What can Vergil, the Greek Magical Papyri of spells and King Croesus of Lydia’s visit to the Oracle of Delphi tell us about the future? A lot, says Grant Parker, a Stanford professor who led a series of student seminars in November called “RetroFutures: Ancient Perspectives on Times Ahead.”

“It was a mind-bending look at how the future looked to people in the past,” says Matt Hartnett, chair of the Classics Department. “It felt very relevant to the current moment, where there is considerable anxiety and uncertainty about what the future holds. Over the intervening millennia we have come up with different ways of divining what we think will happen in the future, but all motivated by the same desire the ancients had to try to make the unknown known.”

It’s clear Parker’s words inspired those who gathered in the Elting Room of Phillips Hall for discourse. “Most Exeter Classics students read or will read Vergil at some point, and Professor Parker’s presentations not only introduced two Vergilian texts outside of the syllabus but also gave me a new perspective on the Aeneid, which I read last year at Exeter,” says Alexandra Wang ’23, who attended three of the four seminars. “At the start of his second seminar, he quoted a writer’s complaint that ‘Vergil is history written in the future tense.’ The quip is shockingly accurate: The story of the Aeneid is propelled by prophecies, but these predicted futures are the reader’s past. … Professor Parker’s seminars showed us that in all literary traditions, the text doesn’t change, its audience does. And each new reader is a new interaction. Each new reader grants the text a new meaning.”

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the winter 2022 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

On the afternoon of October 22, 2021, moments after voting to admit students without consideration of their ability to pay tuition, Exeter’s Trustees rose from their seats to applaud the moment, the generosity of the Exeter community, and the hard work that had made the decision possible.

Their spontaneous celebration was understandable. Rarely in the Academy’s history have the Trustees been called upon to make such a weighty decision. Just as Edward Harkness’ gift inspired a reimagining of our pedagogy, and the opening of our doors to coeducation transformed the institution, a vote to formally commit to “need-blind” admissions is similarly groundbreaking.

The Trustees’ decision is the first official commitment since the school began charging a fee for tuition in 1809, that cost is no longer a barrier to any qualified student who dreams of attending Phillips Exeter Academy — a decisive step toward becoming the community the found-ers envisioned.

Days after that momentous vote, Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 and Morgan Sze ’83; P’19, P’22, P’25, president of the Trustees, shared the news in a joint statement to the Academy community: “John and Elizabeth Phillips made a commitment that continues to serve as one of our core values: ‘[The Academy] shall ever be equally open to youth of requisite qualifications from every quarter,’” Rawson and Sze wrote in an email to students, employees, alumni and parents.

Today, we renew our commitment to youth from every quarter.”

Principal Bill Rawson '71, P'08

“The commitment expressed in our Deed of Gift ensures that all our students, regardless of economic circumstances, are not only able to attend but also know they belong at Exeter. Financial aid makes it possible for students from ‘every quarter’ to join the Academy community and learn, lead and thrive here. Today, we renew our commitment to youth from every quarter.”

The historic decision came after Exeter donors over the past two years committed more than $90 million in new endowment for financial aid. Further support will be needed to sustain the commitment and fundraising for financial aid will continue to be a priority.

“From our conversations with alumni around the world, from Boston to Beijing, from London to LA, we hear consistently that one of the overarching priorities for the Academy — one of the values our alumni hold most highly — is the commitment to youth from every quarter — the ideal that finances should not be a barrier to students,” says Morgan Dudley ’77, Exeter’s director of institutional advancement. “The opportunity to focus our outreach and engagement efforts on becoming need-blind in admissions is deeply meaningful to every member of the Exeter community.”

Richard (Rick) L. Smith ’66 is one of those alumni for whom need-blind admissions resonates. Smith, who received financial aid to attend the Academy, has been a consistent Exeter donor and volunteer since his graduation, when he sent Exeter Principal Richard Day a letter and a $5 contribution to the school’s Christmas Fund.

“My first contribution to the Christmas Fund is small,” he wrote. “My interest in Exeter, however, is not small.” Smith vowed in that letter to help Exeter always have

“the resources to attract the people it needs to maintain a community marked by excellence.” More than 50 years later, Smith continues to live up to his promise, step-ping forward as one of the first Exonians to support new endowment for financial aid to make need-blind possible.

“It’s a very positive message and provides a greater level of encouragement to students and families seeking financial aid,” says Smith, a former trustee. “It also emphasizes the Academy’s commitment to being a diverse and equitable institution.”

A history of support

Exeter has a long tradition of remaining accessible to applicants of all means. In 1947, the school launched a $5 million campaign to limit tuition increases and “preserve the essential character” of the Academy, according to then-president of the Trustees Thomas Lamont, and enroll the most deserving and talented students from all over the country — not just those who can afford tuition.

The stories of Director of Scholarships H. Hamilton “Hammy” Bissell ’29 barnstorming around the Midwest in the 1950s in search of qualified students are Exeter legend. More than 800 of “Hammy’s boys” attended PEA through the school’s financial support.

The opportunity to focus our outreach and engagement efforts on becoming need-blind in admissions is deeply meaningful to every member of the Exeter community.

Morgan Dudley '77, director of institutional advancement

Those efforts have only grown over time. In 1980, the percentage of need-based financial aid students at Exeter was 26%. Today it is 44%. The Academy awards more than $25 million in financial assistance to its students each year; the largest distribution of endowment income is designated to financial aid.

In 2006, Exeter temporarily achieved need-blind in practice if not official policy, admitting three successive incoming classes regardless of means. A global financial crisis forced the school to curtail the effort in 2009 while pledging to remain free to those qualified students whose family income was $75,000 or less and to meet 100% of the demonstrated need of every admitted student.

Now, the school has formally committed to a need-blind admissions system going forward.

The Exeter community hailed the milestone and the Academy’s commitment to making an Exeter education accessible. “Financial aid at a comprehensive level was critical to my own ability to be one of ‘Hammy’s boys,’” wrote Jim Peterson ’63, “an experience that was life-shaping both for me and my family.”

“We will be forever grateful for our son’s full scholar-ship to attend Exeter for a postgrad year,” Laurie Easton Parker P’11 said. “Without the financial aid, that superior education would have been out of reach for our family. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!”

Added Jim Rogers ’63; P’05, a former president of the Trustees: “This is wonderful news and such an important and fitting milestone for PEA.”

Rawson and Sze expressed appreciation for the legacy of philanthropy at Exeter that inspired the initiative. “It is humbling to consider the generations of Exonians who have come forward over the years to support the school, often inspired by the gratitude they felt for the assistance they received themselves,” they wrote. “It is equally humbling to contemplate the generosity that will support our school and our commitment to youth from every quarter in years to come.”

Editor’s note: This feature first appeared in the Winter 2022 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

In December of 1922, as the nation made a wobbly recovery from a post-war recession and an influenza pandemic that killed millions worldwide, Exeter Principal Lewis Perry sent a letter to the school’s alumni.

He began by thanking them for their “generous help” in erasing the school’s debt and allowing it to pay off its mortgages. “This is truly a thankful achievement and it tells better than anything else can your splendid spirit for this school,” Perry wrote.

But this was not just a thank you note. The principal had other motives. The letter told of a promise the classes of 1920, ’21 and ’22 had made “to send Exeter, for running expenses, Ten Dollars a year at Christmas Time as a part of his Christmas and to do so as long as he lives. Isn’t that fine?” Perry wrote.

Then he arrived at the heart of the matter. “Perhaps then it is not too much for me to ask the older Alumni to join with these youngest classes in sharing their Christmas with the best School in America and to persuade them each one if they can, to give something every year in this way toward current expenses.”

On Dec. 15, 1922, Lewis Perry’s letter launched what would eventually come to be known as The Exeter Fund. That first year returned $5,821 from 302 donations, an average of $19.27 per gift. More critically, it established a mechanism for grateful alumni to give back to their alma mater and help offset expenses that otherwise would be covered by tuition. 

When Perry retired in 1946, the fund had raised more than a quarter-million dollars — an unprecedented amount for the times and the footing for what The Exeter Fund would become. Principal William Saltonstall built on Perry’s legacy, helping to launch a $5 million fundraising campaign in 1947 to offset a half-million-dollar annual operating deficit. The culture of philanthropy Perry inspired among Exonians was enduring. By 1980, annual giving surpassed $1 million. 

Seven decades after Perry made his initial plea, Kendra Stearns O’Donnell, Exeter’s 12th principal, addressed that culture of giving and its impact in a year-ending letter to alumni: “Those of us privileged to be here now know that the generosity of those who have gone before is the foundation on which we build each day’s accomplishments.”

Last year, thousands of alumni, parents and friends of the Academy combined to donate $10.2 million to The Exeter Fund, which introduced eight targeted designations: financial aid; academic excellence; the arts; athletics; global initiatives; health and wellness; equity and inclusion; and immediate priorities. In December, a campaign to support these designations raised more than $1.6 million from 2,017 donors in a single day.

Dr. Perry would be proud.

Editor’s note: This feature first appeared in the Winter 2022 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

In one of the greatest upset victories in the long-running Exeter-Andover sporting rivalry, Big Red rallied from a 17-point, second-period deficit to triumph over Andover and earn the football team its first New England title in 15 years. This is the story of that wild 1971 game as told by Exeter quarterback and legendary Boston sportscaster Mike Lynch ’72 on the 50th anniversary of that memorable meeting at Phelps Stadium.

The record shows that the 90th edition of this rivalry was won by Exeter 30-20 on Saturday, November 13, 1971. I’m here to inform you that this game was unofficially won by Exeter on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, November 9, 10 and 11. I was the quarterback and placekicker on that 1971 New England Prep School championship team. I’ve been asked to pen my recollection of how it happened 50 years ago to the very day.

Sleep was an elusive companion the night before the Andover game. We had just completed a productive week of practice. For three days, coach Alan Estey and his staff walked us through what Andover would do on offense and defense. They were 100% correct. With their preparation and leadership, we felt extremely confident as we wrapped up Friday’s walk-through.

There was a buzz around the Phillips Exeter campus all week, and by Friday night it was palpable. There was a bonfire, a pep rally, and speeches from Coach Estey and our two outstanding captains and leaders, Dave Fullerton ’72 and Drew Mellen ’72. After the bonfire I went in search of a store that sold long underwear. I knew it would be cold during the game and wanted to keep my chest and shoulders warm, especially as the day wore on. I found one up on Portsmouth Avenue. I borrowed Mrs. Estey’s scissors to cut off the sleeves. Check-in was complete at Peabody Hall room 9. My roommate Ernie Pisanelli ’72 (offensive and defensive tackle) and I shut out the lights. The proverbial hay was in the barn.

I can’t recall if we had classes that morning. If we did, our heads were elsewhere. School spirit was at an all-time high as we strolled through campus on the way to get dressed in the locker room in the bowels of the athletic complex. The walk to the stadium across the bridge was brisk. Alums, family, friends and students all wished us well and we proceeded into the stadium for the 1:45 p.m. kickoff.

Rumor had it that the night before the game a few Andover students were stopped at the bridge with four buckets of blue paint hoping to douse the stadium with their school color. But it would not matter. After warm-ups I looked Coach Estey in the eye and he told me to do exactly as we practiced and we would end a two-year drought against Andover.

The opening kickoff was disastrous. The field was glazed with frost, causing our return man, Roy Ball ’72, to slip and fall and dislocate his elbow. Poor Roy was in agony as we huddled up just a few feet away from him. An ambulance drove onto the field and Roy was taken to Exeter Hospital.

Away we went on offense. We managed to get deep into Andover territory before settling for a 31-yard field goal and a 3-0 lead.

And then a blue tidal wave hit us.

Andover scored 20 straight points and led 20-3. I would throw a horrific pass behind Jim Curry ’73 that was picked off by Andover’s Barry Cronin (my eventual college roommate), who took it 85 yards for a score. That pick would have put us in a 28-3 bind save for a clipping call, and thankfully the score was nullified. Still, 20-3 was a tough road to travel … except for this team. Each time I stepped into the huddle, 10 pair of eyes were looking directly at me as I prepared to call each play. Not once did I see or sense panic or despair. I only saw confidence and grit. We were good, really good. Think about our defense. Andover scored its 20th point just two minutes into the second quarter. For the remainder of the game our “D” shut out a very potent Andover “O.” We drove before the half and scored to make it 20-10 at the break.

I’ve always believed a team that scores just before the half has the edge coming out of the locker room, and that would be us. Inside our locker room there was confidence. Coach Estey told me we weren’t changing anything and that the work from Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday would pay off. I never doubted him and he was correct.

We marched down the field running the ball. Randy Lombardo ’73 and Pete Foote ’72 scooted through chasms opened by Pisanelli, Kirby, Mellen, Gleason and Shea. We scored on a quarterback sneak. Andover 20, Exeter 16. By now the soccer, field hockey and cross-country crowds were all in the stadium. To us it looked like 100,000 people. It was a wonderful feeling. Faculty, alumni, students, family and friends all gave off energy that fueled us, and we weren’t about to disappoint them. As the shadows grew longer the defense of Pisanelli, Bossy, Newman, Moutevelis, Fullerton, Mellen, Burns, Trowbridge, Curry, Trivett and Wong stood taller than the mighty pines that framed our stadium. Into the fourth quarter we forged, and a touchdown pass to Dan Fournier ’73 gave us back the lead at 23-20.

By now the field was in complete shade, bordering on darkness. We knew we needed another score, and an interception by “Famous Jamous” Jim Curry set it up at our 10-yard line. Curry and Fournier were as good as it gets for receivers. They certainly bailed this QB out of many a jam. A 90-yard drive mixed with runs, a catch-and-run by Curry and a 49-yard completion to Fournier, who lugged it to the Andover 1-yard line, set up Pete Foote’s touchdown run and we had a 30-20 lead. Twenty-seven unanswered points, a shutout by our defense when it counted the most. Coach Estey and his staff won this game. Their preparation made it impossible to fail.

The scene on the field was chaotic. Everyone wanted to participate in the celebration. Our win made headlines in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. Winter wasn’t far off and classes would resume on Monday, but for a few hours on a chilly Saturday November afternoon we rode a wave of joy, happiness and UNRIVALED Exeter pride!  

Editor’s note: Class of 1972 President Frank McPhillips first shared Mike Lynch’s story as part of a monthly series of communications to his classmates in the year preceding their 50th reunion. The oral and written histories submitted by various members of the class of 1972, including this one, have been collected in the book, The Ways We Were: Exeter Remembered 1968-1972: Essays by the Exeter Class of 1972. 

Louisiana, 1944

 

They say my father is dead —

 

Generations of men before me lie limp in the swamp-grass.

Not ten of them were good enough to stay.

 

Men came with rifles and chewing tobacco;

Old, half-taken by gout;

Young, whooping to their comrades

After a day of bang! Shooting

Fast, dark bullets that threw our mothers limp on the ground

Into their grimy hands:

“I bagged a good one, show Liza back home.”

 

More came, too —

In wagons, in trucks that spewed greasy smoke

Into our eyes.

They heard our calls,

The song for danger:

 

“Goddamn, those birds are loud.”

Trees swung to the forest floor.

Mammoth machines ran through the empty earth they left —

Back then we didn’t know their names.

More steam, more smoke;

They used our wood to lay the tracks.

 

We starved like my grandfather,

Who chipped through his kidnapper’s

Table — This time, we had no choice.

We did slowly in those days.

 

(Interlude: I once heard,

When I was young,

When there were more of us,

That the murderer women wore our feathers

On their hats.)

 

One day I’ll find another

Like me —

A woman with a black crest,

Elegant, long wings that swoop patterns in the sky.

 

We’ll build our nest in a tree corpse —

Solid, supple wood.

I’ll clasp her beak, hold her closes

On rainy evenings.

 

One day they’ll all come to see us.

We’ll soar from sun-soaked trees

In Louisiana heat,

Unfurl our painted wings

 

And cry into the blue morning,

We’re here! We’re here! We’re here!

And they’ll shout again, as they always did, “Lord God! What a bird!”

 

I want to hear the triumphant trumpet

Of a golden beak I

Want to feel the embrace

Of war-hardened hands

Under a baldcypress I

Want to know that when we are gone

They will remember us.  

 

Maeve Kennedy ’24 was named a Lamont Younger Poet in 2021. The Lamont Younger Poets Prize is bestowed annually on select preps and lowers who show exceptional promise as well as achievement in the early years of developing their craft. The poem was originally published in the Winter 2022 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

I almost didn’t attend Exeter. When I showed my acceptance letter to my father, he told me that the financial aid award was not enough and he was unable to make up the difference. I had not applied to any other school — I wanted to go to Exeter, and my father, a school teacher, thought Exeter was the only school that had the resources to provide the financial aid that we needed. Happily, with additional information, the Academy adjusted the award, and I arrived as a new lower in September 1968.

Financial aid was handled differently back then. Scholarship students, as we were called, were expected to contribute several hundred dollars to the cost of tuition each year through summer earnings, and we held nonpaying “scholarship jobs” on campus that took a few hours each week. I waited on faculty tables in the dining hall and served as an admissions tour guide. Like many scholarship students, I also held paying jobs to make some additional spending money. I was very happy with these arrangements. I was at Exeter.

We’ve come a long way, in so many ways, since my student days, including with our financial aid policies. When I arrived at Exeter, there were just 217 students receiving financial aid. Since then, we have more than doubled that number, and today we have over 450 students supported through financial aid. We long ago stopped expecting students to contribute from their summer earnings or hold nonpaying jobs on campus. Our financial aid awards meet the full demonstrated need of each family, and we provide additional assistance where necessary to ensure that every student has access to the full Exeter experience.

This increased attention to access has reduced a financial barrier in the admissions process, but did not eliminate it. Students requiring financial aid still faced a more challenging admissions process due to the number of spaces available for financial aid students. That is not what John and Elizabeth Phillips intended when they founded Exeter as a free school.

Now, with the Trustees’ momentous decision in October, we can and will operate fully need-blind and realize our founders’ vision that “The Academy shall ever be equally open to youth of requisite qualifications from every quarter.” This milestone builds on the generosity of successive generations of Exonians who have contributed to financial aid endowment — most recently through the tremendous generosity of alumni and parents who have stepped forward and made this bold commitment to being need-blind a reality.

The question “Who am I?” is central to adolescence. The process of exploring that question with authenticity and goodness is complex and highly individualized. As the world becomes increasingly global and fast-paced, so do the challenges to identity. You need only look back to 2020’s cascade of crises and polarizations to appreciate the urgent impacts on adolescents who are in key stages of forming their identities.

“To be a teenager is to figure out who you are, and that is something that is fundamental to the work of secondary school education,” Religion Instructor Tom Simpson says. “How do you become a full person? How do you become a person who’s not only going to have the technical skills to thrive and succeed in today’s world, but also have the integrity and the sense of self, and the confidence, and the type of relationships, and an awareness of the ways in which our world functions, to be truly who you are and let those technical skills be used for something good?”

Supporting students as they begin the lifelong journey of discovering who they are, and building self-awareness into that process so that they may continue to thrive, is a key theme of the updated Academy mission and values released last September by Principal William Rawson ’71; P’08. Exeter’s mission is to “Unite goodness and knowledge and inspire youth from every quarter to lead purposeful lives.” Five timeless values outline Exeter’s commitment to provide the foundation from which Exonians can become productive citizens of the world. One value, “Youth Is the Important Period,” specifically addresses identity work through its emphasis on instilling a “lasting capacity to nurture one’s self, develop a sense of one’s own potential and consider one’s place in the larger whole” in order for students to develop “their values and passions and the agency needed to carry these forward.”

In these pages we take a look at some of the ways Exeter supports identity-building, including some recent innovations, through the lens of one student’s experience and in conversations with faculty. In future articles, we will continue to explore identity- building for self and in relation to being part of a diverse community.

Discovery

“Something I love about Exeter is how clubs and classes feed into each other and build off of each other to help you figure out who you are,” says Anne Brandes ’21. The club that captured this senior’s interest, starting in prep year, was The Exonian, the Academy’s student-run newspaper. In December, she completed her year as editor-in-chief.

Brandes was drawn to The Exonian as a way to make an impact on her community, but as a self-identified introvert, she initially found the work of interviewing daunting. Over time, she acclimated and made important discoveries. “It was great that I could write and I was learning how to write. That was a really significant moment for me,” she says. The other discovery was people. “I can say this confidently as a senior: The point of Exeter isn’t really to get everything right or to have your homework done perfectly or be the most well-prepared when you go into class. If you’re that person, that’s excellent and I definitely recognize why it feels comfortable to be that person, but there’s a lot to be said for taking the extra moments. … If you don’t spend time talking to people, you’re going to miss out on a significant part of Exeter.”

A highlight of Brandes’ work at The Exonian is the “Since 1878” project, an investigation of the newspaper’s coverage of racism at the Academy. Brandes and the editors started formulating the idea in June 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd ignited outrage around the world, and as the Academy was announcing initiatives to institutionalize the practice of anti-racism. “We felt that there was a dissonance between running anti-racist articles now without acknowledging how we’ve contributed to racism and documented racism in the past,” Brandes explains. “The Exonian was also having some serious conversations about its own racism much more recently than 1878 — more like 2020, 2019 — because of the lack of Black and Latinx voices in the newsroom.”

Over the summer, a core group of writers researched and wrote the pieces that comprise the series, an amount of work that Brandes considers both stunning and indicative of her peers’ commitment to the Exeter community. To publish the series, Exonian staff spent weeks fact-checking, then Brandes and a small cadre of Exonian editors worked from 11 a.m. to dorm check-in for five days in November. “Hopefully we can … continue to acknowledge the truths that are part of the Exeter community and part of The Exonian that are harder or uncomfortable to acknowledge,” she says.