girls volleyball team passed their quarterfinal test with a 3-2 victory over eighth seeded Sacred Heart. With the win, Big Red will move on to the semifinal round and play host to fifth seeded Loomis Chaffee.

Big Red had to manufacture a comeback after dropping the opening set to Sacred Heart, 23-25. Exeter made quick work to even the match at 1-1 with a 25-15 victory in the second set, but Sacred Heart jumped back in front following a thrilling 24-26 third set win. Big Red dug deep and stayed alive with a 25-22 victory in the fourth to force a winner-take-all fifth set where they earned a 15-12 win to stay a perfect 15-0 on the year and advance to the semifinal round. Loomis advanced to the semifinal round following a 3-0 upset over fourth seeded Andover.

Exeter will host Loomis on Saturday at 3:00pm in Love Gym. The match will be streamed live at www.exeter.edu/exeterlive.  

Click here to view the full Class A Girls Volleyball bracket.

Boys soccer saw their successful season come to a close after dropping a 3-1 decision on the road at Milton on Wednesday afternoon. Milton jumped ahead 1-0 with a goal midway through the first half before Atticus Ross tied the match when he knocked in a bouncing ball through the keepers legs to score Exeter’s lone goal of the afternoon. The Mustangs would reclaim a one goal edge just 30 seconds before halftime before adding a third late in the second half. Big Red wraps their season with an 8-4-5 record.

 

Championship hardware and the color red swarming Andover; that is how the most anticipated sports weekend on the fall calendar unfolded Saturday.

Exeter cross country continued its run of dominance at the New England Interscholastic Championships, while another chapter in the historic rivalry between Exeter and Andover concluded with a trio of victories for Big Red.

The Exeter boys varsity cross country teams continued its unprecedented run by capturing a third consecutive Division I title — and sixth in the last 10 years — at Interschols at St. Paul’s. Exeter had the first four runners cross the line in a dominating performance. Byron Grevious ‘24 led the way with his second straight individual title with a course-record time of 15 minutes, 35 seconds. Max Lacombe ‘24 (16:30), Oliver Brandes ‘23 (16:33), and Mateo Bango ‘23 (16:36) followed for Big Red.

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The boys JV cross country team extended its own dominant streak and captured its seventh straight JV championship. Owen Dudley ’23 (17:55) and Michael Zhu ’24 (17:50) placed second and third, respectively, while Big Red had six others finish inside the top 10.

The girls varsity cross country team also enjoyed a great day of success and placed second overall. Tenley Nelson ’24 claimed third place overall with a time of 19:36. Daria Ivanova ‘24 (20:02) placed sixth, while Annika Finelli ’24 (21:21) also earned All-New England status with a 16^th place finish.

The girls JV program put together a top performance and earned its second straight JV championship. Hawley Dick ‘25 earned individual champion honors with a time of 22:14 while Emerson Seymour ‘26 (22:25), Tiffany Sun ’26 (22:28) and Leta Griffith ’24 (22:31) joined her in the top five.

In other Interschol action, boys varsity water polo earned a 14-11 victory over Williston in the opening round before falling to Greenwich Country Day, 13-9. Exeter will compete in the third-place match on Sunday morning.

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Back in Andover, Big Red girls volleyball capped a perfect 14-0 regular season with a 3-1 (25-9, 25-14, 23-25, 25-22) victory over the Blue. Exeter jumped out to a quick 2-0 match lead before Andover earned a hard-fought third set. Exeter staved off a late Andover push in the fourth to cap the win with a 25-22 fourth-set victory. Sofia Morais ’23 and Coco Barton ’23 were solid for Big Red, who will await their postseason opponent for a Wednesday matchup.

On the pitch, it was the Blue who capitalized on their scoring chances by potting one in the first half and three in the second to take a 4-0 girls varsity soccer win. Bridgette Martin ’23 made several saves in goal for Big Red; Esme Shields ’24 was strong in the middle of the field.

Andover struck first in field hockey with a goal in the opening five minutes. Exeter would even the score at 1-1 when Eloise Goedkoop ’23 found the back of the net. Andover would take a 2-1 edge into halftime after capitalizing on a corner before adding a pair in the second half to earn a 4-1 win.

Big Red boys soccer scored the lone goal of the game in the first half when Thaniel Illuzzi ’23 headed in a beautiful cross from Jaylen Bennett ’25 to earn a 1-0 victory. Trevor Piltch ’23 was outstanding in goal, making several key stops including a diving stop with just three minutes to play.

Football capped E/A weekend in emphatic fashion, earning its second straight victory over the Blue by a score of 42-7 in the 138th meeting between the foes.

Andover held a 7-6 lead and was driving in the final minute of the first half before Tommy Dunn ’23 picked off a pass and ran it back to the 20 yard line. Big Red would take advantage of the field position and reclaim a lead they would never give back when Tristan Aboud ’23 scored on a quarterback keeper to give Exeter a 14-6 lead at the break.

The second half was all Exeter, as it scored 28 unanswered points. Running back Xaviah Bascon ’23 scored four touchdowns for Big Red, while Aboud ran for one and threw another to Dylan Almeyda ’23.

The victory capped a 7-1 season for Big Red, who closed the deficit in the all-time series against Andover to 55-73-10.

Exeter artists and modern language learners alike were the beneficiaries of artists in residences in October when Japanese artists Takuya and Minami Yoshida visited campus.

The duo spent time with art students in visits to painting, drawing and ceramics classes as well as students studying Japanese language and culture.

Their appearance was sponsored by the Michael Clark Rockefeller Class of 1956 Visiting Artist Fund. The fund provides opportunities for Exeter art students to interact with significant, contemporary artists and create unique works of art in a master-class environment.

Takuya Yoshida, is a painter who uses expressionistic qualities and bright, inventive colors that are derived from the raw beauty of the natural world. He started studying art in New Hampshire at Plymouth State University and received a bachelor’s in fine arts, and then went on to graduate school at New York Studio School and received a master’s in painting.

Minami Yoshida is a sculptor. Her works celebrate the essence of models whom she knows and sculpts. Her figurative forms are abstracted by simplifying the details and textures. These abstractions tend to exude more humanistic and emotional qualities. She is heavily influenced by the Superflat Art Movement and artists such as Yoshimoto Nara and the ancient ceramics has been showing her artwork all around Japan since then. She received her undergraduate degree at Tokyo Zokei University in 2016.

Any process of transformation — from social change movements to new approaches in medicine — begins with agitation, neuroscience researcher Khalid Shah told students in the Assembly Hall on Friday. “If you want to bring a change, you need to be agitated in your mind, which will lead to the innovation,” Shah said. “That innovation will ultimately be the change.”

As the vice chair of research for the department of neurosurgery and director of The Center for Stem Cell and Translational Immunotherapy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Shah leads a team that is pioneering targeted, cell-based therapies for brain cancers. He is also a professor at Harvard Medical School.

Townley Chisholm, instructor in the Science Department, introduced Shah in assembly and welcomed him for a visit to his BIO510: Advanced Biology class earlier on Friday morning. “For over 10 years, [Dr. Shah] has invited groups of students from PEA to visit his lab in Boston and to talk with his researchers…who come from all over the world for the chance to work in his lab on paradigm-shifting ways to use the newest technologies to cure otherwise untreatable cancer.”

About seven or eight years ago, Shah explained in his assembly talk, he and his team began questioning the way doctors were treating glioblastoma, a lethal form of brain cancer. For the past 20 years, the treatment options have remained the same: Patients get surgery to remove the tumor, followed by chemotherapy, radiation or both.

“Although we’ve had a number of clinical trials with different drugs…nothing really has changed,” Shah said. He added that the blood-brain barrier, an additional layer of protective coating on the blood vessels in the brain, also make it more difficult for drugs used to treat cancer to get inside the brain to work effectively.

To challenge the status quo, Shah and his team looked to medical innovations from the past, notably the insights that led to the first safe vaccines to treat previously deadly diseases like smallpox in the 18^th century. “It started with something really basic: that we use disease to kill disease,” Shah said.

By design, cancer cells leave the original tumor en masse and metastasize to other parts of the body. But they also tend to migrate back to the original tumor — a feature that is key to Shah’s team’s experimental therapy. Using the powerful gene-editing technology known as CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), they engineered repurposed cancer cells that seek out and attack cells in the original tumor.

“You make them therapy resistant and then you actually also put a kill switch in it, and it kills the original cell,” Shah said. He used images of vivid red and green cells resembling abstract paintings to illustrate the process on the Assembly Hall stage.

The treatment, known as therapeutic tumor cells (ThTCs) has so far been tested on mice, with positive results. “We see a huge survival benefit in animals, and hopefully in humans in coming years,” Shah said. He and his team have more recently been working on engineering the tumor cells to also include cells that spur an immune response, increasing their disease-fighting potential.  

“Once the tumor is gone, you’re vaccinated from further tumors to come — that’s the big picture,” Shah said near the end of his talk, adding that the gut microbiome also plays an important role in the effectiveness of immunotherapy in cancer treatment.

In addition to sharing the thought processes behind his pathbreaking work, Shah offered words of advice — and encouragement — to future scientists in the Assembly Hall audience. He emphasized the value of collaboration, both inside the lab and with scientists of different disciplines: “You need one or two good innovative ideas to make the difference, but…if you don’t have a structure, anything you bring in that is unique [is] not going to go that far.”

“In all of us, there is an innovator lying somewhere,” Shah concluded. “You just have to figure out which domain excites you the most.”