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

Patrick Garrity

Elliott to Exeter: ‘My heart is coming for you’

Academy's next principal tells students "spending time with you will be the very best part of my job."

Exeter’s next principal formally introduced herself to the community Friday, delivering inspiring remarks at assembly and taking a whirlwind tour of campus.

Jenny Elliott spent the day meeting students, faculty and staff and getting to know her way around what will become her new home next summer when she succeeds Bill Rawson as the Academy’s 17th principal.

“I cannot wait to become your principal, and I’ll work hard to get up to speed as best I can to kick off the 26-27 academic year,” Elliott told the students at the morning assembly. “I will count on you to guide me in our opening months together.”

“I’m eager to join you in the classroom, at practice, in the performance halls and in the dining hall, and I’m looking forward to celebrating your progress in the years ahead. Spending time with you will be the very best part of my job.”

Elliott was named as Rawson’s successor in November after a global search. She will arrive from Choate Rosemary Hall, where she serves as head of student and academic life.

Rawson announced last spring the 2025-26 school year would be his last as principal after eight years leading the Academy. He introduced Elliott to the students Friday, saying, “You all know how deeply I care about this school. I believe we will be in good hands; we will be in the hands of a caring, trusting leader who will build on our many strengths and help us imagine a very bright future.”

Elliott, an Andover graduate, assured her new charges that her newfound loyalty to Exeter will not waver.

“I’ve loved school since I was a kid, so much so that I’ve never really left. I’ve been a student, teacher, administrator, coach, or parent at 19 different schools. I have taught second, third, fifth, sixth, ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. I have four children, ages 14, 17, 20, and 21, who are students at four different schools. I’m still currently a student. My former and current teachers, my former and current colleagues, my former and current students are some of the most important humans in my life, and I’ve had exceptionally wise and generous mentors to whom I turn regularly for guidance. … I feel tremendously lucky these institutions and these school people have become part of who I am.

“I’m also a fiercely loyal person who feels deeply. When we were about to have our second child, in a quiet, private, sort of sheepish moment, I confessed to my mom that I was really worried I was not going to be able to love this next little person as much as I loved our first. And my mom, ever wise and understanding, explained to me that that’s just not the way love works. It’s not the way our hearts work. She shared with me, ‘The more you love, the more you love. Your heart grows.’ And since then, with every subsequent life edition and transition, my mom’s lesson holds. My heart has grown, and I have loved more.

“So, Exeter, get ready, because my heart is coming for you.”

Seniors go it alone with passion projects

Exeter's independent study program offers opportunities beyond the Harkness table.

Maya Shah’s first brush with the American health-care system was enough for her to try to improve it.

An allergic reaction sent the Exeter senior and native of India to a local emergency room, where she waited for hours with red hives all over her body. The malady eventually passed; the memories of the experience didn’t.

“That long, uncertain wait, the not knowing if anyone was even aware I was there or whether something could be seriously wrong, really stayed with me,” Shah says.

“When I looked into it, I realized this is a widespread issue: over 130 million people visit U.S. ERs annually, and nearly 30% wait more than an hour for care.”

Even more concerning, says Shah, is that studies show that as many as three out of 10 patients are mis-triaged, often under-triaged, in emergency rooms, which can delay critical care.

“Experiencing this firsthand made me start thinking about how technology could help,” she says. “Could AI take some of the guesswork out of triage, speed up intake and make the ER experience less stressful for patients?”

Her curiosity evolved into an independent study project throughout fall term. With support from Elle Kaplan, an instructor in computer science, Shah developed an AI-powered triage system to help emergency departments reduce overcrowding and long wait times. The system predicts patient urgency using symptoms, vital signs and medical history, assigning a 1–5 urgency score. Shah’s prototype includes a web-based interface for staff and an AI model trained on over 200,000 ED admissions from a dataset from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The system is not intended to replace the human element, but rather to enhance it. “In the long term, the AI could flag patients who might need urgent attention based on their history or current symptoms, helping staff prioritize care before problems escalate,” she says. “Essentially, it’s about making health care smoother and smarter without replacing the human judgment that is so essential in medicine.”

Shah’s is one of seven independent study projects developed during the fall term. The program allows Exeter students to explore areas of interest that grow from or fall outside traditional course parameters. Interested seniors, with approval from the faculty, design individual or joint projects of comparable value and scope to those of an academic course. The projects sometimes require more time and resources than envisioned.

“By the end, I was putting in long days, but because this was a passion project, it never felt like work,” Shah says. “This is exactly the kind of challenge I want to tackle in college and beyond: building AI tools that directly improve health care.”

The foundation of the Exeter academic experience is Harkness learning. With independent projects, the student in many ways must go it alone.

“I actually love the collaboration that Exeter is built on,” she says. “In fact, on this project, I received invaluable feedback and help from everyone, from .. [Mx Kaplan], to Health Center nurses, to friends interested in AI who helped me debug the model during late nights in the common room.

“But I also wanted the chance to take full ownership of a project. Independent work gave me the freedom to design and build a working prototype exactly how I imagined it. At a busy place like Exeter, having dedicated time to focus on a project I was passionate about was rare, and I loved it. I could experiment, iterate, and actually bring my AI model to life. I loved the process of testing it, refining it, and making it functional, all on my own schedule. Seeing an idea transform from concept to something real and usable was incredibly satisfying.”

 

Other senior projects during the fall term:

Andrew Boova
Quarterly Stock Price Prediction Through Machine Learning

Wall Streeters often use qualitative data (i.e. earnings call transcripts) when assessing a company’s growth potential and competitive advantages, and use quantitative data (stock price, P/E ratio, etc.) when making precise price predictions. So why do so many existing prediction models only use math? I designed and trained a machine learning model to understand this qualitative data that is often disregarded, as well as the typical numerical data. Can computers invest like humans? Come find out how the model stacks up against professional analysts.

Alex Ma
Genomic and Phenotypic Consequences of Experimental Evolution in Vibrio natriegens under Streptomycin Selection

In a world where multi-resistant bacteria are a growing threat, scientists are interested in the evolutionary trade-offs between resistance and survival in foreign environments. To investigate this process, I exposed fast-growing marine bacteria (Vibrio natriegens) to rising doses of the streptomycin antibiotic, selecting for mutations providing greater drug survival. I then conducted a round of analysis on three strains with different resistance levels: sequencing DNA to discover the precise mutation sites, growth tests in varying environmental conditions, and cross-resistance tests for other antibiotics. My project aims to clarify the fitness costs and vulnerabilities that constrain the development of resistance.

Harini Venkatesh
Inducing Oncogenic Mutations in Yeast using CRISPR/Cas9

Cells can become cancerous through a number of gene mutations. In order to study these mutations, we can use CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to induce precise mutations in yeast. However, a standard CRISPR protocol is lengthy and complicated. My project attempts to use a shortened “one-step” CRISPR/Cas9 protocol to generate strains of yeast with cancer-causing mutations.

Sebastien Sobeih
Springfield Rocket System

Springfield is a fin-guided, computer-controlled rocket platform. Experience the problem solving roller-coaster of dealing with parts machined out of tolerance, telemetry issues, and dealing with uncooperative computers at my presentation. I’ll take you through the process of designing, building, and flying the hardest rocket I’ve ever built.

Mel Benavidez
Ballet Folklórico: A Journey of Dance in Mexico

Ballet Folklórico is a type of traditional dance from Mexico that has been with me for a very long time. In this senior project, I explored the elements of these dances from the designs of the outfits to the delicate footwork that tell stories. Not only to help connect to my culture but to also bring something new to Exeter. There is a performance element for 3 separate regions with research to guide the audience along the way.

Avaninder Bhaghayath
Zephyrus: a Vertical Take-Off and Landing Drone

The goal of this project is to build a 3-rotor autonomous drone, which features tilt-rotor vectoring, mid-air flight mode transition, and solar panels for extended flight duration. It supports autonomous flight using an onboard flight computer with a GPS and magnetometer. By taking advantage of an airfoil, the drone has the efficiency of a fixed-wing aircraft while cruising. The tilt-rotor design allows for tri-copter flight for takeoff and landing, removing the need for a runway. With a two-meter wingspan and 12-inch propellers, the platform has the potential to carry payloads, and stream a live video feed.

 

Exeter chooses ‘teacher at heart’ as next principal

Jennifer Karlen Elliott will be the 17th head of school in the Academy's 244-year history.

Phillips Exeter Academy has chosen Jennifer Karlen Elliott to lead the school’s next chapter and serve as the Academy’s 17th principal.

Academy Trustee President Kristyn Van Ostern ’96 introduced Elliott in a letter to the Exeter community Monday afternoon. Elliott will succeed Bill Rawson ’71; ’65, ’70 (Hon.); P’08, who will retire as principal next spring after eight years in the role.

Elliott is currently the head of student and academic life at Choate Rosemary Hall, where she is responsible for nearly all aspects of the student experience across academics, residential life, wellness and community culture.

“When I learned of the opportunity to lead Exeter, I was immediately drawn to the mission, the core values, and the community,” Elliott said. “I have long admired and respected Exeter’s commitment to academic excellence, Harkness and non sibi.”

The announcement concludes a rigorous search that began in February when Rawson made known this school year would be his last as principal. Elliott was chosen after a global search that connected the committee with over 400 educational leaders. She formally begins her new role on July 1, 2026.

“Jenny is a teacher at heart who, from the earliest stages of her career, has been called to leadership roles of increasing responsibility,” Van Ostern said in her announcement. “In Jenny we have found someone who understands the demands of leadership in residential education, finds joy and purpose in working with adolescents and has indicated a strong commitment to upholding the Academy’s mission while leading us into the future. We are excited to welcome her to our community.”

Elliott’s contributions at Choate include leading efforts that examine how technology influences teaching and learning, progress toward their sustainability goals and attention to student well-being through a new advisory system and redesigned cell phone and social media policy. Each initiative reflects her commitment to student growth, academic excellence, belonging, and meaningful change.

“I gravitate to team contexts where our collective impact is deeper for our shared efforts,” Elliott said of her leadership style. “I love partnering with colleagues who push my thinking, inspire me to ask better questions, and find joy in our work. I am a student-centered leader who has deep respect and admiration for the educators who commit themselves to the growth and care of young people.”

Van Ostern said Elliott has a deep “understanding of the rhythms and responsibilities of boarding school life,” adding that she “listens deeply, collaborates naturally, and brings clarity and focus to complex challenges” and “models the curiosity and adaptability that define great educators and leaders.”

Before joining Choate, Elliott worked for 12 years at her alma mater, Phillips Academy in Andover, where she held several leadership positions, including seven years as dean of students and five years as assistant head of school for residential life, taught U.S. History, and coached varsity girls squash.

A 1994 graduate of Andover, Elliott earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Dartmouth College, a master’s degree in elementary education from Lesley College and expects to earn a doctorate in education from Vanderbilt University in 2027.

“I love that Principal Rawson’s leadership has invited and celebrated progress,” Elliott said. “Schools are living communities dedicated to the changing needs of our students.

“The dynamism of this present moment will require us to sharpen what is core and lead with courage, integrity, and creativity. Optimistic and energetic, I see the challenges of this moment as opportunities for exciting progress.”

What’s all the buzz about?

Live crickets, leaf-cutter ants and robotic bees swarm the Lamont Gallery.

Sculptor Britt Ransom loves a good prank — and insects. So when she heard about the time Andover students released hundreds of brown crickets in the Class of 1945 Library on the Thursday before Exeter/Andover weekend, she knew she had found the inspiration for her installation Scoreless Match.

Ransom spent weeks crafting a legion of laser-cut crickets of various sizes and “released” them in the Lamont Gallery, where some climbed walls and others sat among model shapes based on the library’s architecture. The work extended to the library, where Ransom placed fabricated insects in the stacks as a nod to the original prank and had insect sounds played over the library speakers at 3:50 p.m. each day of the show. She also built a clear acrylic enclosure for live crickets.

 

“Through sound, movement and quiet spatial disruptions,” Lamont Gallery Director and Curator Pam Meadows says, “this work invites us to think of memory not as something fixed in record, but as something that clings to thresh-olds, lingers in atmospheres and settles into the unnoticed seams of the built environment as a gesture of humor and reminder of the world outside of what we build.”

Ransom was one of five artists featured in the Lamont Gallery’s “Strange Kin” exhibition this fall. These artists “embrace their affection and comfort in entomology, using arthropods as their muses and collaborators,” Meadows says. “Collectively, the works on view braid pure aesthetic joy with stinging commentary on environmental issues, species decline and conservation.”

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

 

Preserved in stone,

Preserved in stone,

reimagined in spirit

The renovated and renamed Mary Amen Study holds the Classical Languages Department’s collection of Latin and Greek texts.

“It’s a great story of reuse, sustainability and reimagining resources for different generations, which are all part of the Exeter ethos,” Campus Planner and Architect Heather Taylor says.

 

The Davis Library

Exeter’s first library was housed comfortably in two rooms in the Academy Building. By the early 20th century, however, space was at a premium. The school’s book collection topped 2,000 titles, and a dedicated library building was necessary. Fortunately, Harlan P. Amen, Exeter’s seventh principal, was a prodigious fundraiser who engaged in an ambitious building campaign to enlarge the school’s footprint. Thanks in part to his enthusiastic alumni outreach, a surprise $50,000 bequest for construction of a library came in 1907 from Benjamin Price Davis, class of 1862.

Davis entered the Academy in 1859, planning to go to college. But he dis-agreed with his father, a prosperous wholesale and retail grocer in Brooklyn, New York, about which college to attend.  Davis wanted Harvard; his father preferred Columbia. So, Davis went directly into business and became a successful coffee importer. He considered the Academy his higher education, regularly attending alumni dinners in New York City.

Friends recalled that Davis was modest, quiet and friendly, and that he was committed to education — sometimes paying for promising students to attend college. His bequest reflected his commitment to education at Exeter. A world traveler and an extensive reader, Davis also enjoyed fine art and the outdoors, often visiting his camp in the Adirondacks, where he would ride, fish and hunt.

Davis Library broke ground in October 1911. It was designed by Boston architect Ralph Adams Cram, noted for his reinvention of American church and college architecture. A champion of the American Gothic Revival movement, Cram believed the Gothic style best reflected the spiritual and community ideals of late 19th- to early 20th-century American schools and colleges.

Cram, born a few miles from the Academy in Hampton Falls, attended Exeter briefly, then left before graduation to start an apprenticeship with the Boston architectural firm Rotch & Tilden. A profound religious awakening on Christmas Eve 1887, during a trip to Rome, may have inspired his preference for Gothic design. Still in business today, Cram’s architectural firm, Cram & Ferguson, has designed 19 Academy buildings, including Phillips Church and the current Academy Building.

Davis Hall has always been a wonderful place for students to study and relax.

Cram’s design for the Davis Library was a departure from his more famous work, like the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Davis was inspired by the 18th-century Merley House in Dorset, England. With origins in British architecture, the Neoclassical style was considered orderly and refined, a perfect context for building that represented classical learning.

Unlike any other secondary school library of its time, the 14,000-square-foot Davis Library was designed to hold 5,000 books in four floors of stacks. Classroom space on the first floor included an art studio, and the second-floor library featured a large librarian’s desk at the top of a marble staircase. The Mary Rawson Amen Room, named for the principal’s wife, Mary, contained books and display cases for rare collections on two levels connected by a spiral staircase. At the time, The Exeter Bulletin hailed the building’s exquisite beauty, noting, “it will lack no convenience for the safekeeping and use of its books and other treasures.”

Davis Library was a popular student retreat. Fred Roe ’39 remembered it as the place where he could indulge in his lifelong fascination with cars — a highlight of his years at Exeter. “Miss Vroom, the librarian, ordered at least two foreign books on automotive history for me,” he wrote in a letter published in the spring 2008 Bulletin. “I tried to spend time at Davis every day.”

In the same Bulletin issue, John C. Stone II ’49 credits the library with helping shape his love of hiking and camping. “When I arrived as a prep, I discovered the mountaineering collection and devoured it,” he wrote. “It really ignited a latent passion” for the outdoors.

Rodney Armstrong ’68 (Hon.), who served as librarian from 1950–73, wrote in the winter 2006 Bulletin that he remembered Davis “as a very welcoming, pleasant building to be in. Whether it was very functional as a library … was another matter.”

The Davis Library collection expanded over the decades, so Exeter planned a larger building. The Class of 1945 Library, designed by Louis Kahn, opened in 1971. Moving 60,000 books out of Davis was a campuswide affair. Students, including Judith Hall Howard ’73, gathered with faculty to form a human chain passing books from Davis to the new library. “Box by box we passed the contents of the Davis Library from one set of student hands to the next,” Howard recalled in the spring 2008 Bulletin.

The Davis Student Center

When the new library opened, Davis Library evolved into the Davis Student Center, a space for all types of student activities and clubs. The Mary Rawson Amen Room, known simply as the Amen Room, remained a place for quiet study. Principal Bill Rawson ’71, who remembers writing history papers there, notes another attractive feature: comfortable leather chairs. “Most honest students would admit to falling asleep in Amen,” he says. “The chairs were almost designed for sleep.”

In a throwback of sorts to Davis’ literary history, PEAN, The Exonian and Academy Publications were housed in offices on the first floor, where book stacks once stood. The first-floor Cushwa Room was converted into a room for video games and pinball machines. After the games were moved to the basement, the room was divided into a student lounge and a TV room. A member of the Student Center Student-Faculty Committee at the time told The Exonian, “Though students feel that some place is needed for more private encounters between students … some have complained that this scheme seems unnatural.”

The Davis Student Center days were filled with student activities.

Clubs met in the second-floor reading room, and students could prepare dinner in the first-floor kitchen or use the three photography darkrooms in the basement. For 15 years, WPEA broadcast from a basement studio in Davis, with a brief off-the-air interlude after thieves stole the station’s broadcasting equipment in 1991. Later, the building became a home base for prep and lower day students.

In 2006, when the Phelps Academy Center opened, Davis was repurposed again. The Admissions and Financial Aid offices moved into the first floor. The Amen Room housed a student lending library. The large reading room was transformed into a studio for the Theater and Dance Department with new sprung floors and floor-to-ceiling mirrors that covered the large windows.

“It was loud, but it brought students in and out of the space regularly,” says Dean of Enrollment John Hutchins, who worked in the building at the time. The dance studio moved when The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance opened in 2018. “We missed the interaction when students weren’t there,” Hutchins says.

 

Davis Hall

Exeter’s Campus Master Plan, developed in 2019–20, called for renovating Davis for administrative offices. Instead, Principal Rawson suggested preserving Davis for aca-demic use by relocating the Classical Languages Department to the first floor while returning the second floor to study and community gathering spaces. “The Classics were so important to the founding of the Academy,” Taylor, the campus planner, says. “With its beautiful architecture, it makes so much sense for the Classics Department to be in Davis.”

The renovations were made possible, in part, through The Allison S. and Lucile M. Behr Fund, established by the late Charles Allison Behr ’52 to support “the study of the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, culture and history.”

The newly renamed Davis Hall balances old and new. The first floor holds four Harkness classrooms and new instructors’ offices. One classroom is carved from space that used to be book stacks. Several retain their original oak floors. Display cases for department collections line one wall of the main hallway, facing the original 1911 bronze plaque commemorating Benjamin Price Davis, which hangs in a niche above a seating area.

 

The Mary Rawson Reading Room (left) will serve as a quiet place for study and repose. The grand marble staircase to the century-old build (above) was preserved.

The librarian’s desk is long gone from the top of the marble staircase, but the ornate gold clock, a gift from the class of 1912, remains. Visitors still pass through Corinthian columns into the second-floor reading room, although the dance studio’s sprung floors have been removed, revealing the original hardwood under-neath. The light and airy space is now named the Mary Homeier Rawson Reading Room in honor of Principal Rawson’s late wife, a talented teacher and former Exeter Summer instructor. Students use the wood-paneled space for quiet study and reading, or furnishings can be rearranged for community events. “The room brings together students of the Classics and academics from around campus to study,” Jinmin Lee ’26 says. “It’s the place to study on campus now.”

The Mary Amen Study, formerly the Mary Rawson Amen Room, with its spectacular circular staircase, floor-to-ceiling bookcases and mezzanine, now serves as the Latin Study.  The Kirtland Society, Exeter’s Classics Club, hosts meetings and gatherings there as well. “I appreciate having that room for Kirtland Society meetings,” Lee says. “We use the second floor for orations and speeches.”

Assistant Principal Eimer Page, who was involved in the decision-making about the space, points out: “It’s an odd turn of fate that Principal Amen’s spouse and Principal Rawson’s spouse shared such similar names — with one Mary having the name Rawson by birth and the other acquiring it by marriage — but the values and contemplative spirit of each woman live on in this place of such beauty and calm.”

 

Page also notes that Principal Lewis Perry’s wife, Margaret Hubbell Perry, is honored in the reading room as well, with furnishings given in her name by the class of 1929. “It’s interesting that the second floor of Davis was perceived as the ideal location to honor the foundational support of our principals’ life partners,” Page says. “The room holds that legacy with a gentle touch.”

Davis has also been modernized with new building systems, including HVAC equipment that relies on geothermal heating and cooling. Audiovisual and technology upgrades support modern learning. Space once occupied by book stacks has been reconfigured to accommodate a new stairwell and elevator, making the second floor fully accessible.

Instructors and students are struck by Davis Hall’s transformation and excited by its potential. “To me, it’s similar to the ancient Great Library of Alexandria where people came together and shared ideas,” Lee says. “It’s an interdisciplinary hub of learning.”

Classical Languages Department Chair Sally Morris says: “The beauty and majesty of the space are inspirational. The students can’t believe their luck. They’re close to the gym and dining hall. It feels like an oasis.”

Davis Hall has come full circle, becoming an intellectual center once again. Morris says: “When the classroom doors are propped open, you can hear teachers teaching, you can hear the conversations, the competitions … the sounds of an intellectual community working together. We feel very lucky.”

Debbie Kane is a longtime contributor to the Bulletin. Her work also appears in UNH Magazine, New Hampshire Home and Forum, the publication of the American Institute of Architects New Hampshire.

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

Field, House

English Instructor Erica Plouffe Lazure tracks the morning light in Thompson Field House.

The beams from the east arrive most mornings at Thompson Field House, carving light and shadow into secret, fleeting architecture. As the “giver of all presences,” the interplay of light begins just after sunup, when the long column windows facing the fields refract into golden portal doors that span the court’s fish-net scrim, landing finally in translucence along the gymnasium’s tall “EXETER” wall.

Here, beyond the more constant, girder logic of physics, the fact of gravity, and the function of cement and stone, lies another gift, one that the architects must have anticipated, as they accounted for the layers of purpose in this space: one that marks the morning’s natural arc of time and path, pattern and pace, light and shadow.

And on this one morning, it’s just past six, and soon the overhead fluorescence will cast its film onto the quiet, constant geometry of the crimson track that measures pace in meters. By then, the sun will have landed its golden gaze elsewhere and the space will teem with relay runners and catchers, rowers and cross-train-ers, dashers and hurdlers. Later it will lure Academy families with wobbling tots drawn to the long-jump sand pit, to the stretch of red that lets them run and run and run until naptime, until the big kids come for their splits and drills.

But now, in the morning quiet, a solitary runner lopes along the ovular path, observing the cathedral-height walls, the exposed rafters and impossibly gleaming windows, the pairs of slanted support beams that offer the unmistakable mark of masons: the sacred tools of learning and precision. And then she spots a neon ball beneath a bleacher, a spin-dly shadow cast by a pair of chairs near the tennis court. She notices how each edge of sand in the jump pit ripples liquid-like in shadow, how the layers of netted scrim lend an echo to a Louise Bourgeois creation. There’s possibility in this space. And then, as the last compass and ruler are everywhere, in fast-fading scalene crosshatch of morning light sprawls a butterscotch pattern across the tennis court, evidence of and oblong, as the shadow and light fade, inevitably, into one.

 

Erica Plouffe Lazure came to Exeter as the Bennett Fellow in 2009 and has taught English at the Academy since 2010. She is the author of a short story collection, Proof of Me and Other Stories. Her faculty reflection was originally published in the fall 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Exonians in Review: Fall 2025

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

Power Unleashed: Trailblazers Who Energised Engines with Supercharging and Turbocharging
Karl Ludvigsen ’52, Evro Publishing Limited, 2025

Old-Time Kentucky Farmsteading, Ways and Means: From the Journals of Herbert Lee Clark
Lou DeLuca ’53, editor Acclaim Press, 2024

Portraits in a Nutshell: The Art and History of Coquilla Nut Snuff Boxes and Bottles
David Badger ’54 with Donna S. Sanzone, Matthew Francis Rarey and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Brandeis University Press, 2025

Rethinking American Art: Collectors, Critics, and the Changing Canon
Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. ’56, David R. Godine, 2025

The Killing Season: The Autumn of 1914, Ypres, and the Afternoon That Cost Germany a War
Robert Cowley ’52, Random House, 2025

Hijacked: Our Republic, Unless We Can Save It
Peter Calfee ’69, with J. Kevin Dolan, Polinomics Press, 2025

The Friends and Family Guide to the Opioid Epidemic: Including How to Recognize and Treat an Overdose
Peter Canning ’76, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025

William Dieterle: A Forgotten Giant (The Hollywood Films: 1931–57)
Tommy Krasker ’77, self-published, 2025

The Belgian Friendship Building: From the New York World’s Fair to a Virginia HBCU
Kathleen James-Chakraborty ’78, with Katherine M. Kuenzli and Bryan Clark Green, University of Virginia Press, 2025

“What I Learned From Hiring Hundreds of Inmates,” speech
Margo Walsh ’82 TEDxPortsmouth, July 2025

Processing: 21 Days with God to Make it Make Sense
Anthony L. Riley ’04, self-published, 2025

Hourly: Empowering the Invisible Workforce for Shared Success
AJ Richichi ’13, Forbes Books, 2024

 

FACULTY

“The Reading Life: You’re Going to Hear the Pages Turn” essay
Willie Perdomo, Instructor in English, The Common, August 14, 2025

 

BENNETT FELLOW

“Echoes from the Copper Canyon”
Tim Norris, Woodbridge Publishers, 2025

 

Submit your work
Alumni are encouraged to advise the Bulletin editor (bulletin@exeter.edu) of their own publications, recordings, films, etc., and those of their classmates, for inclusion in future Exonians in Review columns.

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.