Phillips Exeter Academy

Going the distance

Conversation starters

Fish bone broth

With each smack of the knife against the cutting board, the odor of raw fish grows stronger. My mother tosses precisely cut chunks of northern red snapper into the pot of boiling water, then adds a bulb of spring onion, minced ginger, diced tofu and a sprinkle of goji berries — steps she’s performed countless times to make her famous fish-bone broth.

I first tried her broth at the age of 5, when Mom walked into the playroom carrying a blue porcelain bowl, picked out a small piece of fish with her chopsticks, and fed it to me. As I chewed, something jabbed the roof of my mouth: a fish bone my mom had overlooked. I panicked and swallowed the bone, feeling it lodge in my throat. Afraid to say anything, I dutifully opened my mouth for more, but from that moment on, my relationship with the soup was fraught.

As I grew older, I could no longer conceal my disgust for the broth, full of tofu with fish scales stuck to it and soggy goji berries. Whenever the familiar odor permeated the house, I’d scowl, throw a tantrum, and threaten to starve. My mom insisted fish broth is the brain’s golden food, nutritious and healthy, but her comments did nothing to lessen my loathing.

One day, as I feigned vomiting at the bowl in front of me, my mom told me about her childhood in a village in southern China. At 9 years old she attended an elementary school in the city, staying at a friend’s house during the week and riding her bike home on weekends. Before she left for school on Monday mornings, her mother would prepare a bento box with a few pieces of meat and vegetables. The meager portion was supposed to last until Friday. When the contents of her bento box ran out, my mother’s diet consisted of rice doused in soy sauce, the only food her host family offered. Pride prevented her from asking for more.

As I stared at the broth, now forming a film of oil, a wave of guilt washed over me. How could I have been so insensitive? Fish-bone broth was an emblem of the life my mom had struggled to attain, one in which she could provide her children with the abundance she’d never had.

Reaching across the table, my mom skimmed the film away, revealing the creamy white soup she’d spent years perfecting. I picked up my spoon and began to eat.

Amy Lin ’25 wrote this narrative story for an English course with Instructor Ellee Dean ’01. It was published in The Sun magazine Readers Write section in May 2024.

This article was first published in the winter 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Brain training

Did you ever hear a coach say, “Get your head in the game”? The idea was that by simply focusing your brain, you would play better.

Students in this fall’s new Exeter Innovation course EXI540: Performance and the Brain studied links just like that, connections between the brain’s cognitive functions and an individual’s ability to perform well in various tasks, whether physical, mental or cognitive. Conceived and taught by Instructor in Physical Education Don Mills, the course paired readings at the Harkness table with meaningful activities to focus on real time application of skills and strategies used to build strong systems of success for everyday life at Exeter and beyond.

“Initially students assumed this would be a sports psychology class,” Mills says, “but it really went down a path that impacted their daily personal development. It was interesting to hear how students wanted to work on themselves, put a plan into effect, and learn the science behind training your brain to make the plan work.”

Charles Dobbins ’25 says: “The class was a really eye-opening way to learn about yourself. It was so interesting to learn about how the chemistry in your brain influences the decisions that we make and how it affects long-term health, happiness and demeanor.”

One assignment tasked students with developing a personal performance-enhancement plan. They identified the formation of a habit — how it is constructed, maintained and broken — and experimented and implemented practical techniques to design personal systems of growth. In an era when distractions like smartphones and social media are consistently competing for more attention, this led several students to pursue a path to decreased screen time, less procrastination and more production.

“I was using strategies we read about and discussed in class in an attempt to not be on my phone as much,” Dobbins says. “I was trying to make the habit of grabbing my phone be unattractive and used some apps that take away the instant gratification of social media. I was able to decrease my weekly average screen time by two hours.”

For Kai Dunham ’25, “This class allowed me to take care of myself while learning how to be successful. … It was easy to participate around the table because the content applies to everyone — everyone has good habits, bad habits, and things they can better understand about themselves.”

Mills concluded: “This class featured students that hold various passions and I hope they were all able to leave this class with tools to build success.”

This article was first published in the winter 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Nurturing our future

— Daneet Steffens ’82 is a books-focused journalist. She has contributed to the Bulletin since 2013.

This article was first published in the winter 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Remembering the Ioka Theatre

This article was first published in the winter 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Song of thyself

Brick by brick

Armed with architect Louis Kahn’s original blueprints and the digital building application Studio, Nathan Frankel ’25 designed an 86,000-piece model of the Class of 1945 Library on his computer — then saw it through to construction.

More than a year later, the ambitious Lego Library was unveiled this fall at Family Weekend. It featured the building’s signature grand entry stairway, giant ovals in Rockefeller Hall, working lights and, of course, books and minifigure students with backpacks and water bottles. “I chose the library because it serves as a community place for Exeter where people can learn as well as socialize with one another,” says Frankel, co-head of the Academy Band of Lego Builders.

More than 60 faculty, staff and students helped piece the Lego library together. “During the construction phase, I made stations with pictures and instructions for building simple replicable parts of the library model, such as bookshelves or chairs,” Frankel says. “I made these stations so that anyone stopping by could easily contribute by following the diagrams and building Lego furniture.”

For Frankel, the project was a natural next step. “I have been building with Legos since I was 3,” he says. “Over the years, I have spent many hours playing with Legos with my twin brother. I began designing Lego creations during my prep year, when I created a Lego Spider-Man mosaic for my dorm room wall with my dormmates.”

The project was supported by the Friends of the Academy Library, an alumni network that provides funding for various projects in the library.

Lego Library by the Numbers

260

hours of work on the project

86,000

Lego pieces

100

minifigures of students and staff

15,000

1×1 Lego plates representing books

120

hours of physical construction

60+

faculty, students and staff built the model

6

countries from which Lego pieces were ordered

$6,500

budget

This article was first published in the winter 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Exeter Annotated:

Exeter Annotated:

A Cabin in the Clearing

Belonging

At Opening Assembly each year, I tell all our students — new and returning — the same three things: “You can do the work. You will make lifelong friends. Absolutely, you belong here.” These are the three things I wanted to know and would have appreciated hearing as a new lower so many years ago. Of the three, a sense of belonging is arguably the most important, because that is the foundation for thriving inside and outside the classroom and making lifelong friends.

Every student at Exeter should have a strong sense of belonging. The responsibility to make this a reality is embraced by all the adults in our community. In recent years, we have worked hard to strengthen how we welcome, support and celebrate our students across all backgrounds, experiences and identities. Examples are too numerous to list here, but they include new fall orientation programs, expanded recognition of different faith traditions and ethnic holidays in our school calendar, more culturally diverse food offerings, stronger affiliation of day students with dormitories, and improved training of student leaders in how to support new and younger students.

Our need-blind admissions policies also support a strong sense of belonging for our students. These policies and our commitment to meeting the full demonstrated need of all families are grounded in our mission and commitment to youth from every quarter, and are essential to preserving our ability to attract middle-income families as well as families with the greatest need. We have 35 more students on financial aid this year than last and anticipate that the financial aid census will continue to grow in the years ahead. The diversity of our student body is a defining strength of our school that propels our students’ learning and growth.

Our commitment to attracting and supporting diverse faculty and staff is also essential to fostering a strong sense of belonging for our students. This commitment extends beyond race and includes all forms of diversity represented in our student body. We are hiring excellent people across a wide range of backgrounds and experiences who want to teach and work in a boarding school environment and are committed to supporting the learning, growth and holistic development of every student.

Our students also contribute to strengthening their own sense of belonging by how they support and encourage each other. Recently I attended the presentation of a senior project by a student who had designed and built a laptop computer that matched the functionalities of the most expensive laptops on the market. His presentation was outstanding (and way over my head), yet even more impressive was the standing room only crowd of at least 50 students who had come to hear and cheer his presentation in Phelps Science Center.

This is typical of how students support one another across all arenas and activities. We see this when students hug each other in the lobby of the Goel Center for Theater and Dance after a performance, when they rush the court after a volleyball or basketball victory, when they loudly cheer each other’s accomplishments at Prize Day assembly and graduation, and in countless other ways. This support translates directly to a sense of belonging.

I hope you enjoy reading in this issue about our two graduates who were recently named Rhodes scholars. This is on a par with our two recent grand prize winners in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, who were featured in previous issues of the Bulletin. These are remarkable individual achievements. Yet they are also the product of the very special learning environment at Exeter, and they reflect how our students find joy in their collaborative learning and support each other in the pursuit of their passions. In that sense, these are group achievements that reflect the importance of belonging for all our students.

A few days after Opening Assembly one year, a senior approached me at Senior Sunrise in the stadium — a tradition introduced during COVID — and told me, “Mr. Rawson, every year at Opening Assembly when you tell me that I belong here, it means a lot to me.” That was the most important meeting I had that day, and there is no more important work that we do every day here at Exeter.

This letter was first published in the winter 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.