Jim Coleman ’66 addressed an Assembly Hall audience and visited with students.

Attorney and longtime Duke Law School professor James E. Coleman ’66; P’16 was honored this week with the 2024 John and Elizabeth Phillips Award, which recognizes an Exonian who has contributed significantly to the welfare of community, country or humanity. Sam Brown ’92, trustee and president of Exeter’s General Alumni Association, presented Coleman with the award in assembly Friday.

“As an attorney, law professor and advocate for civil and constitutional rights, you have dedicated your life’s work to pursuing justice and fair treatment for everyone under the law,” Brown said, reading from the award citation. “You have led nationally recognized efforts on behalf of death penalty reform and the wrongfully convicted and have mentored and inspired a new generation of lawyers with what one longtime friend calls your distinctive blend of ‘passion and principle.’”

In his acceptance remarks, Coleman said he was “humbled and grateful beyond adequate words” to be receiving the John and Elizabeth Phillips Award. He spoke of the award’s first recipient, Burke Marshall ’40, who served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil rights division during the administration of President John F. Kennedy. “For me to be associated with Burke Marshall through Exeter and this award has special meaning,” Coleman said.

That year [at Exeter] was the best and most important academic experience of my life.

Jim Coleman '66

A life-changing experience

Coleman spoke about growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he lived in a three-room house with his parents and six younger siblings and attended racially segregated schools. “Our schools were intentionally denied the resources that white public schools received, and we often had to make do with their hand me down books and supplies,” he said. “But the black teachers at our inferior schools did not saddle us with the heavy burden of being told that the students were inferior.”

Instead, Coleman said, his teachers instilled him with the confidence that through hard work, he could achieve whatever he set out to do. In the spring of his 11th grade year, his guidance counselor, Marjorie Belton, connected him with a wealthy white friend of hers who wanted to pay for a student from his school to attend a five-week summer enrichment program at Exeter. Coleman had never heard of the Academy at the time.

“In June 1964, I packed my cheap metal footlocker that I purchased with money I earned as a caddy and boarded a Greyhound bus for an 830-mile trip north,” he recalled. “My grandmother gave me $20 and told me to come home if I didn’t like the place.”

In fact, he ended up not only staying for that summer but returning for a post-graduate year in 1965 after his graduation from high school in Charlotte. “That year … was the best and most important academic experience of my life,” Coleman said. He also joined the track team, learning to compete in the high jump from longtime Exeter track coach Ralph Lovshin. He would go on to be an All-Ivy high jumper at Harvard University.

Though there were relatively few Black students at Exeter at the time he attended, Coleman says he wasn’t made to feel like an outsider by his teachers or classmates. “That allowed me to do my best, unencumbered by the kind of self-doubts engendered by the ongoing public debates that take place today about whether students of color should be at places like Exeter,” Coleman said. “The only question is not why that they belong at places like Exeter, but what places like Exeter can do to ensure their success as students.”

Law as a public service

After graduating from Harvard and earning his law degree at Columbia Law School, Coleman practiced law for decades with firms in New York City and Washington, D.C. As a young lawyer, he took leaves of absences to serve in government roles, including chief counsel to the House Ethics Committee and deputy general counsel to the U.S. Department of Education.

At the prestigious D.C. law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where he became a partner in 1982, Coleman litigated a wide range of cases, including criminal, civil commercial, natural gas regulatory, employment discrimination and civil rights. Through the firm’s pro bono program, he became involved with death penalty cases, including the final post-conviction capital punishment appeal of serial killer Ted Bundy.

“Despite heavy criticism, you stood firm in your duty to protect the constitutional rights of your client and uphold the rule of law under intense media pressure,” Brown read from the award citation. “You went on to lead death penalty reform efforts for the American Bar Association and others.”

My presence at Exeter changed both me and Exeter. My life's story became part of Exeter's story and my subsequent accomplishments became part of Exeter's legacy.

Jim Coleman '66

Now a member of the Duke University faculty for more than 25 years, Coleman is currently the John S. Bradway Professor of the Practice of Law. He also co-founded and directs the Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Duke Law School, which investigates plausible claims of innocence made by people incarcerated for felonies in North Carolina. Since 2011, Coleman and the students in the clinic have secured exonerations for 11 clients, many of whom served decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.

Connecting across the generations

In accepting the John and Elizabeth Phillips Award, Coleman credited his experience at Exeter with teaching him to be a stronger, more confident and engaged student, and showing him the possibility of opportunities he had never been able to imagine before he came to the Academy.

“My presence at Exeter changed both me and Exeter,” Coleman told the assembled students, faculty, staff and Trustees. “My life’s story became part of Exeter’s story and my subsequent accomplishments became part of Exeter’s legacy.”

After the award presentation in assembly, Coleman got the chance to connect with current Exonians by sitting in on an 11^th grade English class and a class in Religion, Ethics and Philosophy. He also attended a lunch with students in the Elting Room.

Tom Steyer ’75 asks Exeter ‘Do you love the world?’

Investor and activist believes we can win the war on climate.

When Tom Steyer ’75 gathered with Exeter students recently to discuss climate change, his challenge was not to explain the complexities of the issue. It was to get a word in edgewise.

The spirited discussion around a Harkness table in the Latin Study included a dozen students who are passionate about — and well-versed in — the subject, and their recent reading of Steyer’s new book “Cheaper Faster Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War” only fueled their enthusiasm.

Few people are as fervent about exposing the threat of the changing climate as Steyer. In 2013, he walked away from the multi-billion-dollar hedge fund he founded to dedicate himself to raising awareness and exploring solutions to what he considers “the greatest threat of our lifetime.” He started a regenerative ranch to show you can raise cattle and still have a negative carbon footprint. He co-founded a climate investment firm to unlock the potential of the transition to clean energy. He donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to candidates and campaigns similarly devoted to the cause. And, in 2020, when he decided those candidates were not as focused on the issue as they needed to be, he ran in the Democratic primary for president.

Steyer was back on campus — where 50 years ago he was a proud Cilley boy for three years before serving as a proctor in Gould House his senior year — to address assembly and meet with students from clubs focused on sustainability. The conversation around the table launched with a question from a student about animal agriculture’s effects on global warming, and the dialogue was off and running.

We all want to have a purpose in life; that there’s something we’re doing on this planet beyond how much money we’re making or what size house we live in.

Tom Steyer '75

The discussion returned more than once to the “cheaper” part of Steyer’s “Cheaper Faster Better” title; that is, the need to incentivize people — and more specifically, Americans — in their wallets. Steyer took the example of Texas’ development of solar energy. The nation’s biggest oil-producing state is about to surpass California as the leading solar producer; between 2014 and 2023, Texas’ share of total U.S. solar power increased from roughly 1.5% to approximately 17%.

“No one did it to be nice,” Steyer said. “They did it to save money.”

Ultimately, what will motivate people — and corporations — is self-interest. “People won’t do this sweetheart, beautiful thing for the planet, they’ll do this sweetheart, beautiful thing for themselves.”

That’s not a very non-sibi outlook to embrace, and the questions Steyer wants Exeter students to ask themselves are the same questions he asked himself when he embarked on his career sea change: “How do you think about yourselves? Do you love the world? Do you care about other people?”

“We all want to have a purpose in life; that there’s something we’re doing on this planet beyond how much money we’re making or what size house we live in.”

Steyer remains an optimist that humankind will respond to the crisis, likening it to the way the U.S. and the world rose to meet the moment in World War II. In his book, he writes, “in the face of the greatest threat our planet had ever faced, we didn’t lose our nerve or our self-confidence. …We transformed ourselves, on the battlefield and the home front.”

It didn’t happen by accident then and won’t today, he said.

“I don’t see how we’ll succeed in this without trying to succeed,” he told the students. “If everyone does their part, we’re going win.”

The (new) doctor is in

Dr. Derek Trapasso heads Exeter's robust team of healthcare specialists

With decades of knowledge and experience, Dr. Derek Trapasso steps into the role of Exeter’s medical director to start the 2024-25 school year. A graduate of Albany Medical School, Dr. Trapasso has worked for several renowned hospital systems in greater Boston and the Seacoast of New Hampshire with stops at Mass General, Wentworth-Douglas Hospital and Exeter Hospital, where he started the pediatric care program. A month into the school year, we sat down with Dr. Trapasso to learn more about his approach to caring for the students of Exeter.

What types of health and wellness services does Exeter provide for its students?

It’s really amazing the work that comes out of the Lamont Health and Wellness Center in that we really provide four different services. We have a team of mid-level providers, two physician assistants and a nurse practitioner. Their care ranges from illnesses and injuries to a lot of the primary care that you might get out of your pediatrician or your family practitioner’s office. You then have the entire Counseling and Psychological Services program upstairs on the third floor and all the amazing work that they do. The athletic training department is part of the health center and then also a nutrition program led by a registered dietician. So we’ve got four amazing services that are all coming out of this one building.

How do all those services work together?

When I think about what it means to be healthy, I believe that there’s sort of three fundamental pieces to that. There is your physical health, your mental health, and your emotional health. And it’s so amazing that here at the health center we can address all three of those things. I liken it to a three-legged stool, when all of those legs are in balance, the stool is incredibly strong. When one of those three things is out of balance, that’s when the stool topples over. We’re here to be able to support students in all three of those things.

Tell me about the working relationship with Exeter Hospital should a student need care beyond the on-campus health center?

It’s really important for the medical director to have a relationship with the local hospital where the students are going to go should they need it. One of the nice things is not only am I the medical director here, but I’m also on staff at Exeter Hospital. When we have patients that need the emergency department or when we’ve had students that have been admitted, I can go and see them in the hospital. We have access to the medical record here, and so we can know exactly what’s going on. That close relationship between the health center and the hospital allows our patients to receive seamless care.

How do you keep parents informed of the care their child is receiving?

We entrust our students with a lot of responsibility when they come here and part of that is being accountable for their own health and wellness. So we do ask for a certain amount of independence from our students to be able to come here and to get care and to know when they need to ask for help. But at the same time, we also need to keep parents informed. So we balance that independence of our students while also making sure our parents are well-informed. It’s part of the growth experience that happens here. Not only are the students growing from the academic standpoint, but they’re learning how to transition into adulthood and how to take more responsibility, more ownership for themselves.

Any parting thoughts?

I think it’s important to know that we’re here to support students in whatever way they need. I think it’s also important for them to know that the health center is staffed, open and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whenever there are students on campus. Parents should know that if they have questions, they can reach out to us by phone or email. Parents are entrusting us with their kids, sometimes from down the street or sometimes around the globe and we’re here to take good care of them.

Professors tout respect in a time of rancor

Dartmouth's Susannah Heschel and Tarek El-Ariss personify the value of dialogue and collaboration in education.

Studying the past helps us better grasp the present, whether we are condemned to repeat it or not. Two Dartmouth professors created and co-teach a course at the Ivy League school intended to offer historical context to the modern-day strife of the Middle East by exploring the politics, religion and literature of the past.

Susannah Heschel and Tarek El-Ariss visited Exeter in September for an assembly discussion about their course — and how current events can shape a history class as much as history portends the present.

The professors’ appearance was another opportunity for Exeter students to learn the value of dialogue and intellectual humility. The Academy has invited several speakers to campus over the past year who have emphasized the importance of diverse perspectives and listening with empathy to views different from our own.

Last fall, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont ‘72, a Democrat, and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, took the assembly stage for a discussion devoid of the rancor that infects most political discourse. Author Monica Guzman told an assembly audience that without connecting with people with differing perspectives, “whoever is under-represented in our life is going to be over-represented in our imagination. And our imaginations are not a great source of truth.”

In their course, “The Arab, the Jew, and the Construction of Modernity,” Heschel and El-Ariss underscore the benefit of collaborative teaching and learning from their respective backgrounds as academics: Heschel is an instructor in religion and the chair of the Jewish Studies program; El-Ariss is a scholar of the French Enlightenment and the chair of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth. Their premise is that the modern-day Middle East and what it means to be a Jew or an Arab today was shaped by the thought and actions of Europeans beginning two centuries ago.

The course has played out in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis by Hamas militants, the subsequent devastating response by Israel in Gaza and the widening of the conflict into Lebanon. The current conflict is not a topic of the curriculum, but it casts a long shadow over the class.

“We are not unaware of what’s happening today, but how do we make this study of history fundamental to understanding and even feeling and feeling strongly about what’s happening today?” says El-Ariss. “One does not preclude the other, and this is the balancing that we need to do and that we do in the class.”

Central to a course such as theirs, in a moment such as the present, is respect, says Hechsel.

“You can tell when someone’s listening to you in a deep way, really listening. Ask yourself, ‘What kind of a listener can I be? How can I listen to this person?’ That’s a skill that we need to develop. And I actually think we have a lot of theological writings that are useful for us in developing that skill, to speak to one another, to learn how to communicate on an issue that can be exquisitely sensitive to many people and can arouse sometimes terrible passions. How can we listen to one another?”

Making the grade: Class Activity Day a winning start

Orientation program connects classmates to open new year.

It’s hard to say exactly when cringe turns to grins, when the obligatory teenage defense mode gives way to unfettered fun. But it is as sure as the sunrise; Class Activity Day never disappoints.

Much of Exeter daily life revolves around dorms, clubs and teams, filled with students from ninth grade to 12th. But this day is all about classmates, when each of Exeter’s four grades gather to connect and collaborate before classwork begins and the school year races away.

The class orientation program was launched in 2017 with funding from a generous donor. It consists of some ice-breaking activities — cue the cringe — and picks up speed as leaders prompt the students to perform challenges as a team. The ninth, 10th and 11th graders stuck to campus, while the seniors bused off to nearby Kensington. The products of their labor — 2-liter bottle rockets, impromptu dance moves — are temporary. The collaboration, however, will serve each student as they pass a classmate on the path or find themselves partnered with a classmate in a lab.

                Legacy of murdered investigative journalist Paul Klebnikov ’81 lives on in memorial lecture series.

            

“We are literally tonight at an inflection point,” Andrew Weiss says. “This is a terrifying moment … in U.S. policy towards Ukraine.”

Weiss, a former White House, State Department and Pentagon official during the presidential administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, now analyzes the region for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a global think tank. On this February evening, he is addressing not journalists or policymakers, but a group of Exeter students, faculty and staff gathered in the intimate black box theater inside The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance.

The topic of Weiss’ lecture — “War in Ukraine: Can the United States and Europe Tackle the Near- and Long-Term Challenge?” — could not be more timely. Even as he speaks, U.S. Senate lawmakers are mired in contentious negotiations over legislation that would potentially send more than $60 billion in additional aid to Ukraine, where fighting has been raging since Russian forces invaded in February 2022.

Weiss speaks for more than an hour, pausing often to emphasize a point or invite questions from the audience. He argues that for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, Ukraine represents “unfinished business” after popular uprisings thwarted Russian intervention in Ukrainian politics in 2004 and 2014. Putin’s relentless efforts to dominate Ukraine, Weiss says, is why the war in Ukraine will govern U.S. policy toward Russia for the foreseeable future.

“We need to avoid magical thinking about how we’re going to manage an adversarial relationship with a country like Russia,” he says, expanding on a theme he and a Carnegie colleague explored in an essay published in The Wall Street Journal last November. “So long as Putin is in power, we should expect the current status quo to prevail.”

Paul Klebnikov ‘81 holding a copy of the Russian edition of Forbes in 2004.

This event is the second of three lectures by Weiss, who will also sit in on multiple history classes as the latest speaker in the Paul Klebnikov ’81 Memorial Lecture Series, established by the class of 1981. An investigative journalist who had recently become editor in chief of the Russian edition of Forbes, Klebnikov was shot and killed outside his office in Moscow in July 2004. Though Russian authorities charged several men linked to a Chechen rebel leader with committing the murder for hire, they never definitively identified who had organized it. Almost 20 years later, no one has been brought to justice for Klebnikov’s killing.

Keith Moon ’81, a longtime teacher of Russian history and literature at The Hotchkiss School, introduced Weiss. Moon says he often thinks of Klebnikov when discussing the corruption and chaos of post-Soviet Russia with his students. “Paul was doing investigative journalism and studying people who were ruthless and brutal, and they caught up with him,” he says. “He understood that, but it was a tragic … price to pay.”

A descendant of Russian emigrés who escaped the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Paul Klebnikov was born in New York City, the youngest of four children. According to an article published in New York Magazine after his death, he attended private school in Manhattan and spent weekends and vacations at a family home in the Hamptons. Yet he also grew up steeped in the culture of his ancestral homeland, following Russian Orthodox religious traditions and learning the history of the czars.

Andy Bernard ’81, who met Klebnikov when both were 6 years old, remembers their primary school teacher reprimanding Klebnikov for speaking Russian in class. Both boys later enrolled at Exeter, where they moved into opposite ends of Webster Hall. At the time, Exeter’s dress code required a tie, which Klebnikov would often replace with an ascot. “He was just someone who was definitely on his own path, much more so I think than many of us were at a very young age,” Bernard says.

Ashok Chandrasekhar ’81 forged a close friendship with Klebnikov through long conversations in the cramped quarters of a fourth-floor room in Webster North their prep year, when Klebnikov kept more than one book on great tank battles of World War II on his bookshelf. “Paul was one of the most politically and historically aware people that I knew back then,” Chandrasekhar says. “He very much cared about what was going on in the world, about being engaged with it and taking a position on things. He also enjoyed writing about what was going on, analyzing it and coming up with interpretations.”

Paul was doing investigative journalism and studying people who were ruthless and brutal, and they caught up with him.

Keith Moon '81, instructor of Russian history and literature at The Hotchkiss School

Klebnikov and Chandrasekhar worked together on The Exonian, but Klebnikov left during his upper year when he ran for and was elected president of Student Council. “He felt that the school was full of so many smart, interesting people and so many great teachers and so much opportunity that it could be even better,” Chandrasekhar recalls.

After Exeter, Klebnikov studied political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and got his Ph.D. in Russian studies from the London School of Economics. He began working as a reporter for Forbes in 1989, and by the early ’90s was taking frequent reporting trips to Russia. He was optimistic about the possibility of what Russia could become, even as he reported with horror on the corruption that dominated the era of privatization of state property after the Soviet Union’s fall.

In 2000, Klebnikov published a book, Godfather of the Kremlin, based on reporting he did for Forbes on Boris Berezovsky, a businessman whose dealings in luxury cars, media, oil and other industries had made him one of the richest men in Russia. After the book’s publication, Bernard — a professor of international economics at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College — invited Klebnikov to give a guest lecture to his students about the Russian economy since the breakup of the Soviet Union and its prospects for the future.

Bernard recalls admiringly how Klebnikov used no notes or teaching aids but stood with his hands clasped behind his back, lecturing and answering the students’ questions. “It was just an amazing tour de force by someone who knows exactly what they’re talking about and was able to really reach a wide range of students,” he recalls.

In late 2003, after enduring a lengthy legal battle with Berezovsky over claims made in his book (the case eventually settled), Klebnikov was offered the opportunity to move to Moscow and become editor in chief of a new Russian edition of Forbes. He left his wife, Musa, and their three children behind in New York, signing only a one-year contract for the new job. Forbes Russia drew attention from the beginning, with one of its first issues featuring a list of the 100 richest Russians, as well as their financial details. The list — which included 36 purported billionaires — made waves for exposing so clearly the divide between rich and poor in post-Soviet Russia.

On July 9, 2004, according to news reports, Klebnikov left his office after working late and headed toward the metro station in a nearby park. He hadn’t gone far when a car pulled up behind him and someone inside fired four bullets from a 9 mm Makarov pistol at Klebnikov before the car sped away. Hit multiple times, he was still alive when the local police showed up. They put him in an ambulance, but the vehicle lacked an oxygen tank. Slipping in and out of consciousness, he died at a Moscow hospital, where he had been loaded onto an elevator that stalled between floors.

In 2006, Russian authorities charged three men with supposed links to Chechen rebel leader Khozh-Akhmed Nukhayev — the subject of Klebnikov’s 2003 book Conversation with a Barbarian — with carrying out Klebnikov’s murder. They were subsequently acquitted in a closed trial. That verdict was overturned, but the alleged triggerman disappeared before facing a retrial, and the case has remained inactive.

“Paul really believed that Russia was on a trajectory to become the kind of pluralistic society that he had hoped it would be, and he was super optimistic,” says Bernard, who last spoke to Klebnikov just a few days before he was killed. “To me, Paul’s death told me exactly how wrong he was.”

At the time of Klebnikov’s death, about 40 journalists and media professionals had been killed since the Soviet collapse; that number now exceeds 80, according to the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists. Soon after Weiss visited Exeter, news broke that Alexei Navalny, the most prominent voice of opposition to Putin’s government, had died while imprisoned in a remote labor camp in the Arctic Circle. In March, Putin claimed victory — and another six years in power — in an effectively uncontested presidential election.

“Part of the problem with Russia is there’s no accountability,” Weiss says when asked about the mounting number of journalists, human rights workers, politicians and others who have been killed or died under mysterious circumstances. “There’s lots of conspiracy thinking and theorizing, but there’s no accountability.”

Weiss remembers sitting in the White House as a young policy adviser in 1999 when President Clinton got the news that Putin would become Russia’s next president. In Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin, his 2022 graphic novel biography, Weiss draws on this experience to chart Putin’s rise from a midlevel KGB officer to an autocratic president and one of the most notorious figures on the world stage.

Part of the problem with Russia is there’s no accountability. There’s lots of conspiracy thinking and theorizing, but there’s no accountability.

Andrew Weiss, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

“The Russians created myths about Vladimir Putin to make him seem kind of superhuman and give him all this allure,” Weiss says. “It was important to me in this book to chip away at some of those myths, but also to explain why they’re really important. Because some of them connect back to core aspects of what the Russian state is … [as well as] the current moment and the policies that Russia pursues.”

During his visit, Weiss discussed Russia’s past, present and future with three history classes, including two sections of HIS508: Understanding Violence, War and Peace and HIS554: Revolutionary Russia. He also spoke with the students about his own experience: advanced Russian language studies at Columbia University, studying in the Soviet Union as a college student and making the transition in his career from supporting senior government policymakers to working at a think tank that analyzes Russian policy issues from various angles.

“He was really dynamic and elicited a lot of questions from the students,” says History Department Chair Kent A. McConnell, who teaches HIS508. “I think they respected his ideas greatly, but they were also willing to engage his ideas with questions that were not combative but explored more of his reasoning.”

Hunter Ryerson ’24, a two-year senior in McConnell’s class, admired the breadth and depth of Weiss’ experience in his field, as well as his openness to differing opinions and his ability to reveal a more complex reality behind the often simplified narratives presented in the media. “He obviously has some ideological stances … so to say that he showed up and lectured and then I changed my worldview would not necessarily be true,” Ryerson says. But “you want to test whatever belief you have … against a legitimate counterargument. To have quasi-debates and intellectual discussion towards a more productive future is always such a great thing.”

For Sonia Soloviova ’24, a three-year senior born and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine, news of Weiss’ visit provoked some nervous anticipation. “I was a little worried before he came in … especially with the way Western media portrays the war in Russia and Ukraine,” Soloviova says. “But it was reassuring to hear Andrew Weiss talk about it in such a compelling, empathetic way.”

Compared with many outside speakers, Weiss spent an extended time on Exeter’s campus, including multiple nights of lecturing and repeated classroom visits. “He became kind of integrated into the classroom with this welcoming environment where it became an exchange of ideas,” Soloviova says. “That’s something that’s very common at Exeter between students, but rare when it comes to speakers and students.”

For Bernard and Chandrasekhar, Weiss’ extended visit on campus and multifaceted engagement with students was exactly what the class of 1981 imagined when the speaker series was established in Klebnikov’s memory. “We wanted to bring to the students the kind of thing that would’ve excited Paul when he was a student,” Chandrasekhar says. “Someone from outside of the Academy who could address them about major issues of the day and spend time talking to them and engaging with them in the type of conversation that would’ve thrilled Paul, had he been there.”

In 1979, Klebnikov (then an upper) wrote an editorial in The Exonian lamenting the lack of interest and engagement in current events among his fellow students. As Bernard puts it, “He felt that most of us had a lot of privilege, and he thought that we should use our privilege to change the world.”

During Weiss’ visit, with momentous events unfolding on the national and international stage, current Exeter students clearly took Klebnikov’s message to heart.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the Spring 2024 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Stranger in a strange land

English Instructor Erica Lazure shares stories from her 20-country sabbatical adventure.

Boston Logan airport Terminal E, waiting on my flight to Munich for spring break, I think about the seniors in my travel writing class, who have spent the past few weeks plotting adventures to far-flung destinations like Chile, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The final project for ENG583: Stranger in a Strange Land invites each student to design a journey to anywhere in the world, with little more than $2,000, a travel buddy and a plane ticket. As I listened to them presenting their big plans during the last week of winter term, I recalled the adventure I’d recently taken for my own sabbatical, and I felt inspired all over again.

In the seven years I’ve taught this English elective about travel writing, ethics and privilege, my students’ plans have included bike riding through Laos, skiing in North Korea and taste-testing jollof rice in Ghana. Some have opted to hike in Patagonia, caravan through Namibia, or visit the still-radioactive remains of Chernobyl. As they figure out their (imagined) itineraries, they learn how to set a budget, consider travel logistics and account for safety factors, visa requirements and other limitations. They teach each other by presenting their findings, enticing us to put new destinations on our collective bucket list.

Taking in the views from Kathmanndu, Nepal.

During our planning stages, I always remind my students about the relationship between what you value and how you spend your money. “When you’re paying your own way, you’ll find out pretty quickly what you value most,” I tell them. And the narratives they develop, based on whom they’re bringing, what they’re doing and what they value, never fail to entertain, and inspire: One student, impassioned by lemurs, sought to study them in Madagascar, while another opted to go to London, rent a chauffeured Rolls-Royce and spend a night at the Ritz. Another wanted to see for herself the so-called “snow monsters” in Mount Zao, Japan, while another let a random country generator decide that he’d plan a trip to Azerbaijan.

Beyond the immersive engagement and creativity in these trips, what I love most about this project is its capacity to give our students the tools and knowledge for turning their dreams into reality. How do you turn a “maybe, someday” idea into an actual plan?

It’s no wonder, then, that my students inspired my sabbatical in spring 2023, as I endeavored to realize my “maybe, someday” dream to travel around the world. I had experienced the benefits of traveling with colleagues while visiting different schools and regions of China in 2012; I had spent 2015 teaching English at School Year Abroad in Viterbo, Italy; and I had just returned from chaperoning the Stratford, UK, program in the fall.

I’d been ready to take my first sabbatical in March 2020 (I had lined up two writing residencies in Spain and Portugal), but the pandemic lockdown kept me in Hoyt Hall instead, teaching on Zoom and listening to podcasts while baking sourdough bread and growing a vegetable garden. When the world finally opened up, and I got the OK for my sabbatical in spring 2023, I decided it was time to think big.

In winter 2022, as my students discussed the ways travel transforms both travelers and the places they visit, I was busy spending my weekends hastily hatching my Boston-to-Boston itinerary. I had plans to be in Seattle in March for a writers’ conference, so the trick was figuring out how to get to Asia from the West Coast on a budget.

Following the literal path of least expensive flights, my itinerary brought me first to Hawaii, then Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan and Hong Kong. From there I went to the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore and Australia. Then I traveled to Bali, Thailand, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Palestine. The last leg of my journey took me to Egypt, Albania and Germany, with a quick stopover in Iceland. In all, fueled by the Academy’s sabbatical stipend and my own savings and paycheck, I visited 20 countries from March through mid-July, 15 of which I’d never visited before. I returned home to Exeter in August, readjusting to my life on campus, teaching English, advising The Exonian and living in Dunbar Hall.

As far away as I was from campus during my travels, I’d often find a tie right back to Exeter. For example, a Japanese woman I’d met on the China faculty trip welcomed me to Tokyo, and we ventured around the city together to see the cherry blossoms. In Seoul, I was surprised to learn that a woman introduced to me through my cousin had sent her sons to Exeter Summer; in Manila, I had a chance to visit and lead a short workshop with the faculty at the Harkness-inspired Beacon School, founded by Mailin Paterno Locsin and her husband and PEA alum, Andy Locsin ’80, thanks to an introduction from their daughter, Adela Locsin ’13, whom I knew when I lived in Wheelwright. In Taipei, I was welcomed by relatives of my PEA colleague Dr. Szu-Hui Lee, and even the language barrier did not diminish a genuine feeling of mutual joy and care. Meanwhile, another Wheelie, Lily George ’14, and I crossed paths twice, once in Seattle and later in Taipei, where she was continuing to study Chinese. And in Singapore, Casey Lynn Siagian, who had participated in the Summer Writers’ Workshop at Exeter in 2013, met me for a lovely afternoon in the botanical gardens.

Sometimes, the Exeter ties were too random to fathom: On a late-night glowworm tour near Sydney, Australia, I was chatting in the dark on the ride back with a young couple, only to realize that I had been the young man’s first English teacher at Exeter 11 years earlier. (“We planted daffodil bulbs and wrote poems about them,” he recalled.)

Technically, I’d spent those five months traveling solo, but it rarely felt that way. Between my frequent updates on social media, the books I’d read by authors from almost every country, and the people I met along the way, I never felt alone. I felt a genuine sense of community and connection everywhere.

Lin Chi, for example, invited me to eat a banh xiao on my first night in Saigon, and we spent the next few days together. Several women doctors on a flight from Manila to Puerto Princesa arranged for my safe arrival to my hotel. A host of friends online offered to wire me cash when I lost my bank card. When I’d send off another some of them were right there with me. In those five months, I was never truly alone.

The sabbatical is just that: a pause from Exeter’s daily grind, a chance to recalibrate or strengthen why or how we teach, and an opportunity to learn something new. Beyond personal growth, one of the most exciting aspects of this journey was learning more about where many of our students, or their extended families, call home. Before I left, I met with members of the International Student Organization and invited them to follow me on my travels through Instagram (@t.here_and_k.now), and some of them did. Every so often I’d get a short note or recommendation for wherever I happened to be, and I loved sharing my journey with the community.

This past year, it’s been such a pleasure to meet some of our international students or colleagues and be able to chat with them about places they know well. It’s been a privilege to learn about different regions of the world by actually visiting them — eating the food, exploring different neighborhoods and meeting new people. After my trip, I feel more connected to both my students and colleagues who call these regions home.

When my seniors in English 583 dreamed and planned big, they gave me permission to do the same. Realizing I could puddle-jump my way around the world on a budget, with nothing more than a small carry-on and backpack, and find friends along the way, enabled me to experience in real time how connected we all are, or can be. Putting myself in a learner’s mindset for those five months — being both teacher and student, if you will — helped me to understand myself in ways I hadn’t expected.

Now that I’m back on campus, I feel hardier, more capable and creative. As someone who still dislikes sharks and putting her face in the water, I’m now a certified open-water diver who encountered a shark in Bali. I rode scooters solo in Vietnam. I got stitches in Dubai. I learned about the history and legends of the Indigenous communities at Mossman Gorge, just outside Cairns, Australia, and taste tested more kinds of fried chicken than I care to admit. (Thailand and South Korea take the win, in a toss-up.) I have a host of new books to introduce to my students in the fall.

When I’m back in my classroom in Phillips Hall, I’m excited to continue to help our community members keep connecting with the wider world and to teach them to be responsible and caring travelers and explorers. As I’ve encountered firsthand, so much of the learning that happens while traveling cannot be taught; you’ve got to get out there and experience it.

While my next sabbatical is still a few years away, the learning continues as I head off to Bavaria for spring break. My plane is boarding. … I must be off!

This story first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

The academics of well-being

Exeter test drives a new schedule for spring.

The bells ring and, in the hallways of the Academy Building, a mad rush ensues: Students and teachers walking in every direction, crowding the staircases, filling the bathrooms, lining up at the water fountain and holding doors open for each other as they hustle between academic buildings. The school is noisy and active, then returns to relative silence as the next class begins.

The chaos of the passing period is well-known. Remember dashing from Phelps Science Center to the top floor of Phillips Hall? It’s a challenge that Exeter is addressing this spring with the start of a new pilot class schedule that increases passing time to a comfortable 10 minutes. Perhaps more significant, the experimental schedule lengthens in-class time to 60 minutes from 50 and reduces the frequency of class meetings to three or four times per week.

These changes might seem small but could make a huge difference in students’ lives. With fewer classes each day, students will make fewer transitions. Refocusing takes mental work, and if one’s brain is still thinking about that math problem from the prior class, it might not be following the conversation about the novel in English. Fewer class meetings per day also reduces the number of homework assignments due the next day. That said, the new schedule does allow teachers to assign more homework per class meeting. The thinking is that students have fewer subjects to focus on each day, so they can concentrate more fully on each assignment.

Considerable time and thought informed each of these choices. Discussions about the schedule, including feedback from students and faculty, began in the spring of 2021. As the COVID pandemic subsided, longstanding concerns about the pace of life at Exeter collided with new awareness of mental health challenges for adolescents. A student survey conducted by Director of Institutional Research Kari Hart in the fall of 2022 found that 71% of responding students reported that they “frequently” or “almost always” feel stressed about their schoolwork or academic experience. The schedule became one of many factors to consider in reducing that stress. Slowing the “pace of life” — the number of required commitments each student has in a day — is an area that the school can control.

Last year, several teachers participated in a smaller version of the pilot, canceling one class meeting every other week and extending the remaining classes by 10 minutes. The feedback from this small group was positive, “but the real benefit of that schedule is actually only realized if you do it for all of your classes,” says Jeanette Lovett, director of studies and one of the administrators overseeing the pilot.

Also involved in the planning is a recently appointed Schedule and Calendar Committee, co-chaired by Lovett and Assistant Principal Karen Lassey, and composed of faculty across disciplines. While finalizing the details of the pilot, the committee has been researching the daily schedule of other schools. Exeter’s experiment has good company: “A lot of peer schools are moving in the direction of longer formats less frequently,” Lovett notes. The committee has also designed surveys, with Hart’s assistance, to administer to students and faculty to gauge the effectiveness of the new schedule.

This isn’t the first time that Exeter has experimented with schedule changes. In fact, Lassey was a member of a similar committee in 2006, when the school was pondering ways to reduce the number of Saturday classes. The switch from semesters to trimesters in 1986 precipitated a particularly salient set of schedule overhauls. Classes began to rotate to different meeting times throughout the week, and sports were no longer isolated to the afternoons to accommodate multiple teams in indoor facilities during the winter. Over the years, Exeter has tried shorter class periods, double class blocks, rotating weeks, later start times and earlier end times. More recently, the pandemic necessitated several

different schedules to accommodate the students around the world attending class remotely and social-distancing needs when students were on campus. Being nimble and responsive to a changing world is an important strength for an educational institution.

Pedagogically, perhaps the biggest unknown related to the pilot is Harkness. Ten additional class minutes can feel like a lifetime to teachers and students when the discussion stalls. Many teachers are considering ways to break up the hour-long class with group work, in-class writing or additional challenging math problems. But no one wishes to lose the spirit of Harkness. When the discussion is flowing, the students are talking to one another, and big ideas are emerging — those are magical moments that can happen only with sustained time around the table as a group.

Longer classes may provide more opportunities for that magic to happen. English Instructor Willie Perdomo was one of the teachers who tried the new schedule last winter. Longer class periods “enhanced discussions,” he says. “We were able to explore assigned texts on a granular level. Students had more time to organize their annotations and strategize their entries. With Harkness, a discussion might hit a sweet note toward the end of a class and students often leave such a class wishing they had more time.” In those moments, an extra 10 minutes perfectly capped the class.

Though all classes at Exeter use Harkness, some disciplines may adapt to the change more easily than others. There may be a limit to how much content can be covered reasonably in any individual class or homework assignment. This could be especially challenging for subjects like math, science and modern languages that require a certain level of content coverage to prepare students for the next term. Some departments fear that fewer points of contact with students during the week will weaken retention, and class registration, forcing more time to be too! Here it is in 1949. spent on review. And, the

loss of weekly 70-minute classes means that science labs will need to be shortened, although more frequent, shorter labs may also be possible. However, in any discipline with a rigorous amount of content to cover (preparing for Advanced Placement exams, for example), the schedule change may be stressful.

“It’s going to be the first draft of a model,” Lovett says, and every teacher’s curriculum will need adjustments, even for longtime teachers who have honed their syllabi over the years.

On the other hand, this experiment may lead to further discussions about the nature of learning and the goals of our curriculum. Is the purpose of a course to achieve a large breadth of learning within a discipline, or is the goal to achieve depth in a few significant areas, even if fewer topics are covered? How can we best prepare our students for college and beyond?

Though educators may disagree on the answers, the spring term pilot will provide an opportunity for students and faculty alike to ponder these questions, perhaps during a leisurely walk to their next class during the 10-minute break. “Any advances in pedagogy and community-building require innovation and experimentation,” Perdomo says. This spring, the whole community will weigh in as the experiment unfolds.

Betty Luther-Hillman is an instructor in the History Department. This story first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

A conversation with PEA’s sustainability education coordinator

Patrick Kelly brings religion, ethics and philosophy to the role.

One of the overarching goals of the Academy’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan is to “ensure that every student graduates from Exeter with a fundamental understanding of the principles of sustainability and the issues posed by climate change.” How do we do that? That’s a key concern for Patrick Kelly, who was named the Sustainability Education Coordinator this academic year, following Science Instructor Andrew McTammany. We caught up with Kelly, also an instructor in religion, ethics and philosophy, at the start of spring term to hear more about his role.

What does the Sustainability Education Coordinator do?

The role entails many kinds of work, including the planning of Climate Action Day, working with environmentally focused student clubs, working with my counterpart in facilities management, Warren Biggins, and sitting on a number of committees like the Natural Resources Committee, the Environmental Stewardship Committee and the Curriculum Committee.

Getting to work on what teaching in this era of climate change entails, at a school that is taking seriously its commitment to build a more sustainable campus, is exciting. This year has been one primarily of learning. Members of the community who have been integral to this work for years have taught me much about our progress as an institution. Students likewise have shared with me their past and present projects, interests and dreams for learning about sustainability and experimenting with new and traditional modes of addressing ecological problems locally and more broadly.

What personal experiences do you draw upon for this type of work?

My training has been in philosophical theology and ethics. I am currently working on a dissertation that considers ritual and sacramental traditions as modes of embodied pedagogy that we ought to constructively draw upon as we seek to form ourselves and our communities to meet the ethical challenges of the present moment, with a focus on anthropogenic climate change. This research and thinking definitely informs my work in the classroom, as well as how I inhabit this role. For instance, though climatic and environ-mental issues are daunting and seem so far beyond our individual control, I am committed to helping students recognize their own agency to address these problems. This commitment grounded my search for speakers who will come to campus to work with students on Climate Action Day.

Alongside my academic connection to this work, I love the outdoors. I grew up as a whitewater boater and was, for a time, a whitewater rafting guide in Colorado. One thing that I enjoy most about PEA is the accessibility of woodlands — I try to get out to them most days to walk my dogs. Being in the woods really transforms my day.

The curriculum is obviously a key component of this work. Tell us about the Green Umbrella Learning Lab course you taught this winter.

The course is designed as a project-based learning course focused on sustainability issues on campus, and, as such, it was student-driven in a mode quite unique from Harkness.

We began by engaging with staff, students and faculty to try to understand the issues on campus and then how to address those issues. While initial ideas ranged from aquaponics to a website or app to track emissions on campus and expanding composting, we eventually decided that we could make the most difference by focusing on both lighting and recycling in dorms. To that end the class designed a dorm event where they exchanged lightbulbs in dorm room lamps with more efficient LED bulbs and played an educational recycling game with students.

This course as it unfolded really leans into the best of PEA: It allows students to take the lead in addressing issues that matter to them and our community, and it enables them to teach their peers beyond the classroom space.

What are you really excited about?

At present, I am most excited about the student projects that are in the works and that I have the joy of getting to support. There is currently a project on permaculture gardening in the planning phase, which will hopefully be planted on campus sometime this year. There is also a group of students working to establish a small aquaponics setup in the science building, which I think is quite exciting.

What are some short-term goals?

I am aiming to garner a more robust grasp on the content regularly being taught across disciplines relating to sustainability, so I can assess what, if any, gaps are present. During this year, in part related to my work on the Curriculum Committee, I have been in conversation with scholars at Harvard and MIT who are innovators in sustainability education. Additionally, these conversations have focused on how we must adapt teaching in a time of climate crisis in order to equip students for success. Insights from these conversations have directly impacted my teaching. My hope is to bring these insights more formally to colleagues next year.

Do you find connections between your two roles, instructor and Sustainability Education Coordinator?

The connections between my work in religion, ethics and philosophy (REP) and that which I do as Sustainability Education Coordinator are many! Questions and ideas explored in REP are enormous questions about identity and purpose, meaning and values. The threats posed to human and other species’ populations, and the integrity of ecosystems, raise similarly powerful, existential questions. The ways we think about and live into addressing issues of sustainability are often, if not always, ethical. The frameworks and robust ethical assessment we teach in REP therefore directly relate to the work I do as sustainability coordinator. Further, the work in both positions demands the cultivation of imagination. To live sustainably in a rapidly changing (at times unpredictable) world requires that we creatively envision new possibilities for energy, transportation, infrastructure. Likewise, REP classes often work to equip students with skills to exercise their imaginations in relation to the powerful visions of the future that we all are fed by various media, religions and cultures to create the kind of future that they truly desire.

This interview first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Art & Agency

A conversation with novelist Rufi Thorpe '02

Rufi Thorpe is on a roll. Her 2014 debut novel, The Girls from Corona Del Mar, was longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. Her 2016 novel, Dear Fang, With Love, was followed in 2020 by The Knockout Queen, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her latest, Margo’s Got Money Troubles, seems poised to be a summer hit, popping up on must-read lists as well as generating additional buzz: an Apple TV series is in the works with Hollywood stars David E. Kelley, Nicole Kidman, and Elle and Dakota Fanning attached.

Thorpe’s new novel — about a young single mother, Margo, trying to make ends meet — is a thoroughly engaging story about the transformative power of love, art and humor. It’s also jam-packed with wacky characters and charming scenarios, including Margo’s former pro wrestling champion father, Jinx; collegial cosplay sex workers; and a gentle love affair conducted through writing. Canny references to cultural touchstones such as writers Neal Stephenson and William Gibson, viral social media and Lady and the Tramp keep the narrative fun, funny and flowing.

We caught up with Thorpe amid the flurry of prepublication commitments.

Who are you addressing in the book’s dedication, “For you”?

The reader. We’re all seeking human connection, and novels offer that. Growing up, books were where I found a place of feeling understood, feeling like there were other humans like me; loneliness was eased by communing with these minds of people that I had never met. That connection has been such a profoundly positive one in my own life, so this is my ode to those spaces.

You’re really good at eliciting human imperfections with empathy across an eclectic range of characters. Is that intentional?

Part of the reason I became a novelist is because I’m wildly in love with people. A subject I come back to over and over again is the impossibility of judgment: What do you do when people do bad things, especially people that you love? I return to that, as well as recognizing the inadequacy or ineffectiveness of punishment as a response. I think it’s combined with a sensibility that life either strikes you as funny or tragic, and it strikes me as funny. And people, even in the ways that they’re flawed, strike me as beautiful. I’m interested in moral grayness, that people are not all bad or all good. As a writer, it interests me to try and get that right.

Why did you choose to switch between the first person and third person, sometimes talking directly to the reader?

I’ve always written first-person but wanted to be the kind of writer who wrote in third person — it just seemed so elegant. At the beginning of this project, I thought this was going to be the book where I finally figured out third person. Then I realized, maybe this is the book where I investigate through the third and first person, and not one where I try for seamless illusion.

That technique almost becomes a narrative in itself.

I’m fascinated with narrative, and so much of this book is about creating your own narrative and persona. For her video work, Margo is creating her character, Hungry Ghost; Jinx has created his wrestling persona; and I, Rufi Thorpe, am putting on the Margo mask by writing in first person, engaging in that artifice creation. One of my ways into understanding character is impersonation. Both of my parents were actors and I did a lot of theater growing up; I did theater at Exeter.

Were you cast or crew at Exeter?

I worked in theater tech, building sets, and we were given so much freedom and autonomy. That’s where I learned to use power tools, which was a super-empowering skill. I always felt more comfortable with a circular saw than any boyfriend I ever had. I still apply that by refinishing furniture.

What are some other Exeter memories?

Exeter was really formative for me. I didn’t graduate — I wanted to do advanced English classes as an upper but wasn’t allowed, so I applied to college early. I did have wonderful English teachers, Nita Pettigrew and Rex McGuinn. They, and theater, were my happiest parts of Exeter. Also I took Russian with Inna Sysevich, the most wonderful, warm, kind, earthy woman I’ve ever known. I chose Russian out of sheer perversity. I liked the idea of learning another alphabet. Because of that, I’ve read a lot of Russian literature and that has had a lasting impact on me. Going to a place like Exeter, you’re thrust into adulthood: You’re navigating airports and layovers at 14, and it makes you feel like a citizen of the world. You’re managing a complex schedule, with lots of homework, and you have to figure all that out. That skill set me up to be successful in college, graduate school and the rest of my life.

Who are your influences as a writer?

A huge thing for me was realizing that I was a comedic writer. John Irving, another Exonian, was a big part of that for me, in terms of understanding the way that humor can act as a leavening agent to allow you to talk about really dark things in a way that’s tolerable. Also, the way he allows his obsessions to recur in different forms throughout his novels was a model. It can feel, after your first novel, like you have to invent a whole new self to write another book, like you’re supposed to do something completely different. But really, Irving is writing the same book over and over. He gave me permission to do that, to realize that it was okay for thematic obsessions to recur, as long as I was making them fresh and interesting and exploring new aspects or new combinations of those elements.

What do you think it takes to become a successful writer?

The most important thing is stubbornness. I sometimes call it “perversity of spirit.” The world is going to tell you, “No,” over and over. One of my M.F.A. professors told me I was never going to be a writer, that I didn’t have the talent. She offered to brainstorm other career options with me. I think she meant well, but I was devastated. I went home and cried and cried and cried. And then I thought: “Well, what am I going to do? Give up my life’s dream because this lady told me to? Obviously not!” I realized that I loved writing enough that I was willing to be the worst novelist. If there was even a hope that there was a place for me at that table, I would gladly be the worst one.

I read a lot of novels. You’re definitely not the worst one.

Well, the questions stopped being “Am I special? Am I talented? Am I brilliant?” That freed me artistically and psychologically. It takes time to get better at something; you’re never going to be good the first time you try. But novels are long — it takes a long time to get better at them. I think being stubborn and also not being super attached to being the best, that’s what ultimately will give you success.

Patrick Garrity

Civil rights advocate

receives Phillips Award