Matt Callahan '09 to lead Big Red boys lacrosse

The Exeter Athletics Department has announced Matt Callahan ’09 as the new head coach of the boys lacrosse program. Callahan, a former standout player for Big Red lacrosse, succeeds legendary coach Bill Glennon, who will stay on with the program as an assistant coach.

“I am humbled, honored, and excited to be named the head coach of Exeter boys lacrosse,” said Callahan. “I’ve dreamt of this position since I graduated from the Academy in 2009.”

“Matt has made an immediate impact since returning to the Academy this past fall,” Director of Athletics Jason Baseden said. “His experience as a player, coach, and mentor will send ripples throughout the team, the athletics department and the entire PEA community. We could not be more excited to have him lead our boys lacrosse program.”

Callahan steps into the head coaching role that has been occupied by just two others since 1978. Glennon has served as head coach of the program since 2014 after spending 23 years as an assistant coach under Eric Bergofsky, who was at the helm of the program for 36 years.

“Matt is an excellent coach as well as a terrific leader and mentor of young men,” said Glennon, who recognized the opportunity to transition roles during the season as optimal for the program. “I am so happy to be involved in the decision to elevate Coach Cal and continue to mentor him and serve as his assistant coach as we start the Coach Cal era. I was able to recruit Matt as a student-athlete, follow his outstanding college career, and watch him succeed as a head coach and assistant coach. It is so special to have one of our own come back home to lead a strong program with a tradition of excellence.”

During his playing career in Exeter, Callahan was a two-time all-league selection before earning All-America honors while serving as team captain during his senior season. He continued to stand out at the collegiate level at Tufts University, where as he was a two-time first team All-America, all-region and all-conference honoree. He served as team captain for the Jumbos in his senior season and was the recipient of the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association William C. Stiles Memorial Award as the nation’s top defender in 2013. Upon the completion of his college career, Callahan was selected 14^th overall by the Denver Outlaws in the Major League Lacrosse draft.

Callahan quickly got started on his coaching career, joining the Tufts coaching staff and helping lead the Jumbos to back-to-back national championship in 2014 and 2015 and third title-game appearance in 2016. Callahan moved on Brown University, where he was an assistant coach and played a vital role in coordinating the Bears’ defense and recruiting efforts. He helped Brown reach the Ivy League finals and semifinals in his two years on the staff before being named the head coach at Catholic Memorial School in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. In addition to his coaching duties, Callahan also served an instructor in history and the associate director of admissions at CM.

Now returning to Exeter, Callahan also serves as an assistant director in the Admissions Office.

“My experience as a student at Exeter was unforgettable and life-changing, and I am honored to be back on campus. I am grateful for this opportunity to lead the boys lacrosse program, the mentorship from Coach Glennon, and the chance to lead the next generation of Exonian lacrosse players.”

Best-selling author talks inspiration, discipline and doubt

Looking out from under a flat-brimmed black baseball cap, author Tommy Orange watches as students file into the Elting Room, filling the seats lining the perimeter of the space. A day ahead of his assembly address, Orange sits with two sections of lower English students who are in the process of reading his critically acclaimed work, “There, There.”

Orange’s relatable nature quickly wins over the room, and the conversation is off and running. Dog-eared books in hand, the students pepper Orange with questions about the inspiration behind the characters in the book. Orange explains the community in the book is a “composite influence” from his own upbringing as an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma in Oakland, California.

“It’s not near a work of nonfiction in any way because I made up everyone in the book,” he says. “I’ve worked in a lot of marginalized communities that don’t often get their stories told, I really came to value people’s personal details in their own stories in a way that I never would have felt comfortable taking somebody’s story and using it for a novel.”

Orange shares with the group that his path to becoming an author was an unlikely one, considering he had little interest in literature as a teenager.

“I was not a writer or a reader in high school, and I didn’t actually become a writer or a reader until after graduating from college,” he says. “I ended up working at a used bookstore and finished [reading] my first novel when I was like 22 or 23 and completely fell in love with reading and writing at that point.”

Caroline Shu ’24 inquires about the structure of the novel, which follows a cast of characters told in varying perspectives and tenses.

“For most of the characters I switched their point of view in the revision process to see what might fit better. I would set myself to the task of switching tenses from first to third, or this he needs to change to I, sort of tricking myself into continuing to read the work to try to make it better. It can bring out things that you wouldn’t expect.”

It took Orange six years to complete “There, There,” but as he tells the group at no point did he encounter writer’s block.

“I think writer’s block comes from doubt and fear of failure. And I think any creative work that anyone does, you’re going to be filled with doubt because you’re trying something that’s personal and that you’re making up on a very basic level. You’re making something up and expecting other people to experience it in a way that takes it seriously to whatever extent,” he says. “I have just found ways to work through it because it feels a lot worse to not be writing than it does to be working through any doubt.”

How to be better sexual citizens

A pair of scholars addressed members of the upper and senior classes in the Assembly Hall earlier this week to discuss their eye-opening work on the complex dynamics at play when it comes to sex and sexual assault on U.S. college campuses.

Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan, authors of Sexual Citizens: Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus, joined four student moderators for the panel discussion on April 4, which kicked off Exeter’s recognition of April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Moderators Elina Yang ’23, Jennifer Finkelstein ’23, Ana Casey ’22 and Janessa Vargas ’22, all active in campus groups including Exonians Against Sexual Assault (EASA) and Feminist Union (Fem Club), asked Hirsch and Khan questions based on those generated by students after reading the book, which was widely distributed on campus. Uppers and seniors were asked to look through the book prior to the panel, which they were required to attend, and prepare for follow-up discussion in their Health and Human Development classes.

Based on extensive research with students at Columbia University as part of the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT), Sexual Citizens aims to change the nationwide conversation around campus sexual assault. While that conversation often focuses on how to adjudicate individual cases, Hirsch and Khan offer a more complete understanding of why sexual assaults happen and how students, parents, teachers and administrators can address gaps in sexual education and understanding starting long before students get to college.

“Instead of looking at sexual assault as a product of individual bad people intentionally doing bad things, we look at how it’s engineered into campus life,” said Hirsch, an anthropologist and professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University. “Which seems grim, [but] once you see how it’s built into life, you can think about building a different kind of campus.”

Early in the discussion, Casey asked the authors to discuss the framework they created for understanding issues of sex and sexual assault on campus, including three key concepts: sexual projects, sexual citizenship and sexual geographies.

Instead of looking at sexual assault as a product of individual bad people intentionally doing bad things, we look at how it's engineered into campus life."

Jennifer S. Hirsch, author

Sexual projects, Hirsch explained, are “what people are trying to get out of sex.” This can range from simply gaining experience to impressing friends to sharing pleasure and intimacy. Sexual citizenship, as Hirsch defined it, is “people’s understanding of their own right to choose the sexual experiences that they engage in, but also…their understanding that other people have the same equivalent right to choose their sexual experiences.” Finally, sexual geographies refers to the role that space, including physical spaces like dorm rooms and libraries, plays in shaping sexual interactions. “Sexual geographies also have broader implications in terms of who controls valuable social spaces on campus,” Hirsch clarified.

“We use these three concepts in a way that we think can be applied to a place like Exeter,” added Khan, a professor of sociology and American studies at Princeton University. “It doesn’t need to be in a college setting or in an urban environment.”

Vargas asked what the authors learned in terms of “marginalized populations…such as LGBTQ students and students of color,” and what that means for their sexual citizenship. “Gender is not the only form of power on campus,” Khan responded, acknowledging that “multiple different people who are in disadvantaged positions are at risk for all kinds of harm,” including sexual assault.

Jennifer Finkelstein ’23 asks the authors a question as fellow moderators Elina Yang '23 (left) and Ana Casey ’22 listen.

“We need a language and analysis of power and inequality to make sense of assault,” Khan argued. “If we begin to think about conditions of transforming our communities…equity has to be at the center of it.”

Asked for advice for Exeter students preparing to go to college, Hirsch urged them to use the three core concepts in the book and think carefully about how they applied in their own lives. “Think about the people with whom you’re interacting, sexually but also socially, and try not to be a terrible person,” Hirsch said. “Recognize that they are also not just self-determining people, but people with feelings.”

Hirsch and Khan later met with faculty members and administrators to discuss their work in a meeting organized by Christina Palmer, Director of Student Well-Being.

EASA co-head Lyric Zimmerman ’22, who helped organize the student panel discussion along with other upcoming events marking Sexual Assault Awareness month, was looking forward to the ongoing conversation about the issues covered in Sexual Citizens. “I think [Hirsch and Khan] found a way to connect and speak in a way that students could hear,” Zimmerman said. “A way that didn’t paint a victim and a perpetrator or a clear bad and good, but put everyone on the same communal level of understanding.”

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An actor performs as part of the play "Now That We're Men".

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'Now That We're Men' tackles toxic masculinity

girl holding map with lines that extend in many directions

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Person and path

Counseling and Psychological Services team standing outside.

Exeter Today

A conversation with Director of Counseling Szu-Hui Lee

Exeter senior wins $90,000 in science competition

When Neil Chowdhury ’22 first joined MIT PRIMES, the high school research program in mathematics, engineering and science run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was interested in working on a project in computer science. He didn’t expect to be paired with a mentor in the unfamiliar field of computational biology, or to end up developing a computer model to study the 3D structure of the human genome.

As luck would have it, that’s just what happened — and Chowdhury made the most of it. “I got to work with new data that’s basically been in existence for only about 20 years,” he says. “I was really excited by the idea of being one of the first people to examine that data and see what we can learn from it.”

The resulting project, which uses polymer simulation to investigate how human DNA is affected by the modification of proteins implicated in colon cancer, earned Chowdhury a spot as one of 40 finalists (out of some 1,800 original entrants) in the 2022 Regeneron Science Talent Search. After a rigorous week of presenting his work to the judging panel and bonding with his fellow competitors in Washington, D.C., in mid-March, he captured fifth place, bringing home an impressive $90,000 in prize money.

Launched in 1942 by the Society for Science, the Science Talent Search is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious high school science competition, aiming to identify and encourage the science and engineering pioneers of the future. Past recipients have gone on to win the Nobel Prize and National Medal of Science among myriad honors. Last year, Exeter’s Yunseo Choi ’21 joined their ranks, taking home first place for her project on matching theory.

In a video shown during the awards ceremony, Chowdhury said he draws inspiration from working with his fellow Exonians, including younger students. He serves as head or co-head of Exeter’s physics, math and chemistry clubs as well as the Science Bowl team. Chowdhury also credits Science Instructors Alison Hobbie and J. Albert Léger and Math Instructor Diana Davis with supporting his research and guiding his broader STEM education at Exeter.

Beyond the Regeneron competition, Chowdhury sees a broader purpose for his prize-winning project, titled “Modeling the Effect of Histone Methylation on Chromosomal Organization in Colon Cancer Cells.” He plans to continue building on his work through an ongoing affiliation with the Mirny Lab at MIT, where he will attend college next year. “The 3D genome is likely important for a number of genetic processes, like gene regulation, gene expression and even mitosis, the formation of chromosomes,” Chowdhury says. “Trying to explain the actual molecular mechanisms that give rise to those effects will help us gain a fundamental understanding of how that works.”

Spring speakers return to Assembly Hall

The spring Assembly program kicks off this Friday with musician, podcaster and alum Hrishikesh Hirway ’96. Hirway’s address to assembly will mark the first time since February 2020, that a speaker, and the entire student body, will be together in Assembly Hall.

The multitalented Hirway gained notoriety as the host of the popular podcast “Song Exploder.” Adapted into a Netflix series, “Song Exploder” explores the inspiration and production of popular songs, with Hirway interviewing artists like Alicia Keys, Lin-Manuel Miranda and R.E.M. A composer, producer and recording artist in his own right, Hirway has released five albums under his own name.

Other featured speakers throughout the spring include Tommy Orange, author of the 2018 book “There, There,” and Emmy-winning multimedia producer Lauren Selig ’94. Orange’s New York Times best-seller chronicles life for a group of Native Americans living in Oakland, California. Selig, the founder of Shake and Bake productions, has spent the past two decades as an entrepreneur in the cross-section of film and emerging technologies.

Matt McGill ‘87 will reprise his popular Supreme Court review May 6. In what’s become a staple of the spring Assembly lineup, the Washington D.C.-based attorney brings with him a roundup of the most notable and newsworthy happenings from the highest court in the land. McGill himself has participated in 23 Supreme Court hearings, scoring victories in 17 decisions.

As part of the class of 1970’s 50^th Reunion celebration, Robert Bauer ’70, White House counsel and current Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence and Co-Director of the Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic at NYU – Law School, will speak on April 22. On May 20, Andrew Hertig ’57 will be presented with the Founders’ Day Award.

Mask requirements will be in effect for all attending students and faculty. Assembly presentations will be streamed via Local Live. The full list of speakers can be found below.

March

25: Hrishikesh Hirway ‘96

April

1: Journalist Ron Suskind

8: Tommy Orange

15: Lauren Selig ’94

22: Robert Bauer ’70

29: A cappella groups

May

6: Matt McGill ’87

13: SPARC presentation

20: Founders’ Day Award presentation

27: PEAN presentation

30: Prize Assembly

Exeter People

“One of the things I really love is coming up with the framework for an idea and then seeing it through.”

Hrishikesh Hirway ’96

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Holding court

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Founders' Day, John and Elizabeth Phillips awards announced

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Exonians capture 20 medals in Scholastic competition

Fourteen students from Exeter combined to win 20 national medals in the 2022 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, announced Wednesday.

More than 100,000 teens from across the country and Canada entered more than 260,000 works in the nation’s longest-running recognition program for teen writers and artists, now in its 99th year. Nearly 2,000 works were recognized with national medals.

Danielle J. Sung ’22 took home an impressive four medals for her artwork, winning a gold for “May You All Rest In Power” and silver medals for “What Hands Tell Us,” “Mr. President” and “The World in Black and White II.”

In addition to a gold medal, Kaylee Chen ’23 was awarded the American Voices Medal, one of the highest writing honors in the competition, for her piece “How to Learn a Language.”

A recipient of a silver medal last year, Daniel Zhang ’22 won gold this year — twice — for his works “I’m Not Brave” and “Sorry.” Alexandria Westray ’22 was another consecutive winner, taking home a silver medal for “A Poorwoman’s Reflection.”

Finally, Kendrah Su ’22 won a gold medal for her personal essay “Root Removal,” completing a dazzling run over her four years at Exeter. In all, Suh has captured seven gold medals and two silvers for her writing.

This year’s honorees join the ranks of past winners including poets Sylvia Plath and Amanda Gorman; writers John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Joyce Maynard ’71 and Stephen King; artists Richard Avedon and Andy Warhol; filmmakers Ken Burns and Richard Linklater; and actors Robert Redford, John Lithgow and Lena Dunham. Past judges of the competition have included such luminaries as Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Judy Blume, Billy Collins, Edwidge Danticat, David Sedaris, Nikki Giovanni, Andres Serrano and Kiki Smith.

A complete list of Exeter’s 2022 honorees:

Tony Cai ’23, silver
David Chen ’23, gold
Kaylee Chen ’23, gold & American Voices
Bailey Cooper ’22, gold
Sabrina Kearney ’22, one gold, one silver
Roxane Park ’25, gold
Sunghyun Park ’24, silver
Hannah Rubin ’23, gold
Kendrah Su ’22, gold
Minjae Suh ’25, silver
Danielle J. Sung ’22, one gold, three silvers
Alexandria Westray ’22, silver
Andrew Yuan ’24, gold
Daniel Zhang ’22, gold

Athletes for Racial Justice champion social change

For decades, athletes have utilized their fame to amplify calls for civil rights and social change. Think Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, LeBron James and Naomi Osaka, to name a few. Inspired by the legacies of such all-time greats, a group of Big Red athletes created a space on campus to contribute to Exeter’s efforts in promoting racial equity.

Founded in 2021 by Ifeoma Ajufo ’22, Mohamed Kane ’22, Manan Mendiratta ’22, and Akili Tulloch ’22, Athletes for Racial Justice came together as a melding of a Core Values Project and independent work under the guidance of former physical education instructor and track coach Toyin Augustus. “It was really motivational seeing those athletes in 2020 who did speak up and stopped playing as a form of protest,” says Ajufo, a member of the Exeter girls soccer and track teams. “That geared a lot of our conversations and how we view ourselves. We’re more than just athletes. We have a voice and we have the platform at Exeter to try and speak up against these issues.”

The group of about 30 student-athletes of color meet regularly to discuss current events, brainstorm ways to promote equity and inclusion on campus, and work with other like-minded student groups. “We had a joint meeting with the Girls in Sports club that was open to all Exonians where we talked about intersections between athletes of color and female athletes,” Kane says. “I thought it was really successful.”

The club also has an open line to the Academy’s administration through weekly conversations with Athletics Director Jason Baseden and with the support of Dean of Multicultural Affairs Sherry Hernández and Associate Dean of Multicultural Affairs Hadley Camilus. “There is no substitute for direct dialogue with feedback from the students,” Baseden says. “We want to make sure all of our student-athletes have a great experience regardless of their identities.”

These ongoing conversations help Ajufo and her clubmates feel heard. “When we present our problems to the administration, they’re really willing to listen to us,” Ajufo says.

One shared initiative between the group and the administration is to create more diversity on the rosters of traditionally homogenous teams. “Sports are passions and it’s something that you put a lot of time into, and the lack of representation shouldn’t be what steers you away from playing a sport,” Kane says. “Trying to recruit more diversity in the coaching staff would encourage more people to go into these sports,” Ajufo says.

During the winter term, the group hosted a dodgeball tournament in the William Boyce Thompson Field House that included the Office of Multicultural Affairs faculty, with a surprising result. “OMA beat all of our teams,” Ajufo says shaking her head and smiling.

With the club heads set to graduate in the spring, Kane hopes the group has established a foundation for future student-athletes of color to build on. “Being able to continue those open conversations with the Athletics Department and participate in making those decisions that will impact the athletes of color on campus, that’s one of the biggest legacies that I want to have left behind.”

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Willie O'Ree, hockey trailblazer, addresses assembly

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Making progress

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A shared experience

Big Red athletes make their mark

Updating the record boards in the Nekton Pool and Thompson Field House is becoming a rich, annual tradition as Big Red student-athletes continue to shatter longstanding marks.

Swimmer Sydney Kang ’22 was an absolute standout in the pool this winter. She now holds a whopping seven of the 11 school records in girls swimming, as well as a New England record. Kang set the New England, school and facility record in the 100-yard butterfly at Franklin & Marshall College as she swam to a first-place time of 54.17 at the prestigious Eastern Interscholatics meet, and added a Division I record and New England title to her résumé one week later at the New England Championships. Kang also helped set new marks in the relays as she teamed up with a talented group, including Sophie Phelps ’25, Brianna Cong ’25 and Amy Benson ’23, to break school records in both the 400-yard freestyle relay (3:27.96) and 200-yard freestyle relay (1:35.44). Kang, Benson, Cong and Claire Han ’25 also worked together to set a school record in the 200-medley relay (1:45.61). The Yale-bound senior wraps up her illustrious career with school records in the 200-medley relay, 200 freestyle, 200 individual medley, 50 freestyle, 100 butterfly, 200 freestyle relay and 400 freestyle relay.

Alongside Kang, a pair of preps wasted little time in getting their names on the board. Sophie Phelps ’25 smashed a pair of individual records set by Big Red swimming legend Lauren Brady ’07. Phelps swam to a time of 1:51.55 to win a New England title in the 200-yard freestyle, topping Brady’s former top mark of 1:53.12. She then shaved more than five seconds off of Brady’s 2006 record in the 500-yard freestyle, coming in with a time of 5:00.75.

Brianna Cong ’25 snapped a nine-year-old record while also earning a New England title in the 100-yard backstroke when she raced to a time of 56.50. The previous record was held by Olivia Jackson ’13.

On the track, Byron Grevious ’24 paced the way for the Big Red indoor season with some impressive marks that garnered eyes from around the country. Grevious snapped a 50-year-old school record in the two-mile run with a blistering time of 9:04.27. The previous mark was held by G. Andrew Walker ’72. Grevious, who also was the individual New England Cross Country Champion this past fall, also set a new school mark at 3,000 meters with a time of 8:22.87. Both marks were the fastest by any 10th grader in the country.

Jaylen Bennett ’25 set three new Big Red prep records in the 200-meter (23.30), 400-meter (50.31) and 600-meter (1:29.26) races. His performance in the 400-meter run was the fastest of any freshman in the nation.

Big Red also established a record in a newly minted event, the 4×400 mixed-gender relay. The relay, which was introduced at the Tokyo Summer Games as a medal event, was added to the Exeter/Andover Prep/Lower meet where William Simpson ’24, Tenley Nelson ’24, Jannah Maguire ’25 and Jaylen Bennett ’25 established a time of 4:05.84.

Winter E/A rivalry colored in Red

The winter edition of the Exeter/Andover rivalry was reintroduced after a two-year hiatus, but the action and atmosphere did not skip a beat as the games were typical nail-biters and the crowd was as loud as ever.

Big Red came out victorious on the day, earning a pair of basketball wins, while the two schools split decisions in hockey — all included a heavy dose of suspense and exhilaration.

Girls hockey ignited the excitement of the day. Big Red jumped ahead in the opening three minutes of play when Jess Chen ’24 buried a rebound into the back of the net to give Exeter an early 1-0 lead. Andover answered right back with a pair of goals and went into the first intermission with a 2-1 edge.

Soleil Jamani ’25 evened the score at 2 in the second when she secured a loose puck off of a faceoff and tucked a shot inside the top right corner. The Blue answered again to reclaim a one-goal lead before Victoria Quinn ’22 found the puck in the midst of a crowd and poked it past the Andover goalie to tie the game 3-3 heading into the third period.

Andover came out of the gates fast in the third and added two quick goals to seal a 5-3 decision. Exeter netminder Sami Smith ’23 was terrific, making several acrobatic saves to keep Big Red in the game.

Boys hockey earned Exeter a split in the games inside Harrison Rink with a 3-2 win in dramatic fashion. Kurt Gurkan ’22 got the scoring started when he stole the puck in the neutral zone and raced in for a breakaway, beating the Andover goalie to his blocker side to give Exeter a 1-0 lead. Exeter would double their advantage when Kodi Dotterer ’22 converted on a Big Red power play later in the period.

Andover cut the lead in half in the second period and entered the third trailing Exeter 2-1. That score would remain until Ryan Sordillo ’22 added an empty-net goal with under a minute to play. Andover would keep fighting and score with 12 seconds to play, and had a chance to tie in the waning seconds, but Exeter held on for a 3-2 victory. Michael Salvatore ’23 was outstanding in goal, as he has been all season long.

Boys basketball used stifling defense and some hot shooting early to carry a 10-point lead into halftime. Andover clawed their way back and eventually erased Exeter’s advantage to take a two-point edge midway through the second half. Back-to-back buckets from Josh Morissette ’22 and Chandler Pigge ’22 gave Big Red a four-point edge, and Exeter would not trail again. Big Red was clutch down the stretch, knocking down seven free throws in the final two minutes to seal the 65-60 victory. Morissette finished with a team-high 20 points, while Pigge added 17 of his own. Dom Campbell ’22 was a menace down low and finished with 19 points.

Girls basketball kept the excitement going in the nightcap. Big Red guard Jac Doucette ’23 took the game over and scored 12 of her game-high 28 points in the fourth quarter to push Exeter to a comeback win. Doucette continued to drive to the paint and convert while Amelia Byerly ’24, who finished with 10 points, and Ana Casey ’22, who added eight, chipped in with clutch buckets in the final minute to give Big Red a 56-49 victory.

Exeter will await the announcement of potential postseason bids before putting the final stamp on the winter season.

The Learning Center is here to help

It’s quiet for the moment in Room 106 of Phillips Hall as Kira Ferdyn ’22 does homework on a Thursday evening. An English classroom by day, Room 106 is the Spanish peer tutoring section of The Learning Center on this night, where students seeking help with a Spanish assignment can find support from Ferdyn, in her sixth year studying the language.

Down the hall, other peer tutors offer help in Latin, Chinese, French and German. Support from instructors in math, the sciences and writing is available in the other direction. A dry-erase board in the first-floor lobby steers drop-ins to the appropriate room.

This Phillips Hall transformation occurs each weeknight throughout the school year to become a designated space for anyone who wants academic help. The Learning Center program is a student-focused pillar of The Center for Teaching and Learning — Harkness outreach and programs for educators are the others — and is an expansion of what began for writing and math a few years ago. The recurring evening hours at the one location are meant to provide structure and predictable opportunities to seek help — or simply to keep kids on track.

We want to build on our existing culture that asking for help is just a regular part of a good education.”

Meg Foley, instructor in history

“Our goal has always been to have the CTL’s student support to be for every student. It’s not intended to be only for times when a student is struggling,” says Meg Foley, the Michael Ridder ’58 Distinguished Professor in History who has spearheaded the center’s development. “We want to build on our existing culture that asking for help is just a regular part of a good education.”

That can be a big adjustment for students arriving at Exeter who are accustomed to excelling. “They know they are here to stretch themselves, but when the stretching is happening, sometimes they doubt themselves, and we want to help them with that adjustment,” Foley says. “Part of that adjustment is asking for help, not just worrying or struggling alone.”

Laura Marshall, a math instructor and the dean of academic affairs, says the situation can be challenging for a student who suddenly needs to work to earn the grades that once came easily. “On top of that, they look around at their friends who seem to be doing just fine and they are not going to the Learning Centers. So, they then develop more doubt and it begins to feel as though the centers are only for those who are really struggling and they do not want to identify as that student and are convinced that they can turn things around on their own. It becomes this cycle.”

The inclusion of peer tutors has helped. Ferdyn, a two-year senior day student from Exeter, was identified as a top student in Spanish and invited to join the center as a peer tutor. She says some students feel more comfortable revealing their struggles to schoolmates.

“I think often, when meeting with teachers, there can be pressure to seem fully prepared, and to understand what’s going on right away,” she says, “but with peers, you can be a little bit more candid. I think this helps people actually get the help they need, and potentially connect with someone new along the way.”

The peer tutoring aspect of the center is a formalized extension of what has been happening organically in dorm common rooms for decades. Many dorms keep lists of which students are strong in specific subjects and can assist with a homework assignment or problem. Those impromptu tutorials provide the faculty with a blueprint.

“There’s a healthy culture of getting help from peers in the dorms, at least there is in Webster, where I’m dorm head, so one of the inspirations for my work is talking to the students about the kind of help they ask for from their peers,” says Alex Myers ‘96, an English instructor who is working with Foley and Marshall to develop the center. “What I’ve observed is that students like to start the work on their own, work until they get stuck, and then ask someone for a little nudge. So, in thinking of the Learning Centers, we wanted to have a space where students could sit and work and just easily lean over and ask for help — it didn’t have to be a big deal.”

English Instructor Genny Moriarty helped to introduce a series of seminars for writers to entice students to visit the center. Featured topics have included journalistic writing; digital literacy and information fluency; proper citing of sources; and submitting work for writing contests. “Genny really envisions building the writing center into a ‘place for writers,’ which includes but is not limited to a place to get help on an assignment,” Foley says. “Some of the sessions are working in that direction and we hope to do more of that.”

Exeter’s academic support resources extend beyond The Learning Center, of course. Academic advisers are constant advocates in students’ lives, and Learning Specialist Jonathan Nydick is dedicated full-time to work with students in select content areas and in study skills development, including memory, note taking, test taking, reading and time management.

All of these efforts show progress, even on a relatively quiet Thursday evening mid-term. A half-dozen students are spread around the Elting Room working alone or in pairs while Science Instructor Shimaa Ghazal helps a student. Next door, History Instructor Kirsten Russell meets with a student working on a paper. The Learning Center is gaining traction.

What I’ve observed is that students like to start the work on their own, work until they get stuck, and then ask someone for a little nudge."

Alex Myers '96, instructor in history

“One of my favorite success stories comes from an earlier iteration of the writing center,” Myers says. “We had a senior who came in because his college counselor told him he needed some help on his college essay. … He had a session, and sort of sat in stunned silence for a moment and then said, ‘That was so helpful,’ like he couldn’t believe that academic assistance would be useful.

“He came back several more times and then became a kind of Johnny Appleseed in his dorm, bringing uppers and lowers over to the writing center and telling them how great it was and not to wait until senior year. That was really gratifying.”