Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy

Patrick Garrity

Summer, when the stars come out

Exeter Summer program boasts faculty filled with passion and real-world experience.

Every summer, Exeter’s classrooms are guided by a roster without rival: veteran educators who can’t resist a return year after year, Academy instructors who bring the Harkness spirit into July, and professionals from beyond campus who step out of their real worlds to step into ours.

Together, they contribute to the dynamic mix that makes Exeter Summer unforgettable. We spoke with three Exeter Summer instructors: a familiar face who’s been returning for decades, an Academy faculty member who brings her regular-session expertise into summer, and a professional who presses pause on his career to join the classroom. Their stories show just how many paths can lead to Exeter — and how each teacher adds something special to the program.

Dennis Murphy: Long may you run

The French Alps and the New Hampshire seacoast share little in common; perhaps only Dennis Murphy, a native to neither region who nonetheless calls each home. A full-time resident of Chamonix, Murphy has spent his last 46 summers living and teaching in Exeter, as reliable a campus sight in July as the belltower.

Murphy was born and raised on Massachusetts’ North Shore and matriculated at Andover, then Dartmouth, honing his hockey prowess at both schools while earning a history degree. Invited to attend rookie camp with the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks, Murphy instead went abroad. He signed an eight-month contract to play professional hockey in Denmark in 1980.

So began an annual migration that has spanned decades. Each winter, Murphy would play hockey in Europe — after Denmark came France. Each summer, he would return to New England — more specifically Exeter — where he originally signed on to work a hockey camp run by longtime Exeter coach Bill Dennehy.

“He said, ‘OK, how many?’ Because it was a two-week session, times four, so it was eight weeks,” recalls Murphy. “And I said, ‘How many what?’ And he said, ‘How many weeks.’ So, I said, ‘Well, I’d like to do all eight if that’s possible.’”

For a young hockey player subsisting on a series of eight-month contracts, it was a sweet gig.

“I came in for the summer, we would coach, then we’d play tennis. We had free golf at the Portsmouth Country Club. That was part of the deal.

“And we got to skate. We had the key to the rink. So, we’d put the [campers] to bed, and then we’d go back to the rink and skate at night.”

Murphy’s intercontinental existence evolved on both sides of the Atlantic. Coaching followed his playing days, all in his adopted France, where he earned master’s degrees in French and English. He taught English at the University of Grenoble from 2008 until his recent retirement.

His role at Exeter evolved, as well. The sports programs were absorbed into Exeter Summer programming, and Murphy came along, too. He has taught languages, history and physical education during the five-week session through the years. He recently wrapped up a summer session coaching cross-country running and Ultimate and serving as a dorm head.

“The kids are excellent,” he says. “It’s five weeks. It’s a concentrated experience. They come in; there’s fear. They’re shy. Then you can see everything just becomes a melting pot. As they get on, they don’t want to leave. Even the boys will start crying at the end of the last week and they’ll hug. It’s incredible how close they become.”

Murphy turns 69 in June, but his summer sojourns will continue. He learned recently that Ralph Blumenthal taught journalism in the Exeter Summer program into his 80s.

“He worked until he was 82,” Murphy says. “I want to beat him by a year.”

Susan Park: At home in the classroom

Susan Park teaches four classes of chemistry, five days a week through three terms of Exeter’s regular session. You can see how she’d want to reset over summer break.

So, she teaches biology.

“I’ve been doing summer gardening and there’s really only so long you can be pulling weeds in the sun,” Park jokes.

It’s more than air conditioning that keeps Park in the classroom. She arrived at Exeter in 2021 after a 10-year hitch at Hotchkiss School, where she regularly pulled summer duty. She also has taught high school summer programs at Harvard, Cal-Berkeley and Northwestern.

“I think it’s a great opportunity, especially for students who want to invest themselves in things that just come naturally to them,” she says. Park also appreciates the freedom of the Exeter Summer curriculum that allows students to explore topics that interest them without the pressure of trying to achieve a grade. “It allows students to test their ideas and not hesitate.”

She’s in good company among her colleagues: Of Exeter Summer’s 120 teachers, roughly half are regular-session teachers.

“What I find that is neat about summer programs is that you learn how different school systems, even different countries, approach learning. And you see that there’s a lot of overlap.”

Park has spent a lifetime learning. She has a bachelor’s in science from MIT and a doctorate in philosophy from Northwestern. Whether its chemistry in the regular session or biology in the summer, she finds the students share a deep interest in discovery.

“The kids are still very inquisitive,” she says of the Exeter Summer enrollees in comparison to the regular-session students. “They want to figure out how things work. I think it’s very similar in that we’re developing their talents, getting them interested, developing their passions. It’s all there.”

Brian Murphy: Tapping into the creative side

The narrow design space on the top floor of Mayer Art Building can feel close on hot days, but the Upper School students in Brian Murphy’s Architectural Design Process class don’t seem to notice or mind. They are immersed in a project to design their own studios, and Murphy bounces from one table to the next to inspect their progress.

He’s moonlighting. His day job is with Placework, a Portsmouth design firm he and his wife founded in 2010. He began teaching at Exeter Summer in 2023.

“I have a really great team and a really great partner, and it allows me some flexibility,” Murphy says after his students wrap up for the day. “I’m on my way back to Portsmouth now to catch up with my other job.

“That’s something I happen to share with students here: that the work is never done. If you’re tapping into your creative self, you’re always thinking there’s always more to do.”

Murphy recalls one of his own instructors in high school asking him to consider teaching as a career, a suggestion that seemed dubious to him at the time. But today he teaches an introductory architecture course at the University of New Hampshire along with his five-week stint at Exeter Summer. He also has worked with area middle and high school students on projects centered around climate education.

Murphy says he gets as much as he gives in the classroom. “That’s part of the reason why I’m doing this. I can help kids by sharing my experience and the things that I’ve learned, but I’m here to learn more. I’m here to learn how people work together. I’m here to learn what is important to people in their sense of place. I work with adults all the time in contracted projects, and I feel there’s a lot to learn there. But here in this environment, there’s so much to learn from the adolescent mind and where they are in development and the way that they can tap or maybe inadvertently share what they’re feeling or what their way of knowing is.”

He has found Exeter Summer students as typical teens in many ways but with a spark to be kindled.

“I’ve worked with a lot of different kids, and these are definitely normal kids, but there’s something else,” he says. “I think that the thing that compels them to come to a program like this speaks to some other dimension that any human being has. … Being creative and being passionate and being compelled to do the work, I think that that rests within most human beings if you tap it the right way.”

Ambassador extols the art of empathy

Former U.S. Senator Jeff Flake urges Exonians to embrace their lessons of listening to understand.

Jeff Flake has arm-twisted congressmen and senators and earned the gratitude and admiration of presidents on two continents. He’s even been knighted by the king of Sweden.

But when the former politician and diplomat spoke to the Exeter community Monday, he drew upon the words and wisdom of prominent Exonians to underscore his messages of empathy and unity.

“A wise man, your principal, gave an address just a few weeks ago,” Flake said of Principal Bill Rawson’s Opening Assembly speech. “He said ‘empathy enables us to see ourselves and others as learners. It helps us learn to be comfortable having our thoughts and ideas tested by others whose ideas, perspectives, experiences or identities are different from our own.’”

 

Flake delivered his remarks Monday during Exeter’s all-school assembly, temporarily homed in Love Gym during the Academy Building’s renovation. The six-term congressman and former U.S. Senator from Arizona also served as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey in the Biden Administration. His assembly was titled “The Art of Negotiation,” and his message was shaped by growing up in a large family that taught him “a lot about getting along” and a political career spent reaching across the aisle.

Flake said the lessons Exeter students are learning around the Harkness table about listening with empathy will serve them well.

“The experiences that you have in this institution, and the skills you develop in this environment, will largely determine how you live in this political world,” he said.

“Some people try to disengage and get off social media. That’s difficult. I would encourage you to use it in positive ways. Compliment a politician when he or she does the right thing. Be understanding when somebody as an opinion different than yours. Learn the skills that are necessary to go through life being able to lower the political volume and do better as a country and as a people.”

Flake closed his visit by citing the words of another Exonian, Daniel Webster, class of 1796, that made the Massachusetts senator a national figure.

“’Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable,’” Flake said.

“I hope that we can all be that way.”

'Aim high, have fun,

'Aim high, have fun,

and find joy'

Principal Bill Rawson ’71; ’65, ’70 (Hon.); P’08 encouraged the Academy to lead with empathy throughout the school year. Rawson, retiring at year’s end, delivered his final Opening Assembly address as principal.

Rawson began his remarks by welcoming this year’s 336 new students, who hail from 36 states and 26 countries. He offered students his now-familiar advice for both new and returning students, which he said he himself would have appreciated hearing when he arrived at the Academy as a new lower: “You can do the work. You will make lifelong friends. Absolutely, you belong here.”

This Opening Assembly marked Rawson’s last as principal, as he announced in February that he would be retiring at the end of the 2025-26 school year. He was appointed Exeter’s 16th principal in January 2019 after six months of leadership as interim principal, following a long career at the international law firm of Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C. As an Exeter alum, Rawson has served in nearly every alumni volunteer capacity, including serving as a trustee from 2004 to 2016. Before beginning his law career, he also worked as an admissions officer at the Academy, where he lived on campus, advised students and coached lacrosse.

Changes on campus

“Each year at Exeter is a little different,” Rawson said, addressing the fact that the assembly was held in Love Gymnasium due to the ongoing renewal of the Academy Building and Assembly Hall, which began at the conclusion of last school year. Rawson went on to outline some of the other adjustments that have been made to class schedules and locations due to the renovation.

“Your patience will be rewarded with a beautifully restored Academy Building, a new Assembly Hall that will seat more than 1,300, a new design lab — and, importantly, air conditioning,” he said, to a hearty round of applause from the audience.

The new school year also marks the opening of the renovated Davis Hall, built in 1911 and formerly used as a library and a student center. The building, adjacent to the Class of 1945 Library and Elm Street Dining Hall, is the new home of the Classical Languages Department, but it also houses a spacious reading room and smaller meeting room that are open to all students. “You don’t have to study Latin or Greek to go into this building,” Rawson stressed.

Core values and the year ahead

As is customary in Opening Assembly, Rawson reflected on the school’s Deed of Gift, and the core values that can be traced to that founding document: knowledge and goodness, academic excellence, youth from every quarter, non sibi and “youth is the important period.”

“I want you to aim high, have fun, and find joy in everything you do,” Rawson urged the students. “I hope you embrace what you find hard, expand your reach, and find joy in your personal growth and development.”

The principal also encouraged students to focus on empathy, which he said was the key to deep learning, effective leadership and meaningful contributions to the lives of others. “Empathy enables us to see ourselves and others as learners,” Rawson said. “It helps us learn to be comfortable having our thoughts and ideas tested by others whose ideas, perspectives, experiences or identities are different from our own.”

“As most of you know, this will be my last year as principal,” Rawson said near the end of his remarks. “Like our seniors, I will be doing a lot of things for the last time this year, including this Opening Assembly. I am sure there will be some wistful moments, but I am very excited about this year and anxious to get started.”

After Rawson issued the traditional closing — “Senior class” — the rest of the audience waited as members of the Class of 2026 rose from their seats and filed out of the gymnasium.

For the record: Beatlemania sweeps through Exeter

Eric Schultz brings the 'Fab Four' to life in studying the history of pop music.

Late in the spring term, students trickling into the round room on the second floor of the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center are greeted by the sounds of side one of the Beatles’ Revolver. The iconic album, the group’s seventh full-length release, is the focus of the period’s discussion in MUS202: History of American Popular Music.

Manning the turntable, Instructor in Music Eric Schultz lifts needle from vinyl as the class reaches critical mass. This is the second of two periods devoted to the biggest act in pop music history and, more specifically, the album that cemented the change of the band’s image from boy-next-door pop stars to long-haired psychedelic pioneers.

This senior-level course explores trends in popular music in the United States and how that music reflects the cultural and political landscape in which it was made. Students are graded on “needle-drop quizzes” in which a song from a previously discussed album is played and they must name the artist, title and the year it was released. Schultz says he has been teaching some version of this class for more than two decades. The class syllabus covers a period of nearly 100 years, and he laments being able to give the Beatles only two days of conversation, noting that the University of Liverpool offers a master’s degree program on the so-called Fab Four.

Throughout the period, Schultz weaves in the historical context of Beatlemania and the immeasurable influence on not only pop music, but also the fabric of Western culture. He cues up archival footage of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr arriving in the U.S. for the first time, landing at New York’s newly named John F. Kennedy International Airport in February 1964, greeted by thousands of frenzied fans.

“What was the major event in U.S. history that happened before this that had a real impact on people?” Schultz asks.

“J.F.K. gets assassinated,” Dhruv Nagarajan ’25 quickly responds.

“November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, a very popular president, assassinated in front of onlookers in Dallas,” Schultz continues. “So, then trauma, drama, bad vibes. Then Christmas. Then the new year. Then the winter. People want to be happy and the country is sick of not being happy, and then these guys show up. Look at these guys: matching haircuts, matching suits, all designed to make your dad want to hang out with them. And — it worked.”

Schultz chronicles two other important Beatles-centric cultural waypoints: the group’s first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show — estimated to have been watched live by half the country — and their chance encounter with Bob Dylan in a New York City hotel.

“We’ve talked about the drug culture of the ’60s,” Schultz says, “and this is where we really start to see that come to the fore, because Bob Dylan shows up and gives the Beatles their first marijuana joint.”

Eric Schultz deconstructs the allure of The Beatles during a meeting of his senior elective, MUS202: History of American Popular Music.

Schultz plays The Ed Sullivan Show performance as heads around the Harkness table begin to bob and feet begin to tap to the beat of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” “This is 1964,” he says. “There are no hallucinogens involved in this. This is clean as a whisper.”

“The biggest change happens between these two albums,” Schultz says, motioning between projections of 1965’s Rubber Soul and 1966’s Revolver.

“The song ‘Yellow Submarine’ is on Revolver; you should know that yellow submarine is street slang for a type of illegal drug in London — think of the shape of a pill,” Schultz says to stunned students.

“My kindergarten class sang that song,” one replies.

Schultz goes on to explain that the change in style wasn’t the only massive shift in the band’s output. As the complexity of their sound continued to expand with the 1967 release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the group had not played a concert for nearly a year and would play live only once more — in 1969 on the rooftop of their recording studio in London.

“The Beatles spent eight hours recording their first album. They spent 900 hours in the studio for this one,” Schultz says, holding up a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s. “This is them saying: ‘We’re not doing live music anymore. We’re only going to make albums in the studio. And that way, we don’t have to worry about whether or not we can play it live.’”

With the final minutes of class dwindling, Schultz races through the band’s final albums and slow unraveling, again lamenting, “There’s never enough time to talk about the Beatles.”

This story was originally published in the Summer 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Sarah Varney ’91: Reporter at large

Sarah Varney ’91 tells stories at the intersection of law and women’s health.

As a youth in the early 1980s, Sarah Varney ’91 spent hours lying on her liv-ing room floor, listening to New Hampshire Public Radio. Radio was the sole entertainment at home and, unlike most contemporary media, it featured women’s voices: Linda Wertheimer, Susan Stamberg and eventually Nina Totenberg, “the founding grandmothers of NPR,” she says.

“It wasn’t just that I was hearing their voices,” she says of NPR’s women. “It was that the stories they were interested in were totally different than the stories men were interested in.

… I didn’t know exactly what a journalist was. But whatever it was they were doing, that’s what I wanted to do.”

After studying public policy and political science at Brown, she covered news and health for public radio, ultimately becoming a special health care correspondent for PBS NewsHour and a contributing health reporter for NPR. Collectively, her reportage covers modern American medical history, including the HIV and opioid epidemics and the Affordable Care Act.

Her pieces put personal narratives within a larger context, taking into account the broader chessboard at play. “We’re taking on these big ideas,” she says, “then rooting them in actual day-to-day stories.”

For one segment, she interviewed a woman who, prevented by Tennessee law from ending her pregnancy, delivered an infant with organs outside the body. It was a profoundly poignant tale. “Even for people opposed to abortion, I think hearing this woman’s story couldn’t not be moving,” Varney says.

At the same time, the story highlighted the intersection of state law and women’s health. “We talk about abortion bans in the abstract,” Varney says. “I’m in the field trying to find real people impacted by these policies.” Because some 2 mil-lion viewers watch NewsHour nightly, including members of Congress and Supreme Court justices, she can “share these stories with people who make really important decisions.”

Varney sees her role as a “collector of stories,” entrusted with people’s experiences at moments of extreme vulnerability. “I think human beings are inherently wired to want to listen,” she says. “Hearing people’s stories and why they make the decisions they make, or believe what they believe, then sharing these stories with [others] is extremely important. It’s how we’re connected as human beings, through storytelling.”

Reporters must also ask difficult questions. For one piece, Varney interviewed an influential anti-abortion activist who didn’t want to discuss her opposition to contraception. “That’s why it’s even more important,” Varney says, “to have a journalist sit down and say: ‘Your logic is that if a form of contraception prevents a fertilized egg from possibly implanting in the uterus, that’s an abortion. Under Texas law, that makes any form of birth control an abortifacient. Is that true?’ It’s up to them to say, ‘Yes, that’s my logic.’ I think the reason journalists are really important at this moment is we’re not activists.”

Last year, after completing a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, Varney created Fountain Productions, a nonprofit dedicated to independent journalism on the consequences of the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade established the constitutional right to abortion in 1973.

“There’s been a lot of great journalism about the seismic shift in reproductive rights in American life in print and radio, but [no] consistent place to do this on television,” she says. She and her small team produce NewsHour segments and are creating two podcasts, Caged: The Origins of Patriarchy and Body and State, based on NewsHour interviews.

Varney is also gathering stories of women affected by abortion bans into a multimedia repository that will be available to news organizations. “You’ll have extraordinary reporting done about one person in Texas, then another powerful story about one person in Tennessee,” she says. “How do you start to pull them together?”

Her work may help to inspire the next generation of reporters covering women’s health.

This story was originally published in the Summer 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

The Art of Engineering

Ideas take shape at Exeter's annual MakerFest Showcase.

The MakerFest Showcase at the Lamont Gallery this spring featured work by the Academy community made in the Design Lab using precision tools often controlled by computers.

The exhibition, supported in part by the Lynda K. Beck Design Thinking Fund, “seeks to highlight creative problem-solving and methods of making that intertwine research, education and innovation with engineering, design and manufacturing,” Design Lab Coordinator and Instructor in Computer Science Sean Campbell writes in the exhibit’s catalog.

“These creative endeavors, while perhaps not immediately celebrated as modes of art-making or creative expression, reveal themselves to be tools and/or explora-tions of topical themes that identify the potential for innovation and solutions that can spark social impact.”

Exonians in Review: Summer 2025

The latest publications, recordings, exhibitions and films by Exeter alumni and faculty.

 

Henry James Comes Home: Rediscovering America in the Gilded Age
Peter Brooks ’56, New York Review Books, 2025

Northern Lights, movie
John Hanson ’60, writer and director with Rob Nilsson
Re-release of 1978 film on May 23, 2025, at Lincoln Center in New York, followed by a national theatrical and digital streaming release

“The Insanity of Violence,” art exhibition
Gordie Chase ’66, The Landau Gallery, Belmont Hill School, Belmont, Massachusetts, February 24 to April 4, 2025

Letter to General Franco
by Fernando Arrabal, translated by Peter Thompson ’66, Diálogos, 2025

The Unraveling: Reflections on Politics Without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis
Bob Bauer ’70, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2024

Racquets at Rest: Remembering 40 Lives That Shaped the Game of Squash in America
Rob Dinerman ’72, self-published, 2024

Old White Man Writing
Joshua Gidding ’72, Mascot Books, 2025

Rules of Living, movie
Greg Dale ’77, writer and director, Mirus Pictures, 2024

Becoming You: The Proven Method for Crafting Your Authentic Life and Career
Suzy Welch ’77, Harper Business, 2025

Correlations: Life + Work
Peter Bentel ’78, with Carol Bentel, Paul Bentel and John Morris Dixon, The Images Publishing  Group, 2024

Polaris and the Secret City
Tom Hassell ’89, self-published, 2025

Myth & Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection, exhibition and catalog
Lisa Cakmak ’96, curator and editor, The Art Institute of Chicago, March 15 to June 29, 2025

Securing the Biological Frontier: The Biodefense Imperative
Matt McKnight  ’01, self-published, 2025

 

 

Submit your work

Alumni are encouraged to advise the Bulletin editor (bulletin@exeter.edu) of their own publications, recordings, films, etc., in any field, and those of their classmates, for inclusion in future Exonians in Review columns. Please send a review copy of your published work to the editor to be considered for an extended profile in future issues. Works can be sent to: Phillips Exeter Academy, The Exeter Bulletin, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833.

A 50th Reunion Reflection

Laurie Hays ’75 remembers her post at The Exonian.

Exeter was where I first experienced freedom, having been released by my parents from an all-girls private school where I felt suffocated. I’m pretty sure I used that exact word back then. The Academy was also the first place I experienced panic attacks, took up smoking and looked at the possibility of being a total failure as I got to know all of my classmates.

I found my life’s passion, and a good way to hide from academics, at The Exonian. I vividly remember the day that Roy Cohn ’74 said to me, “We have chosen you to be the first woman chairman of The Exonian because it’s about time for a woman to lead the paper.” (He might have said “girl.”) He made sure to clarify that this was not a DEI decision, adding, “We also think you are the best person for the job.” Thank you, Roy!

During my 40-year run as a professional journalist, I always looked back on my time at The Exonian as the best chance that anybody ever gave me to develop a vision and share it with others. I remember looking around the newsroom and feeling for the first time empowered to shape ideas and try to be inspiring. Most people don’t think of their high school newspaper as a big deal, but it was to me!

We were a great team and, as the announcement stressed, we shared duties equally. Bill Bradley was editor in chief; Eric Nordell, managing editor; Mary Gotschall and Edward Eliot, editorial and features editors. And Paul Bentel, the business manager, saved us from bankruptcy as the ad market deteriorated.

Laurie Hays ’75 has worked at Bloomberg News as a senior executive editor and also at The Wall Street Journal for 23 years as a reporter, Moscow correspondent and editor. She worked on a team that won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting on corporate corruption scandals.

This piece was originally published in the Summer 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Vital work

As you read this issue of the Bulletin, I hope you find it inspiring to see the latest evidence of both the joy and sense of purpose that comes with being a member of the Exeter community.

It is a great pleasure to be part of a community where high academic achievement is valued, where students accomplish as much outside the classroom as in, where exploration and self-discovery are what we do for fun, and where the spirit of non sibi runs deep.

These pages offer some wonderful examples: a robotics club formed by students who share a common purpose to give back to others; budding social entrepreneurs who craft business solutions to real-world problems; and seniors who design their own independent study electives to explore feminism through the arts.

I am amazed by the extraordinary work being done by our students, and by the passion they bring to these endeavors. To provide these young people with the opportunity to thrive in a community where everyone feels a true sense of belonging- that is the Exeter we strive for every day.

At a recent assembly, I told students, “We don’t wait until later to be the people we want to be. You have to be the people you want to be today, and that starts not with how you relate to your closest friends – it’s how you relate to everybody.” I urged them to respect the dignity and equal worth of every person within our community, adult and student.

Our students do this work in the Harkness classrooms, in their dorms, or on the stage or playing fields. In January, during Exeter’s annual MLK Day, three PEA alumnae led workshops designed to break down differences and deconstruct cultural narratives. That same month, MacArthur Fellow and Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson delivered an impassioned Henry Bragdon Fellow assembly talk, urging students to engage with issues of social justice, saying: “Your hope is your superpower.” At the conclusion of Mr. Stevenson’s remarks, I offered students a copy of his memoir, Just Mercy. The response was overwhelming. We ordered an additional 600 copies to meet the demand.

It is wonderful and also serious business to renew our commitment each year to the mission of our school, and to live up to our responsibilities in a rapidly changing world. We must prepare our students for what John and Elizabeth Phillips in the Deed of Gift called “the great end and real business of living,” and reconsider each year what it means to help our students grow in knowledge and goodness and thereby lay the surest foundation for usefulness to humankind. John and Elizabeth Phillips expressed a certain urgency about the school’s mission in the Deed of Gift. The urgency of our mission is as great today as ever.

This column was originally published in the Spring 2019 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

A full and equitable experience

At Exeter, we want every student and adult to have an equal sense of belonging and equal opportunity to thrive. How do we ensure an equitable Exeter experience for every member of our community, no matter their background or identity? This is a question of utmost importance as we seek to uphold the school’s founding mission to instill goodness and knowledge and thereby “lay the surest foundation of usefulness to [hu]mankind.”

The work to create and nurture an intentionally diverse school dates back to John and Elizabeth Phillips’ charge that Exeter admit and instruct “youth from every quarter.” Today, we interpret that in the broadest possible sense. And we do so by building upon the hard work of generations of students, faculty and staff who have sought to make Exeter the intellectual community of depth and substance that it is.

We have more work to do, and it is imperative that we continue to act. Last January, the Trustees adopted a vision statement recognizing that diversity, equity and inclusion are critical to sustaining and strengthening our tradition of excellence in all aspects of life at Exeter. The vision state­ment makes clear that our obligation goes beyond merely assembling a diverse population: “Our commitment is to teach the skills, model the behaviors, provide the resources and cultivate the environment of inclusion” that will unlock the richness of that diversity. I encourage you to read the full statement at exeter.edu/DEivision. It serves as a guiding document in our work to promote a reflexive climate of empathy, understanding and respect. As the Trustees state, “Excellence today requires nothing less.”

Stephanie Bramlett, our director of equity and inclusion, has had a busy first few months at Exeter working with the commu­nity to build a framework around the Trustees’ vision. She and I were among 22 PEA adults and six students who attended the National Association oflndependent Schools’ People of Color Conference and Student Diversity Leadership Conference in Nashville last November. It was our largest adult contingent and first student group from PEA to attend these important confer­ences. On campus, Stephanie is collaborating with department heads and students in furthering existing initiatives and defin­ing new ones. Our Dean of Faculty Ellen Wolff and Director of Human Resources Rachel Henry also continue their efforts to attract and retain an increasingly diverse employee base; and our Institutional Advancement Office led by Morgan Dudley is working alongside alumni and parents to ensure our greater Exeter community is as welcoming, inclusive and vibrant as the one on campus.

Our faculty also continue their scholarship and curricular work in this area with the spirit of innovation and collabora­tion that defines our school. Sarni Atif, math instructor and interim dean of multicultural affairs, has developed math problems that address societal issues and provide students and teachers with real-world scenarios and a fact-based framework to explore important topics. During this winter term, the English Department, chaired by Nat Hawkins, is piloting a course for lowers designed to aid students in devel­oping the appropriate skills and understanding to engage in respectful, productive conversations about race and identity. You can read more about these examples in this issue’s cover feature (pg. 28).

These efforts extend Exeter’s mission to help students excel academically and develop an ethos of non sibi that will influence their life’s work. As you read this Bulletin, I hope you will be excited by what you see and feel drawn back to Exeter. We would be delighted to have you visit campus, spend time with our students and faculty, appreciate the Exeter of today, and help us imagine the Exeter of tomorrow.

This column was originially published in the Winter 2019 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.