The Exeter Classroom, Then and Now

Exploring the evolution of Harkness at the Academy.

IN THE FALL OF 1973, a photo essay in The Exeter Bulletin explored “The Exeter Classroom,” three years after the advent of coeducation and 43 years after the philanthropist Edward S. Harkness challenged Principal Lewis Perry to come up with a “radical” new approach to secondary school education.

That radical new approach was Harkness: small, seminar-style classes conducted around an oblong wooden table, with the teacher a participant in and guide of the discussion rather than the sole leader. The photo essay, edited by Paul Sadler Jr. ’45, featured images by Bradford Herzog, an instructor and photographer, and text by another longtime instructor, Colin F. Irving ’41. “The Exeter community is now wedded to the conference table,” Irving wrote. “It is extolled in Academy propaganda, visitors cry to see it, other schools inquire about it.”

Although much has changed at Exeter since that essay was published more than 50 years ago, much has stayed the same. As the Academy’s 244th school year unfolds, we invite you to revisit the Exeter classroom and see how nearly a century of Harkness has shaped the school we know and love.

Exeter taught me to speak my mind: I didn’t understand the degree to which the Harkness method was unusual, how everyone participates, but that has absolutely been my approach to my career, and what I now take into my own classes.

Heather Cox Richardson ’80, historian, author, professor of history at Boston College

Paul Molloy, an instructor in the English Department, teaching an English class in fall 1965.

HARKNESS: THEN & NOW

Harkness for all subjects

In 1973, the Harkness philosophy — or at least the oval conference table — had not yet been fully incorporated into all of the academic subjects taught at Exeter. Science, music, art and theater classes were still conducted in the more traditional classroom environment. Today, the Harkness table is not only at the center of nearly every Exeter classroom, but also extends into all aspects of life on campus, from the playing ﬁeld to the dining hall to the dorm.

Gender balance at the table

The ﬁrst 39 female students enrolled at Exeter in the fall of 1970, representing just 4% of the total student population of 891. By December 1973, the Academy reported a slightly more balanced boy-girl ratio of 3 to 1. The campus looks dramatically different today. Girls account for half of the student population (546 for the 2024–25 school year, or 49.4% of a total enrollment of 1,106).

Curriculum

What students are learning around the table has expanded exponentially over the years. The catalog of course offerings for the 1973–74 school year listed just over 170 courses. Today, students can choose from more than 450 courses across 12 major departments.

The world as the classroom

Exeter began offering off-campus educational programming for its students in the 1960s through the School Year Abroad program (chartered by Exeter, Phillips Academy and St. Paul’s School in 1964) and the Washington Intern Program (started in 1966). These offerings have multiplied, especially since the creation of the Global Initiatives program in 2012. Today, the Harkness classroom extends outside and around the world, with more than 400 students participating in over two dozen travel and learning opportunities each year.

TABLE TALK

A look at the oblong structure at the center of every Harkness classroom.

In the years following the Harkness gift, Colin Irving wrote, the Academy experimented with the shape of the conference tables. Some were round, measuring 10 feet in diameter; some were more elongated, about 12.5 feet long and 4.5 feet wide.

Finally, the administration settled on a third design: a “pregnant oval” 6 feet, 11 inches wide, sized to ﬁt through a 7-foot-high door. Twelve wooden slides were nested inside each table, ready to be pulled out for tests or whenever students needed to work independently. The design for this basic Harkness table, with the ingenious arrangement of test slides, has been credited to Corning Benton ’16 (Hon.); P’51, a skilled woodworker who was treasurer of the Academy from 1922–51.

Benton’s original design, now more than 90 years old, serves as the model for the newest Harkness tables, which are constructed by the family-owned Huston & Company in Arundel, Maine. Owner Saer Huston says that he and his employees put together some 250 to 300 pieces of wood — the most common types used are cherry and maple — for each table, consisting of a veneer top banded with solid wood and a wooden base.

As the fame of the Harkness method has spread, the cost of the tables has gone up accordingly. In the early 1930s the price for a Harkness table was $165; by 1963, a replacement was estimated at more than $1,300. Today, an 11-foot table seating 12 students runs around $16,000, while a larger table — up to 20 feet, which seats 18 students — can top $28,000.

VISUALIZING VOICES

A conversation diagram of a Harkness discussion.

“Every class, to some extent, is seeking balance,” says Tyler Caldwell, English instructor and Exeter Humanities Institute director. “That’s always the goal, and it’s never fully accomplished, because it changes day to day.”

Caldwell made the diagram above from a conversation in one of his English classes this fall to better understand the dynamics at the table. On the blank oval, Caldwell drew a line from one speaker to the next, creating a web-like illustration of the conversation in real time. The letter notations track specific textual references (TR), questions (Q), usage of students’ names (NR) and more general mentions of the text (T). The final picture shows who is speaking, how often, and what they are adding to the discussion.

Developed for the Exeter Humanities Institute — which trains educa-tors in the student-centered, discussion-based Harkness pedagogy — this tracking tool is now well known to Exeter students as well. While different teachers use it differently, it’s often employed as a collaborative tool, where students are given a chance to reflect on where they could adjust or improve their participation at the table.

One of the benefits of the Harkness method is that it causes you to prepare. You know you’re going to be exposed if you don’t.

Gerard Griffin ’86, investor, co-founder and chief investment officer of Palekana Ltd.

HARKNESS TIPS

Ten phrases to keep the conversation going.

At the start of each school year, all ninth graders and new students attend a demonstration of a Harkness discussion, meant to introduce them to the distinctive brand of teaching and learning that goes on in Exeter classroom. This September, 12 seniors joined Instructor in English Duncan Holcomb on the main stage of The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance to discuss the poem “M. Degas Teaches Art and Science at Durfee Intermediate School,” by Philip Levine.

Here are 10 phrases from their discussion to inspire collaborative discussion at your next business meeting, family gathering and beyond:

I learned that education is not about imparting a lot of information, but it’s forcing you to think about what you read, what you hear, ask questions [and] develop your understanding.

— Bob Mundheim ’50, attorney and legal scholar, winner of the 2013 Phillips Award

HARKNESS GLOSSARY

Warriors, wallflowers and everything in between.

You may be familiar with “Harkness Warriors,” who boldly dominate discussions around the table as their more reticent peers, the “Harkness Wallflowers,” hang back. Yet these two opposites don’t begin to cover the full dynamic spectrum of the Harkness classroom styles. Here, with the help of The Exonian, is a selection of the “Harkness flora and fauna” that have spotted at the table over the years.

Harkness Warrior: Takes up space (sometimes too much) in the discussion. Wields a carefully chosen citation like a sword and loves nothing more than a challenge. Intellectually ferocious but able to be tamed by a skilled instructor.

Harkness Wallflower: Typically hangs back and lets others take the lead. Well-honed listening skills. When coaxed (typically by instructor) to contribute, can often produce an
insight no one else has thought of.

Harkness Clarifier: Has probably said, or will say, “Just to be clear, Gatsby is dead, right?”

Harkness Honest Abe: Unable to lie about any failure to complete the reading when confronted by the instructor. Extremely rare.

Harkness Rembrandt: Draws exceptionally realistic portraits of the teacher in a notebook.

Harkness Psychic: Cites evidence invisible to normal students.

Harkness Flow Killer: Brings the conversation to an abrupt end by asking a long-winded, closed-ended question which pretty much sums up what the whole class said.

One of the benefits of the Harkness method is that it causes you to prepare. You know you’re going to be exposed if you don’t.

Gerard Griffin ’86, investor, co-founder and chief investment officer of Palekana Ltd.

HARKNESS TIMELINE

The transformation of the Exeter classroom didn’t happen all at once. This timeline explores some key moments in the evolution of Harkness at the Academy.

1930: Edward S. Harkness gives Exeter $5.8 million — the equivalent of more than $109 million today — to implement what Principal Lewis Perry calls the “conference method of instruction.”

1931: Exeter students in classics and mathematics participate in the first Harkness-style classes, which replace traditional recitation-style classes of 25 to 35 students. At the time, those are the only two subjects taught in the Academy Building, the only building with renovated rooms available for the start of the school year.

1932: The smaller class size and conference-style format of Harkness learning expand to English, history and modern languages classes with the completion of Phillips Hall.

1970: In a unanimous decision, the Trustees vote to make Exeter a coed institution, and the first 39 girls, all day students, enroll at Exeter for the 1970–71 school year. It is a significant moment for ensuring diverse voices at the table.

1998: A prototype Harkness lab-classroom is built in Room 207 of Thompson Science Building, outfitted with a temporary Harkness table and networked laptop computers at each lab table. The prototype helps science teachers determine the necessary placement and equipment adjustments for classrooms in a new science building, then in the planning phase.

2001: The Phelps Science Center is dedicated. Designed in accordance with Harkness principles, its 22 classroom-labs feature oblong tables and lab benches where groups of two to four students can work together on hands-on activities and experiments.

2015: Ground is broken on an expansion of Forrestal-Bowld Music Center. When complete, students fill the first Harkness music classrooms in the Class of 1959 Music Center, which also houses additional practice rooms, a Music Media and Technology Suite, and a 250-seat performance space, “the Bowld.”

2018: The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance welcomes students to its two Harkness classrooms — the first for theater and dance classes at the Academy — as well as a 350-seat main stage theater, a 140-seat thrust stage, dance venues and practice spaces.

2020: Exeter celebrates 50 years of coeducation — and confronts the momentous challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the Harkness classroom adapted to include remote students and virtual learning.

2031: Exeter will celebrate its 250th anniversary — and a century of Harkness learning.

This package was first published in the fall 2024 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

A chronicle of excellence inside the office of Exeter Director of Athletics Jason Baseden.

For a window into Director of Athletics and Physical Education Jason Baseden’s world, visit his office on the second floor of Love Gym.

Tucked alongside the Ransome Room and just steps from the pool and squash and basketball courts, it holds a curated collection of items steeped in history, both his and Exeter’s.

“I want this room to represent who I am as a person, but I also want to make it comfortable for people to come in and have conversation,” he says. “Very important conversations happen here; I meet with prospective families, current families, students, coaches, alumni.”

Beyond comfort, he wants visitors to understand the history of the department. “I want people to feel like they are in a unique space,” he says, picking up a silver cup from The American Silver Museum that was given to Exeter boxers in 1893. “I feel very fortunate to be in the role I am because high school athletics was born out of Exeter, and that history is important.”

“This is my wall of people that have had a huge influence on my athletic life. Walter Payton, Clyde Drexler, Steve Prefontaine, Pelé, Sabrina Ionescu. I played football, basketball and track in high school, then I ran track in college. Payton represents hard work for me. He had this thing, anytime you get knocked down, you’ve got to get right back up. That’s something I’ve translated to sports and to life.”

“George & Phillips in downtown Exeter was the first store that supplied Exeter with athletic attire, well over 100 years ago. A lot of these old photos, sweatshirts and banners came from them. One of the things I really like is this photograph of the 1904 football team. It means a lot when I see that we had an African American student-athlete, Benjamin Selden, back then.”

“Those are my old shoes from high school. … I grew up just outside Nike Town, in Beaverton, Oregon, and so Nike shoes and athletes played a huge part in my life. I had one of the first pairs of Air Jordans ever, before they came out, because my next-door neighbor worked at Nike under Phil Knight in 1983-84. I didn’t grow up with a lot of money, but my parents knew Nike sneakers were important to me.”

“I created this wall because I feel like these are our educational instruments — we use balls, rackets, sticks to educate. I tried to have a representation of each of our sports. Some of them were my own and a couple were given to me. The javelin was used in the 1956 Olympics.”

We’re sorry …

… due to contractual obligations, we are not able to live stream or record today’s assembly.

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.