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

Patrick Garrity

A modern institution: Climate Action Day turns 12

Exeter's annual day for getting its hands dirty has become an Academy tradition.

Scour all 78 pages of Exeter’s spectacular Courses of Instruction guide, and no where does Climate Action Day appear.

But just as every classroom is home to a Harkness table and every sports season ends with a game against Andover, every April at the Academy includes a day for the community to reconnect with the natural world.

Now in its 12th year, Climate Action Day raises awareness of climate change, teaches students about their small place on a vast planet and reminds us to reflect on environmentalism as an integral part of human existence.

This spring, the programming was divvied up by class:

  • The ninth-graders stayed on campus for a crash course in Academy sustainability, from learning about the dining halls’ practices, to trip to the top of Thompson Field House and a survey of the solar array, to a loop around the vast network of trails throughout the Academy Woods.
  • Lowers visited a variety of local farms, including an organic dairy, a permaculture farm, and a fruit farm — each functioning at different scales. The tours included a dive into the methods of sustainable operations and some chores like planting, tilling, weeding, fencing or cleaning.
  • Uppers learned about the unique marine ecosystems proximate to PEA. Some set out to salt marshes at Odiorne State Park and on the Great Bay; others bused to Maine to learn about innovations in fishing gear; still others cleaned up local beaches and planted dune grass or were introduced to oyster farming on a tidal river.
  • Seniors took a hike, many of them venturing to New Hampshire treasures such as Mount Major and Mount Monadnock and a day on the trails.

Exeter adopted an environmental mission statement two decades ago and published its comprehensive sustainability and climate action plan in 2023. The plan states that the Academy’s primary contribution to climate action is through climate education, and the academic program has evolved over the years to meet that mandate. Our curriculum cultivates an appreciation for the natural world, and that is not limited to science classes. Exeter’s humanities classes provide opportunities to study the relationship between humans and the natural world, delving into the political, economic, social and ethical aspects of climate change.

Climate Action Day remains the day Exonians are intentional about getting up close with the ideas and goals of the sustainability plan, an Exeter tradition in the making.

Journalist’s story leads back to Exeter

Gloria Riviera '92 has worked in TV and digital news for 25 years.

Whether filing stories from Asia’s Ring of Fire or covering President Obama’s Rose Garden address the day Donald Trump won the 2016 Election, Gloria Riviera ’92 has leaned on lessons learned at Exeter throughout her career.

A longtime ABC News correspondent and current host of “No One Is Coming to Save Us,” a podcast that scrutinizes America’s childcare system, Riviera was back on campus this week speaking at assembly and meeting with students. Her appearance was made possible by the Richard and Jonas Strickler Exonian Fund, created to promote among Academy students an awareness of contemporary issues in journalism from a practitioner’s standpoint and an appreciation for standards of excellence in news writing and editing.

Riviera has come back to campus on occasion since her graduation. Her first visit to campus was as a new lower in 1989 on the day she moved into Dunbar Hall.

“My Exeter beginning was totally blind. I arrived here from Seattle, Washington State, sight unseen. I was about 13 or 14 when I told my mom, ‘I think I want to go to boarding school. And I remember she said, ‘Well, we’re not a boarding school family. You only go to boarding school if you’re in trouble.’ But she made it happen. I don’t know how I got the idea in my head.”

Riviera found lifelong friends in those early Exeter days. She urged her assembly audience to embrace the people sharing their experiences.

“Take a look around, recognize who you’re drawn to and invest in them,” she said. “They will make the world feel just a little smaller and a lot more comforting when you really need it.”

Riviera studied English at Princeton, then got her Master’s degree in journalism from New York University. “I didn’t get any of the reporting jobs that I applied for, none of them. Friends were going to The Daily News, to The New York Times, all over the country. All I got was nos. So when I told my good friend, who was also in news, that I was going to be an assistant, she looked heartbroken, like she was apologizing to me.”

The assistant job was for Sam Donaldson, an ABC News icon whose career on the network stretched from the Vietnam War to Obama’s election. For two years, Donaldson took Riviera everywhere he went. That meant to Arizona to interview presidential candidate John McCain in 2000. It meant Mexico, Israel, Gaza and a lot of time inside the Beltway in Washington D.C. “He was a good friend and he became a great mentor,” Riviera said.

Riviera parlayed Donaldson’s mentorship into on-air correspondent gigs in New York and London, then the network’s Asia correspondent job in Beijing, where she developed her niche for “long-form adventure storytelling.” She, with husband and fellow TV news journalist Jim Sciutto, also raised a family. Their two sons and daughter have traveled the world with their parents, and it was juggling parenthood and a career that wound up being the inspiration for a new story to tell — but not before a “curveball” arrived in 2019 in the form of a brain tumor.

“My tumor was located in my left frontal lobe, and that is where thinking, emotions, personality, judgment, response time, memory — that’s where all of those things happen,” she said. “So after 20 plus years in news, I was faced with a brain cancer that could severely compromise what I loved to do. And at that time, I can tell you, I truly thought that I was solely qualified to give you a story at 6:30 at night, every night, because that’s how traditional news worked then, and really do nothing else.”

Gloria Riviera '92

"I was meant to be here, I truly believe that. It was truly formative for me and it's incredibly empowering. I leave here and I feel like I can do anything I want to do."

Riviera underwent successful brain surgery April 19, 2019. The ordeal led her to leave ABC News but not give up her passion for storytelling. She interviewed in late 2020 to be the producer and host of a podcast on childcare.

“This is an issue that is not quite on your radar yet,” Riviera told Exeter students, “but when you become a parent, this country’s attitude is essentially, ‘Great, good luck. We will see you in kindergarten.’ Those first five years of all of your lives, of everyone’s lives, are critical. … Those first five years of development, the brain is forming, they set the stage, really. And yet the United States is nowhere near so many other countries in what they provide for people.”

“No One Is Coming to Save Us” began as a limited, six-part series. It has celebrated five full seasons.

“I decided to leave ABC, which was terrifying. It was the only home I had ever known, and that becomes very comfortable for better or worse. But a friend at the time told me, ‘You should feel fully supported in your place of work, where you spend your time.’ And that has also stayed with me because one of the places that I felt fully supported was right here at Exeter, where there were ups and downs, but I knew I was in the right place and I knew people had my back.”

Econ team rolls to threepeat

Four Exeter uppers outmatch rivals to win Northwestern Economics Tournament.

For the third consecutive year, a team from the Exeter Economics Association has won the Northwestern Economics Tournament.

The four-player team — uppers Drona Gaddam, David Liu, Eli Orbach and Lake Zho — swept both the buzzer-based EconBowl and the written test Power Round to claim top honors among 21 high school teams from around the country. Founded in 2016, NET is run by undergraduates of Northwestern University with funding and logistical support from the school’s Economics Department.

EconBowl is a series of one-on-one buzzer rounds where the moderator reads a question and teams race to buzz in and answer. Among economics competitions, NET is distinctive for asking particularly challenging questions, leaning more towards technical details and models rather than introductory material and trivia. “This has historically benefited the Exeter team, since we have accumulated quite a store of knowledge over our years of competing,” said Orbach, the team’s captain.

The Power Round is a 90-minute group economics test, with questions typically hovering around the advanced undergraduate level. This year, the questions revolved around adaptive expectations of inflation, Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, calculations with tax rates, and a small general equilibrium model in an agricultural context, according to Orbach, the team’s captain.

Plushie fairy spreads joy one surprise at a time

Ninth-grader promotes CAPS' work to support mental health with grassroots effort.

An Exeter student with a love for crocheting and a wish to spread good vibes has launched a personal mission delivered one plushie at a time. Tucked into nooks in the library, classrooms and elsewhere around campus are handmade “comfort buddies” to offer a lift on hard days.

“In the past, I crocheted things as gifts for my friends on their birthdays, and the plushies I made always received a lot of love,” says the student, who wishes to remain anonymous. “I want the people who find the plushies hidden around campus to experience a similar spark of joy, knowing someone out there other than their family/friends cares about them.”

“I reached out to CAPS after attending a session with Dr. Lee and feeling the impact that the one single session had on my mental health, and I really appreciated her help. I decided after that meeting that I wanted to raise awareness about this wonderful resource we have on campus, so I reached out to Dr. Lee asking if I could place crochet plushies in the CAPS waiting room. My hope is that my plushies will brighten people’s day and that those who take a plushie will tell their friends about CAPS, spreading the word about the adults on campus who are available to support us.”

Exonians in Review: Winter 2026

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

 

Surgeons and Something More: The History of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania
Clyde Barker ’50, with Elizabeth D. Barker, The American Philosophical Society Press, 2024

Murder at Seascape
Tom Ehrlich ’52, Pegasus Publishers, 2025

One: One Earth, One Humanity, One Future
Winslow Myers ’58, with Libby Traubman Creative Initiative Publications, 2025

Thomas More and Liberal Education: Christian Humanism in Practice
Elizabeth Brooke Blackburn Carpenter; George S. Blackburn ’60, editor, self-published, 2024

A Vet’s Story
Mark Helfat ’69, self-published, 2025

Surfing the Interstates: 1973 Hitchhiking Memoir
André J de Saint Phalle ’69, self-published, 2025

Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar
David Potter ’75, Oxford University Press, 2025

The Last of the Giants:  An Ultra Running Graphic Novel
Doug Mayer ’83, with William Windrestin Helvetiq, 2025

“Half-Heard in the Stillness,” essay
Jeremy Faro ’92, The Threepenny Review, fall 2025

Rainbow Gold: Building a Business That’s Both the Journey and the Destination
David B. Hampson ’96, MindStir Media, 2025

The Catholic Church and Transnational Moral Norms in the Philippines: Contraception, Human Trafficking, and Religion
Jonathan T. Chow ’99, Routledge, 2025

The 7-Minute Citizen: Your Power, Your Rights, Your Democracy
Wes Chaput ’06, Wheatmark, 2025

Protected: Birth Control’s Remarkable Story and Uncertain Future
Katie DeAngelis Quimby ’09, Bloomsbury Academic, 2025

 

FACULTY

“On Heartbreak: The Beautiful Half of a Golden Hurt,” essay
Willie Perdomo, instructor in English, Poetry Foundation, November 3, 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.

The Shot Scientist

The Shot Scientist

Mitchell Kirsch ’17 (left) takes Duncan Robinson ’13 through a workout last summer in Love Gymnasium. Robinson spends his NBA offseasons training with Kirsch.

During the tranquility of summer on Exeter’s campus, Mitchell Kirsch ’17 summoned a group of basketball players to Love Gym to simulate the swarming defenses Duncan Robinson ’13 would face in the NBA his season. To compensate for their lack of height relative to long-limbed pros, these defenders flailed long black padded sticks in front of the 6-foot-7-inch Robinson, attempting to obstruct his vision and movements as he dribbled the ball and shot it.

As strange as this exercise looked, Robinson invites this kind of organized chaos on the court. It’s why the Detroit Pistons forward hired Kirsch to refine his game.

Kirsch, who played on two NEPSAC championship teams at Exeter as well as in college and overseas, has embraced a nontraditional approach to skill development. His methods have captured the attention of numerous college and NBA players, as well as coaches at the highest level of the sport. Some of them are among his nearly 100,000 Instagram followers.

Historically, sports training has focused on muscle memory: Athletes improve through the repetition of proper techniques. But, Kirsch says, “there’s a major shift happening.” Static drills in practice don’t always translate to success in the unpredictable environments of competition. Shooting a basketball alone on a court, for example, will rarely happen during a full-court game.

Over the past two decades, a growing body of interdisciplinary research has shown that manipulating variables to mimic the challenges an athlete might experience during competition can lead to better results. This constraints-led approach, or CLA, draws from scientists’ understanding of ecological dynamics, or the nature of how individuals move through different environments. By providing players with various limitations or constraints — every-thing from dimmer lighting to extra defenders — coaches force athletes to learn to adapt to game conditions.

As Robert Gray, an associate professor of human systems engineering at Arizona State University, says, “Instead of the coach telling the athlete what to do, how to move, it’s letting the athlete figure it out on their own.”

Although some coaches contend that they have always operated this way, Kirsch belongs to a new generation of trainers who are steeped in the scientific underpinnings of the CLA methodology.

Summer school

Exeter is Kirsch’s laboratory. For the past three summers, he has refined drills at the school while working with scores of local teenagers in his Elevate Basketball skills academy. Between those sessions, he holds private workouts on the grounds. Among his clients are Notre Dame forward Ryder Frost ’25, NBA veterans like Robinson and Georges Niang, and current Exeter players.

Robinson knew Kirsch as the brother of Max Kirsch ’16, his teammate on the Academy’s first NEPSAC Class A title team in 2013. Over the years, they crossed paths. Kirsch’s unconventional, studious approach appealed to Robinson, who blazed a trail from Williams College to the University of Michigan to the NBA. Eventually, Robinson enlisted Kirsch to design and oversee his offseason regimen.

“When I’m training, I want to think throughout my workout, and I want to learn,” Robinson says. “And he helps me do both.”

Last summer, Robinson holed up with Kirsch at Exeter for the better part of eight weeks. As usual, Kirsch posted clips from the sessions on his Instagram account, @hoopin_mitch; they collected tens of thousands of views.

These videos offer snapshots into the idiosyncrasies of a constraints-led approach. In one, Robinson warms up by shooting with basketballs of different weights and sizes. In another, he must immediately hoist a 3-pointer upon receiving the ball, never letting it fall below his shoulders and never holding it for more than half a second before releasing it, as if an NBA defender were bearing down on him. Time and time again, Robinson still makes the shot, though his footing and form don’t always look the same.

 

 

A player’s goal is to shoot the ball through the hoop during games. “What we’ve found is you don’t do that by repeating the same movement every single time,” Kirsch says. “You do that by having adaptability within your movement. That’s why we’re applying so many game-realistic challenges to encourage him to find consistency in the chaos.”

In about 20 studies comparing the effects of constraints-led training and more traditionally prescriptive coaching, Gray says, a majority have found that a constraints-led approach delivers superior results. “We’re making more adaptable, problem-solving athletes,” Gray says.

For Robinson, “that ultimately is what translates.” Whether it’s facing defenders with bats for arms or trying to beat a shot clock in his head, he finds these drills prepare him for a grueling NBA season that leaves little time for skill development.

Seeking solutions to problems

Growing up in the small town of Atkinson, New Hampshire, Kirsch didn’t have many peers nearby to play basketball. So he became his own trainer, often running through muscle-memory drills alone. Yet, for all his practicing, Kirsch wasn’t improving to his liking. “I felt like there was no one working harder than me, but a lot of other people were getting better faster than I was,” he recalls.

Attending Exeter altered the trajectory of his development. When he arrived at the Academy as a day student in 2013, he was a slight 6-foot-2. “He, physically, was overmatched,” says Jay Tilton, his former Exeter coach. “But he always had the mindset, the confidence, the drive to be able to hang with the older athletes.”

Playing with them, including his brother, Max, taught Kirsch to work out more efficiently on and off the court. Over his four years, Kirsch honed his skills and gained about 50 pounds of muscle. He started every game at point guard his final two seasons and, as a senior, helped lead Big Red to his second NEPSAC Class A title, in large part because of his intelligence. “He’s always had a very high basketball IQ,” Tilton says. “A very inquisitive player. Asked a lot of questions — good questions.”

By that time, Kirsch had begun answering some of his own questions and had started training younger students. “I saw so many kids that reminded me of where I was,” he says. He wanted to expedite their development, just as others had done for him. And Tilton may have unwittingly planted the seeds for his constraints-led approach to basketball.

“You can have every excuse in the world, but we’re not looking for problems,” Kirsch recalls of Tilton’s philosophy. “We’re looking for solutions. Having that shift in mindset really helped both academically and on court. And funny enough, now that’s a large part of my training style. I’m giving players problems, and I’m encouraging them to find solutions.”

A prescribed path awaited Kirsch at Claremont McKenna College in California, where he continued his playing career. Many student-athletes there opted to pursue careers in consulting or investment banking. Landing a job at a big company was considered “the gold standard,” Kirsch says. Yet, when these alumni returned to the school, “largely, they were just unhappy,” Kirsch recalls, “and, to me, that didn’t make much sense.” His internships at a Wall Street firm and Nike confirmed his suspicion that he would be miserable in the corporate world. When he jokingly told people he was visiting “career services,” he really went to the gym.

With the onset of COVID, the college’s athletic facilities closed and Kirsch started working out at the gym of Jordan Lawley, an NBA skills trainer, in Irvine, California. In exchange for using Lawley’s courts, Kirsch oversaw the development of Lawley’s middle-school clients.

With 30 youngsters and just six hoops, Kirsch lacked the space to run drills as he normally would. Yet the offensive and defensive games he devised on the fly were working better than he could have imagined. The players were improving — fast. And they were having more fun, he says. A limitation was working to their advantage. “I was like, there’s some-thing to this,” Kirsch says.

He honed the idea for a training business grounded in science while earning his master’s degree in business at Babson College in Massachusetts. He also continued to play basket-ball and harbored dreams of playing professionally. He performed well enough at Babson to sign with a professional team in Colombia and later in Norway.

When he returned to the U.S. between seasons, he resumed training other athletes. “I was training people that were probably making what I make in a season in two minutes,” he says. “So I had to shift a little bit and understand where the value creation was.”

He ended his playing career and devoted all of his attention to training. But basketball wasn’t done taking him around the world.

The global game

Kirsch recently offered instruction in Kazakhstan, Sweden and Luxembourg. He also spends time in London, where his fiancée, Eloise Shields ’17, is pursuing a master’s degree.

When Kirsch is in the States, he’s regularly in the NBA orbit. Beyond keeping tabs on players he has trained, he stays in touch with coaches and front office types around the league, many of whom have adopted his methods. The Boston Celtics, for example, recently invited Kirsch to a practice.

Still, his most receptive audience may well be in his old locker room. Kirsch has trained several current Exeter players, and the Academy’s new basketball coach, Harry Rafferty ’13, advocates a constraints-led approach.

“I love that a Phillips Exeter grad is introducing our younger guys to different ways to improve that make them think,” Rafferty says. “It’s not, hey, we’re going to do these sets of drills, and that it’s this way or the highway, or this is the only way to get better.

… I think the biggest power in Mitch’s approach is that it creates an environment where our players are actively thinking of ways that they can improve that are outside the box.”

As much as he enjoys the challenge of fine-tuning the basketball brains of NBA players, Kirsch espe-cially appreciates instilling this mindset in younger players, like those who attend his academy each summer at Exeter. “It’s the most rewarding thing,” he says. “Seeing all these kids from New Hampshire and Massachusetts really improve and embrace this different way of training.”

And this approach can be useful well beyond the basketball court. As Noah LaRoche, a consultant with the Miami Heat who grew up in Exeter and coached Kirsch, says: “It’s not a basketball thing. We’re dealing with constraints all the time.”

Benjamin Cassidy is a first-time contributor to the Bulletin. His writing has appeared in Boston, The Boston Globe Magazine, GQ, National Geographic and Scientific American, among other publications.

This feature first appeared in the Winter 2026 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

‘Nobody deserves to be forgotten’

Holocaust survivor urges Exeter to prevent the seeds of hatred from taking root.

Addressing a hushed assembly for Holocaust Remembrance Day, survivor Kati Preston delivered a message that was as much a warning for the future as it was a reflection on the past.

Her testimony, spanning from the “stranglehold” of 1940s Hungary to a 50-year journey toward forgiveness, served as a stark reminder that history’s darkest chapters do not begin with state-sponsored violence, but with the silence of ordinary people.

The erosion of humanity

Born in Hungary in 1939 to a Jewish father and a Christian mother, Preston was only a child when the world was swept up in war and her happy life turned to tumult.

“I started to see my parents faces change,” she said. “They stopped laughing. They saw that things weren’t the same as before. Somehow, I felt it. Even though I was only a child, I was not even 5 at that time.”

Preston recalled how the atmosphere in her home shifted as laws began to strip Jewish citizens of their livelihoods and dignity.

“The Holocaust didn’t start with concentration camps,” Preston told the students. “It started at the grassroots level. It started with bullying, with pushing people, and laws came. All kinds of laws.”

She detailed the incremental “stranglehold” placed on her community: Jewish doctors barred from treating Christian patients, teachers dismissed, and municipal workers fired. At every step, Preston noted, people comforted themselves with the refrain, “It can’t get much worse than this.” Preston recounted the day her mother sewed a yellow star of shiny satin onto her coat. To a 5-year-old, it was a beautiful ornament. But while walking to get pastries, a stranger stopped her. Expecting a compliment, she instead met “total hatred” when the man spat in her face. “I said to my mother, ‘He hates stars,’” Preston remembered.

“I didn’t even imagine it was me he hated.”

Survival and the cost of silence

As the authorities began the final roundups in 1944, Preston’s life was saved by the grace of a young Christian woman for whom her mother had once made a wedding dress. While Preston spent months hiding in a barn, the world outside was being “obliterated.”

The statistics Preston shared were staggering: 28 of her family members, including her father, died at Auschwitz. Of the 30,000 Jews in her town, only 602 survived. All 52 children in her Jewish kindergarten were killed.

 

“It didn’t start with the gas chambers,” she said. “It took a lot of people to perpetrate this thing and I think, ultimately, I blame the bystanders. Because it took thousands of people to kill people, but it took millions of people to let it happen. Because they were silent.”

Preston’s closing message was one of hope. She admitted that she carried a heart “full of hatred” and a desire for revenge for five decades before finding peace.

“I worked very hard on that,” she said. “Love is about the only solution to all this. Please, don’t think that just because a tragedy happens it has to exterminate your personality.”

Preston urged her audience to never let the stories of the Holocaust fade away. She ended her address with a plea to remember those who have no memorial or graves, and to prevent the seeds of hatred from taking root in the modern world. “My plea to you is to please try to love each other,” she concluded. “We all have to stay together, because it didn’t just happen overnight.”

Exeter senior a Regeneron finalist

Celine Zhang '26 chosen among top 40 in Society of Science competition.

Exeter extended its success in the nation’s the nation’s oldest and most prestigious STEM competition, with another Exonian reaching the finals of the Regeneron Science Talent Search.

Celine Zhang ’26 will join 39 other young scholars from across the country to compete for $1.8 million in prizes during the finals in March in Washington, D.C. The talent search, sponsored by the American biotech company Regeneron and overseen by the Society of Science, is in its 85th year.

Zhang’s project is titled “Designing Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Agent Motion Planning.” She explains: “Imagine Peggy wants to prove to her friend Victor that she knows a solution to a game but does not want to reveal to him what that solution is. I developed a zero-knowledge proof for a class of block-pushing games, which would allow Peggy to do just that. My zero-knowledge proof is both efficient and generalizable to a wide class of games. In today’s digital world, zero-knowledge proofs allow for preservation of privacy in a variety of contexts.”

Exeter has a proud history in the competition, including boasting overall winners Yunseo Choi ’21 and Achyuta Rajaram ’24, who each took home a $250,000 top prize. Past competitors include 13 Nobel laureates and 23 MacArthur Fellows.

Along with Zhang, two other Exonians were chosen this year as semifinalists. Congratulations to Sebastien Sobeih ’26 and Andy Song ’26 for earning a place among 300 semifinalists.

#iamExeter: Anna ’26

What it’s like to be an Exeter student, from Exeter students.

 

Who better to talk about life at the Academy than the experts!? In a series of interviews with students, we asked questions prospective families might have as their student considers applying. First on the list: Anna Taormina ’26. She’s a four-year senior day student from neighboring Newfields. Anna arrived on campus shy and self-conscious. Today, she’s thriving in her senior year, with a large friend group and — well, let Anna tell it:

 

When did you first feel like you “belonged” at Exeter? Do you remember a moment when Exeter started to feel like the right place for you?

I was really shy, and it was hard at first to fit in, so it really wasn’t until the spring of my ninth-grade year that I really felt like I fit in. The spring was when I really started to meet my people. We would study outside in the red lawn chairs and we would play spike ball in the quad for hours. That was when I felt like I finally fit into the puzzle.

 

What advice would you give a new student who is nervous about fitting in or keeping up?

I would say I had the same feeling, and to be honest, everyone does. The nice thing is nobody comes here knowing a single person, we almost all come as an outsider. I think if you’re shy like me, the Harkness table will definitely help: It’s more just like conversations with your classmates.

What’s something about Exeter that might surprise someone who doesn’t know us?

We’re actually not all nerds! Everyone I talk to back home always thinks were just boring nerds, and I promise you we aren’t. This is probably the most colorful and active school I have ever seen. It’s not just all work, so if you’re scared of that, don’t be. It’s a place where trying new things is something that you will do almost every day, and around every corner you’ll meet someone new that broadens your circle. Oh, and we have the best school spirit ever — even my friends from public school say it — I have never seen people be so proud to call this school home.

 

How has Exeter changed the way you go about learning and expressing your ideas?

Harkness is one thing that has changed my mind almost completely. It showed me that when you learn, you’re not just trying to show off what you know but take in the things that others know. Ask the questions that need to be asked and don’t be afraid to be wrong or embarrassed, so someone can show you the right direction. When we sit down at that table, we become both a student and a teacher. We listen and take in, while also expressing our side. Harkness not only opened up my mind but my personality. It taught me not to be shy and to trust my voice and my opinion.

 

What’s something you believed about yourself before coming to Exeter that has changed since you enrolled?

I believed that I saw the whole picture of the world before Exeter. But at Exeter, I heard stories that made my jaw drop, and learned things that I didn’t even think could exist. Exeter showed me that what might seem impossible or what might seem done is never done, there is always more to see, more to learn, and that you can always find the possible in the impossible.

 

Finish this sentence: Exeter pushes me to …

Now it may sound basic, but “try new things.” In the four years I have been here, I have done things I never dreamed of doing. This place makes you escape the box you might have put yourself in. They make you try new things right when you get here — even when you’re scared to do it. I promise you’ll be happy you did, because each new thing you do or try to do shows you something that you can carry with you forever.

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.”