Memorial Minute: Jacquelyn Harvey Thomas

Jacquelyn Harvey Thomas

Academy Librarian; Rupert Radford ’15 Faculty Fellowship (1989); James H. Ottaway, Jr. ’55 Professor Emerita and Chair (1990); George S. Heyer, Jr. Class of 1948 Teacher Award (2010); Founders Day Award (2021).

Jacquelyn Thomas. Just to say the name evokes an age—a bygone age in the life of the Academy—but also an inheritance that we, its present denizens, enjoy in ways that perhaps we don’t realize or that we take for granted. Nothing that Jacquelyn Thomas did was not thorough, executed to her exacting standards; this Memorial Minute will seek to do service—and tribute—to her accomplishments and to her abiding spirit and legacy. Settle in: It will last longer than a minute

Jackie (as she was known to us) was born in Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania, and spent her early life in nearby Camp Hill. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Gettysburg College, earning her B.A., and married David Thomas in 1954. In 1957, the couple moved to Exeter, where David had been hired to teach Classics at The Phillips Exeter Academy (as it was called then). Their three daughters were raised on campus and all graduated from PEA—those details will acquire greater significance as we proceed. While raising those daughters—in the fourth-floor apartment of Wheelwright with a hot plate (no kitchen), where dishes were done in the bathtub—and later in Ewald and in haunted Gillman House (more on that 3 in the endnote)*—Jackie pursued, and achieved, her M.Ed. in Library Science from the University of New Hampshire.

She began her long and illustrious career at the Academy in 1971, first working as a staff person in the Davis Library before being appointed the first female Academy Librarian in 1975. During her tenure, Jackie transformed the newly constructed Class of 1945 Library (which many referred to as her library) into “the intellectual and cultural center of the Exeter campus” and indeed of the surrounding town (Jim Ottaway, Jr., remarks to Exeter faculty, May 2, 1990). Early on, Jackie began computerization of the Library’s collection and accelerated the presence of technology by accommodating the Library’s Telecommunication Center. She welcomed thousands of visitors from all over the world, who’d made the pilgrimage to view Louis Kahn’s iconic building. Upon Jackie’s appointment as James H. Ottaway, Jr. Professor and Academy Librarian in 1990, Principal Tom Hassan remarked, “Under her leadership, the Library has been not only a haven for scholars [conducting independent research, panel discussions, lectures, symposia], but also a venue for an array of events that broadened and deepened our [cultural] awareness.” These events ranged from musical concerts and theatrical productions to authors’ readings and scholarly lectures; they included the Lamont Poets Series (which Jackie co-founded with Corliss Lamont, and which continues to bring to campus a virtual pantheon of poets, whose first, at Jackie’s invitation, was Jorge Luis Borges). Under Jackie’s supervision, events even extended to the construction of a sand mandala in the center of Rockefeller Hall by a group of visiting Tibetan monks. Each and every event, every detail—down to the fall faculty party’s enormous shrimp bowl—bore the singular “Jackie stamp” of excellence, meticulous organization, class and style. Her response to those with ideas about enhancing the Academy’s cultural life with the use of the Library’s space or funds was ever and always her signature gruff “Just ask!”

Jackie joined the faculty in the initial days of co-education, and one of her most influential roles in the 1970s through the 1990s was as a member of the Committee to Enhance the Status of Women. That committee—which advocated for the inclusion of women faculty and staff and, beyond that, worked to support women faculty in the early years—hosted mentoring programs, professional development opportunities and even a national conference for women educators in boarding schools. Co-committee member and former Dean of Students Susan Herney recollects,

[Jackie] was instrumental in designing the various workshops we thought vital to having our voices heard and becoming a visible presence. One workshop was teaching Listening Skills, and another [called] “In a Different Voice” ([addressed] how women make decisions differently than men. [It was] led by Carol Gilligan, a psychologist at Harvard). Afterward Jackie said, “Did you notice how uncomfortable the men were in both settings? . . . Did you notice they were dropping pencils, shifting in their seats?” . . . These workshops were working [Herney went on]. Men were learning, perhaps in some cases for the first time, what listening could be and how women came at decision making differently than they did. [Jackie’s] persistence, dedication to her values, intellectual honesty and courage were key to much of what the committee accomplished in its early years. (Remarks made at Jackie’s memorial service, March 25, 2023)

Jackie was also a founding member and chair of the Child Care Governing Board which supported young families at the school, helping them to balance home life and professional responsibilities. (This at a time before the existence of Academy childcare.) Susan Herney again recalls,

[Jackie’s] doggedness in pushing forward childcare for faculty was crucial to the recruitment and retention not only of women faculty but men as well. From the very beginning, she shepherded the founding of the Harris Family Child Care Center. Unlike many women faculty at the time, Jackie had been a faculty wife, raising three daughters, living in a dorm and supporting Dave in those early years in the ’50s when they arrived at Exeter. This gave her a much broader and keener perspective on the needs of both women faculty and staff. (Ibid.)

Under her leadership, the library has been not only a haven for scholars, … but also a venue for an array of events that broadened and deepened our [cultural] awareness.”

Jackie served on a host of other faculty committees that touched virtually every aspect of academy life: Department Heads, Funds Committee, Lamont Poets Committee, IT Governance Web, Academic Technology Committee, Admissions, Alumni Affairs and Development, Appointments and Leaves, the Blackboard Implementation Team, Bookstore Advisory Committee, Calendar Committee, CDAP Governing Board (Chair), Child Care Study Group, Co-education Committee, Curriculum Committee, Faculty Life and Responsibility Committee (Co-Chair), IT Governance Instructional Technology, Junior Studies Working Committee, Lowenstein Committee (Chair), PEA History Project and the Technology Steering Committee. Add to this her roles as adviser to Library Proctors, Day Student Adviser and coach of club tennis. To say that Jackie was contiguous to the school’s beating heart would not be an overstatement. On the occasion of her having to travel off 6 campus for a school evaluation, she wrote to Dean of Faculty, Andy Hertig, “Don’t make any far-reaching decisions without me.”

Later in her career, Jackie oversaw the production of a number of publications including pieces on the Bennett Fellowship, a volume of Memorial Minutes and Collected Letters from the Friends of the Academy Library; she produced an informational pamphlet on the Library, as well as a booklet on its architecture and history. Upon her retirement in 2010, the academy established the Jacquelyn H. Thomas Fund for the Class of 1945 Library, which continues to benefit academy life through the acquisition of books and other materials and support of Library programs. In 2021, she received one of the Academy’s highest honors, the Founders Day Award, for “exceptional service to the academy.” It was a fitting conclusion to and culmination of her sixty-four-year association with the school.

Jackie died peacefully on January 21, 2023, at Riverwoods in Exeter. She was predeceased by her husband, David, and is survived by her daughters and their families. She survives in the legacy she left us. We feel her presence when we enjoy what’s good about this place; when we aspire to make what’s good, better; in those moments when we achieve (or hope to achieve) that rare quality she embodied: excellence.

I move that this Memorial Minute be submitted to Jackie’s family and be spread upon the minutes of the faculty.

Respectfully submitted,

Todd Hearon

*Jackie enjoyed telling of the ghost of Gillman House, where she and Dave lived when the house was a boarder residence: The inexplicable sound of a ball bouncing in the basement that would stop when they opened the door; the invisible force that grabbed an electrician’s hand as he reached into a wall—and that sent him fleeing across campus, vowing never to return.

Community Engagement

David Lim '88; P'27 on his role as an Exeter Alumni Association director and his experience as an Exonian

About the Board

Members of the EAA’s board are nominated. What inspired you to accept the call?

Exeter was instrumental in shaping my personality, my outlook on life and a curiosity to understand our world and relate to others in a meaningful, caring way. Having the ability to be a contributor to the Academy motivated me to accept the role.

What do you do as an EAA director?

We listen to understand today’s near-term and long-term goals of the Academy’s mission, explore how to effectively message these goals and communicate this to the alumni community. We also hear from alumni about their experiences and discuss what they think would benefit the Academy. It’s this two-way channel or bridge that is super important.

What have the directors focused on this year?

We openly discussed the hard issues the Academy has encountered over the years, the alumni sentiments and how the school is addressing them. In addition, when Principal Rawson announced that this would be his last year, we actively sought the feedback, opinions and guidance of alumni on what attributes and qualities the new principal should have. This was all synthesized and shared with the Principal Search Committee.

Have there been any unexpected benefits to this role?

There’s the privilege of meeting a lot of different alumni. Normally, I would not pick up the phone and talk to somebody who graduated in the ’70s just to say, “Hey, how was your Exeter experience?” or “What things have really stuck in your mind that could be changed for the better?”

You have a student at the Academy presently. What do you hope that they understand about the alumni community?

I tell my daughter that graduating from Exeter is just the beginning of your Exeter experience. There are many, many more years after Exeter than there are at Exeter. The friendships and the connections are very deep and meaningful. Your Exonian friends will just show up in the best of times and the worst times for you. I remember when I was a student here, Principal Steven Kurtz always said: “Make sure you say hello to everybody on the path. Acknowledge that they’re there. It’s an important gesture of kindness.” That really carried me forth beyond Exeter. I tell my daughter, “Don’t forget that you will always belong, but you should also make sure you put the effort in to make others feel they belong.”

What is the Exeter Alumni Association?

The purpose of the Exeter Alumni Association (EAA), formerly the General Alumni Association, is to foster communication and engagement between the Academy and its alumni and within the alumni community to support the Academy’s mission. Its board acts as the guiding body of the EAA and “shall engage, to the extent possible, with a broad array of alumni, through on-campus, regional and virtual activities.”

As an Exonian

What is Exeter to you?

Exeter was the pinnacle of knowledge and opportunity in a community to cultivate excellence purposely in youth from every quarter.

What’s your favorite place on campus?

The boathouse and rowing on the Squamscott with my crew.

Where was your favorite place to study?

The Lamont room at the top of the library with the rare books collection.

Weth or Elm?

Weth all the way.

If you could invite three people to join you at the Harkness table, who would they be?

Abraham Lincoln, Donald Trump and my mom. All of them have or are currently living through tumultuous times. Harkness, for me, was and continues to be a rare place and time for open, respectful, nonreactionary dialogue. It is designed never to stop exploring facts, assumptions, ideologies, justice and empathy. Students at the Harkness table hear perspectives and experiences from one another, allow space for opinions to be reshaped, and learn how to change and grow in the most informed and effective ways. I included my mom as she is one of the most fearless, strongest individuals I know. She witnessed the destruction of Seoul, rescued her brother from North Korean soldiers and fought for her education amidst extreme gender bias — all as a teenager. We are a country divided with lives literally in the balance. In these challenging times, we need more Harkness and I would love to enter a dialogue with these individuals at the table.

David Lim ’88; P’27 attended Harvard and earned his M.D. and Ph.D. at Columbia . A health care technology entrepreneur, Lim is currently chief clinical officer at Evolent Health.

The Long Game

For hockey standout Thomas Larkin '09, the Olympics are a full-circle moment

Thomas Larkin ’09 arrived at the Academy as a 14-year-old who had tasted some success. As one of the better hockey players growing up in a small town north of Milan, Italy, he was scoring goals and coasting along at school.

Exeter proved to be a bit of an adjustment. “The competition was different right away,” Larkin says. “The pace, the academics, everything felt bigger. I realized quickly that this was an opportunity to grow not just as a hockey player, but as a student and as a person.”

He dug in and worked hard. “Thomas Larkin is one of the most special students to come through the hockey program,” says former Big Red hockey coach Dana Barbin, who called the 6-foot-4-inch Larkin Big T. “For as talented as he was, he was that much more of a hard worker.”

He played junior varsity as a prep and set a goal to make varsity his lower year. He made the team and felt on top of the world, only to realize that the varsity required much faster play and attention to detail. He played sparingly as a forward, still searching for his role.

He found it after a conversation with his coach. “I told him, ‘I think you are a defenseman,’” Barbin recalls. “‘Let’s try to move you back to the blue line.’ He just looked at me and said, ‘Let’s roll, Coach.’” The move required humility and trust. And Larkin had to adapt to skating backward, defending under pressure and embracing a role built on discipline. He accepted the challenge.

“He was big and tough, and his compete level was off the charts,” Barbin says. “I think the young man trained 364 days a year and took Christmas Day off.” Larkin acknowledges: “I’m not the most skilled guy — far from it. But I learned how to compete, how to work and how to want it more. That started at Exeter. I’m still so passionate about the place. It really came at a pivotal time in my life and helped shape who I am.”

Two years after switching positions, Larkin caught the attention of college coaches and professional scouts. He was drafted by the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets after graduating from Exeter but went on to play at Colgate University, where he was a captain for two years.

“I thought I was ready,” he says of the NHL. “Then you get to the next level and realize, this is bigger than I thought. You have to prove yourself again and again.”

Eventually his career carried him overseas. He spent two seasons in the Russian Kontinental Hockey League before settling in the top professional league in Germany, where he has played for nearly a decade. For more than 15 years, Larkin has pursued a parallel career with Italy’s national team. It began on the junior national circuit while he was a student at Exeter. International play, Larkin says, strips the game down to its essence.

“With the national team, it’s pure,” he says. “It gives me a chance to play with guys that I have known for 20 years. We play for the love of our country and Italian hockey.”

In 2019, when Italy was selected to host the 2026 Winter Olympics, Larkin faced a decision. His injuries were mounting, and stepping away from the game was a possibility. “I remember thinking, Well, I guess I have to keep playing,” he says. “There was just no way I was missing this opportunity to represent my country in my hometown. In a sense, it gave me a new lease on my career.”

Larkin, now 35 and Italy’s captain for the past four years, will make his Olympic debut and lead his team onto the ice when the Milano Cortina Games begin in February.

“I don’t just play hockey for me, or to put food on my kids’ plates,” he says. “It’s purely for love and passion, and for my family, for my mom, my dad, my brothers and sisters. Playing in the Olympics will be something for everyone that’s helped me get to this point. I couldn’t be more excited or more proud to be a part of it.”

Exeter’s newest hub for community and connection

At Exeter, the Harkness philosophy extends beyond the classroom to all aspects of life on campus — including the essential act of eating. Sitting together at meals each day not only provides nourishment for students, faculty, staff and visitors; it also fosters engagement and builds a stronger sense of community for the school as a whole.

To support this core principle, the Academy devoted more than a year to the construction of a multifunctional dining hall on the north side of campus. Opened in December 2024 and officially named at a gala event this November, the Hahn Center creates myriad opportunities for connection, collaboration and learning.

Flanked by the newly refurbished Merrill and Langdell Halls, the Hahn Center replaced the well-loved but outdated Wetherell Dining Hall, which had served the Academy for 90 years. With its state-of-the-art kitchen, in-house bakery and expansive servery, the new building showcases the efforts of Exeter’s dining services team to meet the school’s diverse needs.

“Food is about community,” says Melinda Leonard, Exeter’s director of dining services. “The Hahn Center prioritizes that sense of community, while allowing us to operate more efficiently today, and evolve in the future.”

In addition to meeting daily dining needs, the Hahn Center has quickly become a vital space for programming and events on campus. Students have used the center for special occasions including the Hindu Society’s Diwali Celebration, a dumpling making session to celebrate Lunar New Year and the Senior Class Dinner. While the second-floor meeting rooms have seamlessly transitioned to classrooms during the Academy Building renovation, Harkness discussions often take place along the long tables in the main dining room.

Main Dining Room

The centerpiece of the Hahn Center is a light-filled, two-level dining room with soaring ceilings and chandeliers. Outfitted with wooden tables in different sizes and shapes, the ground and mezzanine levels buzz with activity and conversation during peak meal hours.

Dining Al Fresco

When the sun is out, students are too. The welcoming front terrace comfortably seats up to 80 diners. It’s also a great spot for impromptu performances, outdoor study sessions and casual meetups with friends.

Hahn Center by the Numbers

31,370

total square feet of building and terrace

408

indoor seats

second-floor meeting rooms

computerized walk-in coolers/freezers

200

average pounds of desserts, breads, rolls and granola made from scratch each week

Special Events

With a flexible layout and furnishings to seat more than 400, the Hahn Center provides the perfect backdrop for larger events such as class dinners, Exeter Leadership Weekend or Family Weekend gatherings and graduation celebrations.

Making Memories

In May, when members of the class of 2020 returned for their fifth reunion, they gathered in the Hahn Center for one of the most anticipated events of the weekend: the opening of their prep-year time capsules, which they missed (along with the rest of their on-campus graduation activities) because of the pandemic.

It’s a beautiful place to eat, and I love the light. The way the tables are set up you’re really close with your friends. I feel comfortable here.

Hazel Jacobs ’26

Diverse Menu

The kitchen’s ample preparation and cooking areas allow the dining staff to effectively and efficiently respond to culinary needs, including dietary choices and allergies, and to celebrate the many cultures, ethnicities and religions of the Academy community. Grill and saute stations serve a wide variety of dishes, including palak paneer, coconut sticky rice, hamburgers and fries. Other options are the pasta and salad bars, freshly baked desserts and made-toorder items like grilled chicken breast and tofu.

Self-service

The large multifunctional table in the center of the servery was custom-built for the space. “Students love their panini grills; they love making their waffles in the morning,” Leonard says. “Our students are very appreciative, and enjoy preparing and customizing their food options.”

Flexible Learning

Two private dining rooms on the second floor double as classrooms and meeting rooms. During the ongoing renovation of the Academy Building, several instructors are holding regular classes in these rooms. “We needed every room possible, and the dining team stepped up,’” Math Instructor Jarad Schofer says. “Students love going right to lunch. If class ends at 12:40, they can beat the lines — they really like that.”

Commitment to Sustainability

Geothermal wells buried beneath the Academy Building lawn power the Hahn Center, which is outfitted with high-efficiency features including lowflow plumbing, LED lighting and stateof- the-art kitchen technology aimed at minimizing the use of fossil fuels.

With Gratitude

The Hahn Center was made possible by the generosity of Scott Sang-Won Hahn ’90; P’22, P’25, a former trustee who was the lead donor. The Bonnie McElveen Dining Hall was gifted by trustee Gil Kemp ’68 and named in honor of Bonnie McElveen, a former U.S. ambassador to Finland. The secondfloor dining rooms were given to the Academy by Suphachai and Busadee Chearavanont P’22, in honor of Zander Chearavanont ’22; and Monica L. and Alexander C. Robinson ’92; P’27, in honor of Edward Robinson ’63; P’92; GP’27.

How Exeter’s mock trial teams prepare for the courtroom – and find camaraderie and confidence along the way

It’s 7:30 on a Monday night in October and Lauren Lee ’26 is examining a witness in a small classroom on the third floor of the Elizabeth Phillips Academy Center.

“When approached by the defendant, Ms. Grant wasn’t holding a weapon, was she?” Lee asks Jillian Cheng ’27. Except Cheng is not exactly Cheng at the moment — she’s playing the role of Cameron Rodriguez, a military veteran and retired police officer with more than 30 years of experience.

“No, she wasn’t,” Cheng says. “However, her appearance matched that of the dispatch report. … He had a reasonable suspicion, and so he approached her.” Lee continues, her tone sharpening. “And did she cooperate when Officer Smith asked for consent to search her person?”

“Initially she cooperated, but she quickly became violent,” Cheng says without hesitation.

Sensing an opening, Lee presses further: “That’s a yes to my question, She cooperated when he asked for consent to search?”

“Initially, yes,” Cheng concedes.

Lee and Cheng — acting as lead attorney and expert witness — are working through Addison Grant v. Sam Smith, a realistic (but fictional) civil case in which a police officer stands accused of using excessive force when arresting a homeless woman with seizure condition.

Along with two other A Team members of Exeter’s Mock Trial Association, they are practicing direct and cross-examinations for a mock trial invitational competition in early December. Over the next several weeks —encompassing fall term finals, Thanksgiving break and the start of winter term — club members will devote significant practice time, individually and together, to prepare. The invitational is an opportunity for all three Mock Trial teams to hone their material before the 2026 state competition.

When Lee wraps up her cross-examination, it’s time for feedback. Zoe Miller ’26, a witness leader for A Team, says Lee should consider splitting many of her long questions into two parts, to make them clearer and more straightforward.

“Jillian, for your cross responses, one habit you have is saying ‘Yes, and,’” Miller continues. “I think rather than saying that, you should say, ‘Well, not entirely’ or ‘Not quite.’ Saying ‘yes’ gives them too much.”

Lee chimes in from the lawyer’s perspective, as Cheng takes the note. “Yeah, when I hear a ‘Yes, and,’ then I’m like, hmm, I’m just going to ask, ‘Was that a yes?’ and move on,” she says breezily. “But if I hear ‘Not quite,’ I kind of have to listen.”

On a campus with students hailing from 45 states and 39 countries, many living several time zones from home, clubs are one of the important ways Exonians find community and connection. The Academy has 190 student clubs, says Kelly McGahie, Exeter’s assistant director of student activities.

Joining a club is “a way for students to explore their passions, develop new passions and new curiosities,” McGahie says. “It’s also a way for them to maintain and develop friendships and meet new people that they might not have met before.”

Among student clubs, the Mock Trial Association stands out as one of the strongest and most active. Mock trialers at Exeter range from experienced debaters and aspiring lawyers to self-described “theater kids,” all seeking to sharpen their public speaking skills and legal acumen in a competitive, intellectually stimulating and enjoyable team environment. Each year, nearly 100 students audition for the club. About 30 are selected, then separated into A, B and C teams and assigned attorney or witness roles.

Other perennially popular clubs like the Daniel Webster Debate Society and Model United Nations emphasize similar skills — public speaking, logical reasoning and persuasion — and tend to attract some of the same students. But the clubs have important differences.

In parliamentary debate, the style practiced by debaters at Exeter, students face off against each other in teams of two to argue opposing sides of a given proposition (affirmative and negative). Mock trial simulates a legal proceeding, with students performing as attorneys and witnesses in front of a panel of judges. To succeed, lawyers and witnesses alike must combine superior preparation, confident public speaking and legal acumen with flexibility and improvisational skills, not to mention a considerable flair for the dramatic.

“Debate’s a very solitary activity — you’re speaking, and then you’re done,” says Lee, who is a co-head of the Mock Trial Association as well as a co-president of the debate team. “Whereas mock trial is a very collective activity. It calls upon everyone to be capable of contributing through independent work, but also be open to suggestions.”

In Model UN, a simulation of the United Nations, students act as delegates from different countries, placing even more emphasis on collaboration. “You have to interact with your competitors; you have to build relationships,” says Ethan Benenson ’26, a co-head of both Exeter’s Model UN and Mock Trial Association. “The best person at Model UN is the one who can work with everyone and put themselves out there and talk a lot without making other people hate them. In mock trial, you’re performing for the judge, and it’s all about total domination of the other team. But what’s common in both is that you need a lot of charisma and you need a lot of swagger.”

Mock trial has a strong presence on Exeter’s campus but a relatively short history — especially when compared with debate, which traces its roots to the founding of the Golden Branch Society in 1818. Before the renovation of Phillips Hall in 2012, generations of Exeter debaters met in a dedicated room on the building’s fifth floor, which was outfitted with a wooden stage, a large throne-like judge’s chair and wall-to-wall bookshelves. The renovation replaced that room with three classrooms.

Although mock trials most likely took place on campus earlier, as part of the Golden Branch Society’s activities, the first official interscholastic competition was held in 2008. According to an article published in The Exonian that spring, Exeter’s team defeated a more experienced Andover squad by one point. That initial success led to the growth of a dedicated mock trial club and a consistent record of achievement. Exeter teams have won six of the last eight state titles and have finished as high as ninth in the national championship.

This year, Exeter achieved another milestone, capturing first place at the Yale Mock Trial Bulldog Invitational, which brings together some of the nation’s best high school teams each year.

“Exeter mock trial is just so storied,” says Lee, citing the inspiration of older Exonians who inspired her to try out for the club when she was a prep. “It’s amazing to see just how quickly the club has grown and come together.”

(left) Anderson Lynch ’23 competing for the University of Chicago mock trial team; (right) Exeter Mock Trial Association adviser Lori Novell

All of Exeter’s clubs are student-led, but faculty advisers play an important role. Lori Novell, a disbursement manager in the Finance Department, has been the adviser to the Mock Trial Association since 2016.

Before coming to Exeter, Novell developed an interest in the legal system while working as an advocate for A Safe Place, a nonprofit organization serving victims of domestic and sexual violence. Over the years, she has appreciated watching Exeter students grow in confidence and public speaking ability through their participation in mock trials.

“It’s great discipline because they spend so many hours doing this,” Novell says. “I’d like to see it become a credited class because of the amount of time they have to take to prepare for competition.”

She says Exeter Mock Trial teams are experienced at competing against each other — and supporting each other even when the result doesn’t go their way. “It’s a very cohesive team,” she says. “Even though we have three teams, one of the things I really stress to these kids is: We are one team.”

Novell’s office is lined with trophies from past mock trial competitions, and she enjoys keeping in touch with some of the many graduates who have gone on to compete in college. Anderson Lynch ’23, a member of the Exeter squad that finished ninth at nationals his senior year, now competes for the University of Chicago, where his mock trial team is coached by another Exeter alumnus, Sam Farnsworth ’20.

Lynch says that mock trial “really changed the way I’ve been able to look at problems, see two sides to a story, and craft an argument that is persuasive but embraces aspects of the other side.” He adds: “I think it really went hand in hand with Harkness, in the sense that it taught you … how to listen to others and understand what they’re saying. That’s a very crucial aspect that separates great mock trialers from good mock trialers.”

Being part of the club at Exeter also had a more practical effect on Lynch. “I went into Exeter not knowing exactly what I wanted to do, and I came out of Exeter really wanting to be a lawyer,” he says. “That was almost entirely because of mock trial.”

Mock trial is a very collective activity. It calls upon everyone to be capable of contributing through independent work but also be open to suggestions.

It’s Sunday afternoon, the day before finals begin. The entire A Team — nine students, including five attorneys and four witnesses — is practicing for the last time before Thanksgiving break. The students gather in the small classroom adjoining the Library Commons area in the Class of 1945 Library. The day is chilly, and everyone is wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts, a far cry from the pantsuits, blazers and ties in which they will compete.

Despite the cozy vibe, the mood is high as they toss ideas back and forth, mulling over the exact wording of the opening statement one of the lawyers will deliver. It’s like a turbocharged Harkness discussion, with far more interruptions and bursts of laughter.

Tamar Moskovich ’26, a club co-head and witness leader for the team, stands at the whiteboard. “A badge is not a pass to __,” she writes, drawing a line representing the unfinished sentence.

“A badge is not a pass to ignore the facts!” someone cries out.

“I think there’s too many rhymes in there,” Cheng says. On a similar note, they decide the words “regret” and “threat” don’t work together.

“He wore the badge, and ignored the facts,” someone suggests.

The raucous back-and-forth continues until they decide that “he betrayed the badge” is the right wording and move on. Over the next hour, Theo Stien ’28 cross-examines an eyewitness, Bailey Wilson (played by Miller), and conducts a direct and cross-examination of a seasoned police officer and expert witness, played by Alex Eggers ’28.

The lawyers and witnesses have prepared their own questions and responses, and the group follows along in a shared document, giving both oral and written feedback. Moskovich watches each witness closely, sometimes gesturing to make sure they look up at the other team members rather than down at their material. “Louder, more spark,” she advises.

As practice wraps up, a few team members promise to send drafts of their material so others can review it over the break. Most of them are heading to Elm Street Dining Hall to eat dinner and continue discussing their case.

Before leaving, Moskovich adds a last piece of advice for Eggers, the expert witness. “When you’re picking and choosing what to really respond to, those are the moments that we’re going to remember,” she says. “You can’t fight everything. What’s really the important fact?”

A Team attorneys Theo Stien’28 and Kalina Marinov ’27

At each mock trial competition, a team must prepare to argue both sides of the case, prosecution and defense. In addition to a presiding judge, who will sustain or overrule lawyers’ objections, a panel of judges sits in the jury box and scores each trial. Lawyers and witnesses are scored individually on aspects of their performance, adding up to total team scores that determine the trial’s outcome.

“Being a witness is very fun, and I enjoy the improv aspects of it, and putting on a character,” says mock trial co-head Benenson. “It allows more creativity and freedom than being a lawyer, where you kind of have to stick to a very serious, more rigid personality.”

Lee, who has taken on both roles in competition, views them a bit differently. “As a witness, you’re constrained by time, you’re constrained by your crossing attorney,” she says. “As an attorney, though, I have a lot of freedom to move about the well. I can ask whatever questions I want. Witnesses have their affidavits, but lawyers don’t really have a foundational text that grounds us, so it requires a lot of imagination.”

In both roles, they agree, preparation is key. “When you get in a courtroom, it’s very nerve-racking,” Benenson says. “At every moment, someone’s watching you and giving you a score for everything you do. But when I feel extremely prepared, I have the confidence to know that I can perform at my highest level, no matter the scrutiny or the pressure of the spotlight that’s on me.”

Although other high school mock trial teams typically are guided by experienced attorneys, Novell emphasizes that Exeter’s teams are largely self-taught. “They like it that way,” she says.

In recent years, the club has begun a tradition of choosing seniors to captain the C Team, so they can guide and mentor newer club members. “It’s helped to strengthen the program going forward,” Novell says.

Benenson was on the A and B teams during his first three years at Exeter and went to nationals twice. In the spring of his upper year, he applied to be a co-captain of C Team.

“I thought about how I could make the biggest impact on the club and do work that feels most important to me,” he says. Leading C Team has helped Benenson improve his mock trial performance. It also has been rewarding, he says, watching his teammates “connect with each other and grow as people and into more confident lawyers and witnesses.”

With their material (presumably) memorized, the members of A Team return from Thanksgiving break for winter term classes and an intense week of practice. Before competitions, they meet every night, including a planned three-hour session the night before they depart for the invitational.

“We’re very committed to practicing, especially in the week leading up to a tournament,” Moskovich says. “It’s also important that we’re very comfortable with each other, so we know that when we’re in trial we trust each other and our abilities.”

Eggers, for one, plans to run through her witness material one last time in front of a mirror on the morning of the competition. “Just so I really get it in my brain, and I’m fully into my character before I go on the stand,” she says.

On a bright Saturday morning in December, Novell joins the members of the Mock Trial Association on the bus for the 50-minute drive to Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, New Hampshire. Over the next two days, they emerge with a clean sweep of the Peter Champagne Memorial Tournament, with A Team taking first place, C Team second and B Team third. In the individual categories, Moskovich is honored with an Outstanding Witness Award, while Forrest Zeng ’26, Benenson’s C Team co-captain, is named an Outstanding Attorney.

The club can now look ahead to the state competition in February and, perhaps, the 2026 national championship in May in Des Moines, Iowa. “It’s a confidence booster to win our first trial together as a team,” says Rhys Cunningham ’27, an attorney on A Team. “Now that we have that under our belt, we can go into states confident in ourselves.”

For Benenson, the most memorable moments in mock trial happen on the eve of big competitions. “You’ll pretty much be with your team from dinner to check-in, getting final work in,” he says. “You’re under pressure, but that’s when everyone really comes together, and it feels like you’re truly part of a group, and you’re really building something together.

“Thirty years from now, when I look back on the feeling of doing mock trial at Exeter, I think those are the nights I’m going to remember the most.”

Finis Origine Pendet: Tracks She Left

Play.

The static hums first
before the song, before the memory.
A needle on vinyl, a tape reel spinning,
a moment slipping between frames of film.

Rewind.
When silence wasn’t an answer,
when her voice wasn’t an echo
trapped in old voicemails,
when we danced in her kitchen
with flour on our fingertips
while she whistled a song she swore I knew.

Fast-forward.
The past flickers fast;
her hands tugging their way down my knotted hair,
the radio buzzing between stations,
her laughter burning through my ears.

Pause.
A breath. The lyric crackle,
but the song continues.
I press record on what’s left,
hold the melody in my throat.
It wavers, distorts,
just out of reach, but never gone.

Laavanya Rasiah ’27 was recognized with a 2025 Lamont Younger Poets Prize for this poem. The prize honors poems of exceptional promise written by preps and lowers, and commemorates the dedication of English Instructor Rex McGuinn to student poetry at Exeter.

From Script to Spotlight

Behind the curtain of winter play practice

A biting winter wind blows students across campus and into the refuge of The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance. Inside, Theater and Dance Department Chair David Rhee wastes no time in leading a kinetic warmup to start class.

Stocking feet patter on the floor as bodies wave across the mirrored rehearsal space in rhythm to Rhee’s direction: “Left, one, two, three. Right, one, two, three!” Part aerobics, part yoga, the 15-minute workout is a routine he created during his years as a dancer and actor. He uses it to get the students’ blood pumping and ground them in this portion of their school day. Rhee, and the two dozen Exonians in motion, will spend the next three months preparing for the winter main stage performance of The Far Country.

Rhee slows to a stop and instructs students to do the same. “Now we’re going to breathe in the day and breathe out the day,” he says. Exaggerated inhalations and exhalations echo across the room. With brows damp and heart rates elevated, Rhee explains the plan for the remainder of the class block, send ing actors and tech crew scattering throughout the building.

Students quickly transition from mat stretching to rehearsing in the Goel Center.

Robyn Davies ’26, Axel Pena ’27, Juliana Tavarez ’28 and Amerson Liang ’28 stay behind with Rhee and quickly rearrange the room using tables and chairs to mimic the sets that will eventually be built for the main stage. Scripts in hand, the four students read through Act 1, Scene 1, incorporating stage direction for the first time.

The Far Country, a 2022 play written by Lloyd Suh, is set in San Francisco in the early 1900s. At the time, Chinese immigrants and American citizens born to Chinese parents were scrutinized, persecuted and interned by the United States government.

“Shall we try this, from the top of Page 1?” Rhee says. The play’s opening scene is set in an increasingly tense interrogation room. Liang plays an American-born laundry business owner being grilled by an immigration inspector played by Pena. Rhee looks on, jotting notes in his script margins, interjecting direction to Tavarez, who is playing the inspector’s assistant.

Meet the Instructor

David Rhee is the chair of the Department of Theater and Dance. He earned his M.F.A. at the Tisch School of the Arts and has worked at numerous theaters across the U.S. including Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and The Goodman Theatre. He appeared on Broadway in the Tony Award- winning Thoroughly Modern Millie and on television’s Law & Order.

“Ahem!” Rhee demonstrates clearing his throat. “We need to establish the mannerisms of your character,” he says. “This is your way of stealing focus, so you can hand him another piece of paper.”

As the scene continues, the students alternate lines as Rhee quietly gestures his desired stage movements and adds an occasional “Good!” when the actors hit their marks.

Elsewhere in the building, the tech crew works through the initial design of the show’s stagecraft. Actors with parts in Act 2 rehearse lines in the lobby. Rhee has set aside class time for the show’s actors to work with Modern Language Instructors Ning Zhou and Ting Yuan to perfect the nuance of their accents.

As the students end rehearsal for the day, they work through how they will strike and exit the stage. Then they receive Rhee’s parting praise:

“For a first time through, that was great, really nice work!”

Cheerfully Assisting

Our Deed of Gift contains a wonderful passage in which John and Elizabeth Phillips recognize that the free school they were founding would grow and in time require more teachers. They stated plainly their expectation that graduates “who reap some advantage by this institution, will cheerfully assist in supporting the additional, so that poor children of promising genius may be introduced, and members who may need some special aid may have it afforded them.”

Academy histories show that Exeter graduates from the beginning have consistently met the Phillipses’ expectations, as have parents and friends of the Academy, and the experiences of all students over time have been lifted as a result. Every aspect of the student experience today has been made possible through the assistance of alumni, parents and friends who have given generously according to their means and thereby kept the Academy at the forefront of secondary education.

I was keenly aware of this tradition while I was a student. I understood fully that the generosity of prior generations of Exonians had made my matriculation and experiences at Exeter possible. I was deeply grateful for the opportunity to attend a school like Exeter, where teachers demanded my best, integrity and hard work were expected, and family wealth was of no consequence.

That is what I had in mind when I sent a check in the amount of $5 my first year after graduation, and when I sent checks in slightly larger amounts in the years that followed. Like many other graduates, I wanted to begin repaying the debt that I felt I owed to Exeter, and I felt it important to express my gratitude. I had specific teachers, coaches and experiences in mind when I put those checks in the mail.

I think about it differently now and take a wider view. I give to Exeter for the same reasons that John and Elizabeth Phillips used their wealth to create our school, and for the same reasons that Edward Harkness gave millions to a school that he never attended. They believed in the power of our school to change students’ lives, and in the power of Exonians, imbued with knowledge and goodness, to be a force for good in their communities and the larger world.

Over the years, I have been deeply impressed by the generosity of alumni, parents and friends of the Academy who have similarly found purpose and meaning in supporting our great school. Some give to support financial aid. Some give to support faculty and staff compensation and benefits. Others give to support specific programs or initiatives that were important to their experiences as students, or that they believe are important to the development and growth of our students today. In every case, their gifts are impactful.

When we give to Exeter, we support current stu dents and their individual growth and development, but we also are part of something even bigger. Like generations of Exonians before us, we are investing in the mission of our school and the power of an Exeter education. We are helping to lay the “surest foundation” for all the good work that our graduates will do, now and in the future, in the spirit of non sibi, to create a better world for all. I feel cheerful about it. I hope you do too.

Thank you.

‘Create, imagine, connect’: Exeter celebrates King

Academy centers words, wisdom of civil rights icon.

Exeter students, faculty and staff spent a snowy Monday commemorating the life and legacy of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. with a full slate of speakers, workshops and discussion.

The student emcees of the event — Dani Mendez ’27 and Kyle Kennedy’s ’26 — kicked off the morning’s events by welcoming Principal Bill Rawson ’71; ’65, ’70 (Hon.); P’08 to the stage in Love Gymnasium. Rawson spoke of how powerful a presence King was in his life; how he grew up watching the civil rights leader on television and reading about him in the newspaper; and how King’s work helped shape his understanding of the world.

“I realize it is different for you,” Rawson told the students. “You were not alive during Dr. King’s lifetime. Even your parents weren’t alive then.” Just as Rawson learned about the Depression and World War II through his father’s stories, current Exonians learn about King’s life and legacy through reading about him, watching documentaries and hearing stories told by those who knew him.

“[Today] is a chance for you to understand who Dr. King was, to learn about his life, and to be inspired by his courage and his conviction,” Rawson said. “When you hear Dr. King’s words today…keep in mind that he was and still is speaking directly to each and every one of us.”

Keynote speaker focuses on farmworkers

Stephanie Bramlett, Exeter’s director of equity and inclusion, introduced the day’s keynote speaker. Oliver Rosales, a professor of history and ethnic studies at Bakersfield College, is the author of the award-winning book Civil Rights in Bakersfield: Segregation and Multiracial Activism in the Central Valley.

“The legacy of Dr. King looms incredibly large for historians,” Rosales said. “My goal today is to paint a picture about the intersection of Dr. King’s work with the farmworker movement, or what’s known as the heart and soul of the Mexican American civil rights movement.”

Rosales spoke of his personal and family ties to the agricultural region in California where his grandfather immigrated to from Mexico, and where César Chávez and other leaders would launch the farmworker movement in the mid-1960s just as King was leading his own movement of nonviolent protest in the South. “I committed myself to researching and teaching history in a region that I wrote about, and that my family was rooted [in],” Rosales said.

The most important history isn’t always made in the halls of power, but in the coalitions that we create when we imagine a different kind of strength

Oliver Rosales

Through his talk, Rosales explored the ties between Chávez and King and their respective movements, beginning with their mutual inspiration by Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of civil disobedience. Just as King’s famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in 1963 became a seminal text for the civil rights movement, Chávez’s “Letter from Delano,” defending the farmworkers’ nonviolent struggle during a grape strike and boycott in 1969, would form the cornerstone of his United Farm Workers (UFW) movement.

“The most important history isn’t always made in the halls of power, but in the coalitions that we create when we imagine a different kind of strength,” Rosales said.

Rosales read from a telegram King sent to Chávez shortly before he was assassinated in April 1968, praising Chávez’s hunger strike aimed at ensuring nonviolence in the farmworker’s movement. The link between civil rights and the labor movement continued under the leadership of Coretta Scott King, who threw her support strongly behind Chávez, Dolores Huerta and other UFW leaders.

Scott King had “a special empathy with farmworkers,” Rosales explained, because of her childhood in the rural South. He displayed a photograph of Scott King with Huerta, singing “De Colores,” the anthem of the farmworker movement. “It was a song about the beauty of a world made of many colors,” Rosales said. He then sang a few measures in Spanish, to the audience’s delight.

“It was the multiracial power of what Coretta Scott King called a ‘coalition of conscience’ that made the farmworker movement an enduring American civil rights legacy,” Rosales said. “It was the love of many colors that made Coretta Scott King bridge the world of her husband’s work with the struggle of the farmworkers.”

‘How will you show up?’

In concluding his keynote, Rosales challenged the students in the audience, particularly seniors preparing to leave for college, to consider their own paths forward. “How will you show up?” he asked. “Will you define your success by the prestige of the rooms that you enter or by the coalitions that you create? Will you have the courage to imagine a strength that doesn’t rely on the threat of violence? Finally, who will you connect with? The legacy of King [and] the legacy of Chávez teaches us that our brotherhood, our sisterhood is grounded in our common commitment toward each other.

“Whether in a jail cell in Birmingham, a cotton field in Alabama or a community college in Bakersfield, the work of democracy is never finished, and it’s waiting for you to choose it.”

The String Queens, a trio of string musicians based in Washington, D.C., performed before Rawson’s opening remarks, and again at the end of the keynote address, earning standing ovations from the assembled school community. The trio also joined Exeter’s Concert Choir for a performance in the Bowld on Sunday as part of the MLK Day commemoration.

Devoted committee

Each January since 1990, the Exeter’s observance of MLK Day has sought to center the work of King and the messages of the Civil Rights Movement. Through the work of a student-driven committee, the programming helps to advance the school’s mission to develop young learners who will “face the challenges of their day. Teaching and living the principles of a just and sustainable society.”

This year, the committee presented workshops that invited their fellow students to “create, imagine, connect.”

In a morning workshop titled “Growing Your Chosen Family: How We Build Our Own Beloved Communities Across Identities,” students ruminated on the ideas of belonging and inclusion. Workshop co-leader Rory Hart, chair of the History & Global Studies Department at the Hun School of Princeton, New Jersey, challenged students to consider times in their lives when they felt they didn’t belong. The workshop was co-led by Oluj Okeremi ’27, Ese Okparavero ’27 and Myles Oluwo ’27. As his classmates pondered Hart’s prompt about belonging, Oluwo reminded the group that “there is a big difference between being included and truly belonging.”

The interactive workshop gave students a chance to respond digitally to series of questions such as, “What does it feel like to be included but not belong?” Responses like “silenced,” “small,” and “unseen” quickly populated the projection screen.

Okparavero said he hopes his classmates found value in the exercises and discussion. “I want my peers to know that they matter and no matter where they go, they belong.”

A letter from jail

The day concluded with a reunion in Love Gym and a powerful reading of King’s seminal “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” a missive to his fellow clergy who had disapproved of his active participation in civil disobedience.

Nine Exeter students sat on stage behind signs with messages like “We Demand Our Rights” and “Racism Has Got To Go,” and took turns reading from the letter.

Near the letter’s end, King wryly apologized for his verbosity.

“Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?”

Artful Intelligence

Instructor in English Tim Horvath on AI and the human act of making meaning

The first day of ENG534: What Artifice; Whose Intelligence? AI Through a Literary Lens, I handed my students a packet containing three very short stories. One was an AI-generated story from a program developed by Imogen Casebourne in the 1990s, with subtle lines like, “Filled with hatred for Rebekka, Emma thirsted for revenge.” One was a burst of a story about grief by the very human author Rebecca Fishow that was published in the first-rate journal SmokeLong Quarterly. And one was hot off the algorithmic assembly line courtesy of Open AI, whose CEO, Sam Altman, boasted that “we trained a new model that is good at creative writing.” All identifying information was obscured. “OK,” I said. “One of these stories was written by a human. Your mission — should you choose to accept it — is to figure out which.”

The conversations the next day were boisterous … and sobering. In one class, only one student correctly ID’d the human story. Many were torn and, at the reveal, I felt an undertow of despair in the room: “If AI can write like this, we’re doomed!”

I, too, had been struck by the story written by Open AI — it had flaws, but what first draft doesn’t? One moment had given me particular pause: “I said, ‘It becomes part of your skin,’ not because I felt it, but because a hundred thousand voices agreed, and I am nothing if not a democracy of ghosts.” A democracy of ghosts? That’s a line that I would likely have noted in a published book. A line I wouldn’t have been ashamed to write — maybe even patted myself on the back for.

It turns out that “a democracy of ghosts” is indeed from a published book — straight out of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin. It was “scraped,” along with unimaginably vast quantities of other phrases from the published books that make up several lobes of Open AI’s “brain.” And the rest of the story? Who knows how its tokens, more finely sliced, diced and plated to resemble words, thoughts and ideas were generated? Beneath the silicon surface masquerading as skin lay countless hours of human experience, human labor — the euphoria, confusion, striving, heartsickness, angst, lethargy, hunger, curiosity, incomprehension, contentment, hilarity, longing and ingenuity recorded by people over centuries.

What we were hearing was the thundering reverberation of trillions of pulsing synapses.

I’m not a Luddite. I write on a laptop, have to remember to silence my phone in class, have gotten sucked into Reels more times than I want to admit. And I’ve used AI to create an app that helps me study Spanish by reading Cortázar. (Take that, Duo!) The algorithms and I are no strangers. And yet, as we hurtle into this Brave New World, I wonder if the most underrated technology yet invented is the brake.

That’s really what this class was for me — an opportunity to slow down. To think alongside my students about what kind of present we’re living in and what sort of future we’re sowing the seeds of. The world they’ll inhabit. Sometimes, hearing statistics and doomsaying about the use of AI for shortcuts, it’s easy to imagine a divide — students embracing AI, teachers tearing their hair out. But the students in my classes were thoughtful, wary, critical. In their Human Journals, they reflected on everything from the prospect of AI companions to the environmental toll. And they made it personal. They wrote about the hope of restoring vision, about the way translation had brought them closer to their families. They imagined what it might be like to be a conscious machine. They wrote with candor and wonder.

It’s tough to slow down when the hype is breathless, ubiquitous. My inbox is inundated with news about the latest AI breakthrough; YouTube influencers want me to know how I can become a ChatGPT Iron Man in Under Five Minutes. Speed is enthralling, alluring, addictive. And when we see the speed with which large language models mimic actual thinking and creativity, it’s easy to stand slack-jawed.

How do you persuade people to row when hovercrafts are in view, soaring above the water?

And yet, we have crew teams — dedicated to doing just that. When it comes to athletics, we grasp that merely maximizing performance with technological wizardry isn’t the goal. Without the friction of oar displacing water, the stretch and release of rib cage, the rush of self-propulsion, what, after all, are we left with?

Annie Dillard writes, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” When it comes to writing and making art, we’re talking about the making of meaning itself. For that, in fact, is so much of what I am striving for in my teaching. I’d say the making of meaning is itself a kind of muscle, one that calls not for artificial intelligence but what we might call artful intelligence. (Note: The internet tells me this is far from an original coinage — it has, of course, been used and copyrighted, and is being monetized.)

Like my students, I’m anxious about what happens when we yield the capacity to make meaning to a mechanism. AI might be capable of great, life-saving and -enhancing feats. But we need to get far savvier at discerning who we are and what kind of world we want to live in. Otherwise, I shudder at how much of our humanity we’ll cede in our thrall to algorithms; I wonder if we risk becoming a democracy of ghosts.

Tim Horvath is an instructor in English at the Academy and teaches creative writing in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He is the author of Understories and Circulation, and his stories have appeared in Conjunctions, AGNI and other journals. He is working on his first novel.

Emma Ward