Janet Yang ’74 entered the ranks of Hollywood’s power players in the 1980s, when she brokered the first sales of American studio films to the Chinese market. She confirmed her star status by producing The Joy Luck Club (1993) — the groundbreaking adaptation of Amy Tan’s best-selling novel — and a multitude of other acclaimed films, from The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) to Over the Moon (2020). In 2022, she was elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Yang is the first Asian person, and only the fourth woman, to hold that position in the academy’s 95-year history.

We recently invited her to sit down for a conversation with fellow alumna Christina Kim ’95, an award-winning TV writer and creator, show runner and executive producer of the network drama Kung Fu. Yang and Kim met virtually for a wide-ranging discussion that covered their respective experiences at Exeter, the evolution of Asian representation in film and TV and the impact of Yang’s inspiring new role.

What was it like arriving at Exeter for the first time?

Janet Yang: I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood on Long Island and we were the only Asian family in the area. But my mother worked at the United Nations so I was used to visiting her at work and seeing people from all over the world. New York City is an incredible microcosm, with a mix of everything. To arrive at Exeter and see Asians, Blacks, people from all over the world and with different levels of socioeconomic class … that felt so good.

Christina Kim: I was born in Chicago in a very white suburb. When I was 10, I moved to Korea. That was a bit of a culture shock. [When I] came to Exeter as a lower, I knew nothing about boarding school life. Like you said, Janet, it felt like a perfect microcosm of what the world should be. Educationwise, too — I look back and wish I could do it again and really appreciate it.

Yang: We’re sometimes too immature to truly appreciate what we’re given. Later in life you realize, I’ll probably never be in such a diverse, inclusive group of people again. Those words didn’t exist back then, by the way. One didn’t talk about diversity and inclusion, it just was.

Did Exeter help prepare you for your roles in Hollywood?

Kim: My first job as a staff writer was on Lost … and it was exactly the Harkness table system. Ten to 12 people sitting around a table and just throwing out ideas, and the best ideas win and get to go up on the board. I remember sitting there thinking: This is literally Exeter, but in a professional setting. It felt strangely comforting because it wasn’t new to me.

Yang: I can relate that to sitting in boardrooms now, or when pitching to an executive and sitting around a big table. That model repeats itself again and again in our lives.

The Joy Luck Club made history as one of the first major Hollywood films to feature a mostly Asian cast. Could you both talk about the changes you’ve seen during your careers in terms of Asian representation in film and TV?

Yang: [Before The Joy Luck Club] I was so new to Hollywood, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I kept thinking, I want to do something with Asians; I didn’t quite know how near impossible it was. That kind of naiveté was helpful because if I had been a seasoned executive, I would’ve instantly put the notion out of my mind. I don’t think [the movie] would’ve been made today in the same way. The studios took more chances, and … they don’t do that anymore. A movie with no stars, a third of it in a non-English language, a lot of flashbacks. All of it broke so many rules.

Kim: That is still one of my favorite movies. It’s an incredible accomplishment, and it influenced so many people.

Yang: Thank you. My parents were extras in the movie, so they could finally brag about what I did, as opposed to being embarrassed. [laughs]

Kim: It’s interesting to see how much the business has changed even in my shortish career. When I first started, I was one of two women in the writers’ room, and it was very racist. Things were said that would be on the cover of Variety now, with people getting canceled, but it was just the way it was. In retrospect, that first experience helped me, because it made me figure out what kind of person and writer I wanted to be. [When] I started developing my own material, I wrote a Korean American soapy drama and sold it to NBC. It ultimately didn’t get made … but the studio really liked it and said: “We have Kung Fu the property. You’re Asian, what do you think?” I was like — I’m not Chinese, I’m Korean.

Yang: [laughs] Close enough.

Kim: But I thought, if there’s an opportunity to make this and I’m the person that’s closest to being able to make it, then I should try. I did a lot of research to make sure I got the details right. When we sold the show [in 2020], the executives told us this was the first network drama with a predominantly Asian cast. That was just crazy to think about, and it’s something I’m really proud of. I remember sitting at Warner Bros., and the head of casting said to me, “I’ve never seen the hallway look like this.” The entire hallway was full of Asian American actors. After starting on a show where I was the minority, and felt ostracized many times, to create an environment where that’s not the case makes me happy.

Yang: I think we both feel that responsibility to keep pushing the envelope because we know that’s what it takes. We still have to prove ourselves.

Speaking of pushing the envelope, what are you hoping to do as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to further its evolution?

Yang: I got more involved with the academy after the 2016 Oscars and #OscarsSoWhite. I remember the conversations we were having as an industry that year, and I remember seeing a skit early in the 2016 show that played into Asian sterotypes — and honestly, that was a punch to the gut for us as a community.

I’d been a member for over 20 years. I got my DVDs and I voted. That was the full extent of my involvement, but I was moved to do something. I signed a group letter with some very high-profile people, like Ang Lee, Sandra Oh and George Takei. [The academy] did listen, and they had already started to think about diversifying membership. They started the A2020 committee [which set the goal of doubling the number of women and people of color in the academy’s membership] and put me on it. One thing led to another, and I just got more and more involved.

I think the prior leaders, and certainly [current academy CEO] Bill Kramer and I, feel like we have to be ahead of the curve. We’re talking to all the studios and distribution companies and trying to get everyone aligned. How do we create guidelines? How do we find diverse members? How do we keep encouraging people to think about this? There are so many efforts on so many levels that are happening as we speak.

Kim: I just wanted to say thank you, Janet, because taking on these roles is a job on top of a job. I know that it’s coming from a place of real passion. Because of you, there are people like me, and a show on TV like Kung Fu with an almost entirely Asian cast. Thank you for being a trailblazer. You’re inspiring me to get more involved.

Yang: Thank you, Christina. I’ve admired you from afar, so we’re mutually fan girling.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in the winter 2023 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Sasha Kramer ’94 has worked for nearly 20 years to combat the twin crises of food insecurity and lack of sanitation access in Haiti by transforming human waste into a vital resource to restore depleted ecosystems. During an all-school assembly in October, she was presented with the John and Elizabeth Phillips Award, which recognizes an Exonian who has contributed significantly to the welfare of community, country or humanity.

“As an ecologist, human rights advocate and champion of dignified and safe sanitation, you have channeled your passionate devotion to ecological research into the pursuit of basic human rights for people in Haiti and around the world,” Trustee and General Alumni Association President Betsy Fleming ’86 said when delivering the award citation in Assembly Hall.

In accepting this year’s award, Kramer spoke of initially feeling out of place at Exeter when she arrived as a prep from rural upstate New York. “Through the daily practice of sitting at a table with my classmates from a wide diversity of backgrounds, my confidence grew,” she said.

Kramer traveled to Haiti for the first time in 2004, while she was pursuing a Ph.D. in ecology at Stanford University, as a human rights observer for a Bay Areabased action committee. “I learned that … the most pervasive human rights abuse in Haiti and globally is poverty,” she said. “While I witnessed terrible suffering, I also witnessed true courage.”

Two years later, Kramer co-founded Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) and used her academic research to improve lives. SOIL develops and deploys a container-based sanitation system that transforms human waste into rich compost, while reducing the spread of disease and creating jobs for Haitian citizens. Now one of Haiti’s largest waste treatment operations, SOIL focuses on developing social business models to provide safe household sanitation in the country’s most vulnerable urban communities.

“In a world rife with challenges related to water shortages, unsafe sanitation and food insecurity, yours is a model that many people seek to emulate,” Fleming said, adding that SOIL has joined forces with a global network of groups, including research institutions and scientists, to develop sustainable alternatives to water-based sewage.

While on campus, Kramer connected with students by attending classes in religion and integrated studies and by meeting with several groups within the Exeter Student Service Organization (ESSO). She also shared with the assembly audience the greatest lessons Haiti has taught her, which she hoped would be relevant to students’ lives as they grow into global citizens. “Much of my academic training focused on objective observation,” she said. “But Haiti quickly taught me that emotional intelligence — the ability to empathize with others, no matter how painful — was the most valuable tool for building the relationships that are pivotal for making change.”

Haiti taught her perspective, Kramer said, as she set aside personal challenges in the face of “the everyday heroism of my team, who literally would walk through burning roadblocks to ensure sanitation to families cut off by insecurity.”

Finally, she learned perseverance. “Undoing centuries of inequality is a lifetime commitment,” Kramer said. “It requires a dedication that takes strength in small victories and the tenacity to persist in the face of immeasurable setbacks.” E The John and Elizabeth Phillips Award was inaugurated in 1965 at the behest of the Academy Trustees and the Executive Committee of the General Alumni Association. The award honors Exonians whose lives and contributions to the welfare of community, country and humanity exemplify the nobility of character and usefulness to society that John and Elizabeth Phillips sought to promote in establishing the Academy. To watch the award assembly, visit exeter.edu/live

The John and Elizabeth Phillips Award was inaugurated in 1965 at the behest of the Academy Trustees and the Executive Committee of the General Alumni Association. The award honors Exonians whose lives and contributions to the welfare of community, country and humanity exemplify the nobility of character and usefulness to society that John and Elizabeth Phillips sought to promote in establishing the Academy.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in the winter 2023 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

On a Friday afternoon in November, Davido Zhang ’25 and Clark Wu ’23 huddle around their open laptops in the Phelps Science Center discussing … cats. They are deep into the task, perfecting code for a game they’ve created called “Catguessr.” It’s their final project for CSC590: Selected Topics in Computer Science, which this term focuses on database development. The game rewards players for identifying up to 70 breeds of cats. Classifying an American shorthair maybe simple for a cat lover, but developing the game’s backend hasn’t been easy. Zhang, Wu and their classmates have had to master four web programming languages —HTML, CSS, JavaScript and SQL — to specifically manage the data and databases they’ve created for their projects. “The students have to know what a website looks like, what would make it more attractive to people looking at it, then how to make it interactive,” Computer Science Instructor Ranila Haider says.

CSC590 is Exeter’s highest-level computer science course, and one of seven courses offered as part of the Academy’s wide-ranging curriculum. Based on algorithmic thinking, the curriculum is unique in its focus on hands-on learning and emphasis on Harkness-style understanding of technology and its societal impact. The goal is not only to inspire students to explore their passion for writing code or designing mobile apps, but also to help students recognize the relationships between computer science and other disciplines, such as physics or the humanities, and encourage them to study further.

“Our courses create a pathway for students who don’t consider themselves ‘computer science people,’” says Sean Campbell, Alfred H. Hayes ’25 and Jean M. Hayes Teaching Chair in Science and instructor in Computer Science. Director of Studies Scott Saltman agrees. “Before the graduation requirement was put in place, there were kids who didn’t take computer science or just took one course,” he says. “Now mid- and upper-level courses are attracting students into the program.”

“Our courses create a pathway for students who don’t consider themselves ‘computer science people,’” says Sean Campbell, Alfred H. Hayes ’25 and Jean M. Hayes Teaching Chair in Science and instructor in Computer Science. Director of Studies Scott Saltman agrees. “Before the graduation requirement was put in place, there were kids who didn’t take computer science or just took one course,” he says. “Now mid- and upper-level courses are attracting students into the program.”

A brief history of computer science

Computer science has been a part of campus learning since the 1960s, when the Academy first subscribed to Dartmouth College’s time-sharing computer system. Through this pioneering arrangement, faculty and students in Exeter accessed Dartmouth’s giant mainframe in Hanover, New Hampshire, through a General Electric-235 computer and teletype, a typewriter-style keyboard, housed on the first floor of the Academy Building. Information processed at Dartmouth was printed on spools of paper in Exeter. Students and teachers used the system to write programs in BASIC (Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) —a computer language created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1964 — to solve math problems, but playing games like tic-tac-toe, roulette, golf, baseball and bingo were equally popular. According to The Exonian, more than 100 people used the GE-235 in 1966. The Exeter Computing Club was founded the same year, heralding a new passion for exploring computer languages on campus.

There was so much interest in burgeoning computer technology that discussions began about adding courses to the curriculum. In 1968, the math faculty recommended a two-week noncredit course in writing BASIC. Four years later, the Curriculum Committee recommended adding an interdisciplinary course for preps, teaching computer techniques alongside “skills of observation, selection, arrangement of data, generalization from evidence and communication of results.” The first dedicated computer science course, an advanced placement course focused on learning the PASCAL language, was officially added to the curriculum in 1983. The course “marks the acceptance of the personal computer as the indispensable education and communications tool of our time,” Principal Stephen Kurtz wrote in the fall 1983 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

The same year, an interdisciplinary committee developed guidelines for future computer science courses and called for making personal computers available to each student and instructor. Exeter also led the way in instructor training when it started a mathematics and computer conference for secondary school teachers in the early 1980s. Now called the Anja S. Greer Conference on Mathematics and Technology, it’s the school’s longest-running teacher conference.

Navigating change

Change does not come without challenges. Students and faculty with computer expertise were recruited to shepherd Exeter through its early transition to the new technology. Cedric Antosiewicz ’79 was part of a small group of Exonians charged with helping maintain the school’s computers while he was a student. He returned to campus in 1983 to teach a weeklong summer class about PASCAL to math, science, English and classics faculty. Math Instructor Bill Campbell taught interested faculty, staff and spouses a course on BASIC. Math Instructor Eric Bergofsky, an early school computer coordinator, recruited students from his classes as well as the Computer Club to help him maintain Exeter’s state-of-the-art Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11/44 time-sharing mainframe (it had 256K of internal memory and two disk drives). Located in Room 103 of the Academy Building, next to a classroom that contained teletypes hard-wired into the mainframe, it had to be backed up daily onto large circular disks “that held less memory than an average cellphone,” Bergofsky says. “We had to learn the Digital Equipment Corporation language to administer the machine, check the manual when there was a problem or call Digital Equipment if we had questions.”

Peter Durham ’85 was among the students working alongside Bergofsky to help manage the computer room. He was one of the few students who arrived at Exeter with his own personal computer, a TRS-80 color desktop “microcomputer” from Tandy Radio Shack that he happily shared with classmates. “It was plugged into a TV,” Durham says. “I had to get special permission to have a television on campus.” He says he developed his knack for teaching at Exeter, where he held workshops for students and faculty on the C and PDP-11 assembler languages.

Hard-wired for success

Durham became the chief software architect of the technology that powered MSNBC.com and later NBC News Digital. In true non sibi spirit, he’s now a senior software engineer developing programs that power Microsoft’s Accessibility Insights, open-source tools helping make computers and the internet more accessible to people with disabilities.

In 1996, each dorm was wired for internet access and each dorm room was wired for a landline telephone. As Exeter became “hard-wired” for success, a support system was needed. Academic Technology Coordinator Vi Richter, who joined the Math Department that year to teach classes in applications like Microsoft Word and Excel, became the school’s first dedicated computer support desk person. “I was on the phone eight hours a day, fielding questions,” she says.

Christine Robson Weaver ’99 was one of two female students recruited to troubleshoot tech issues in girls dorms as each came online. “We called ourselves ‘The Technical Ethernet Crisis Helpers,’” says Weaver, a former Bancroft Hall resident. “Any time there was a problem after a dorm went online, we checked it out. My dorm and one boys dorm were the first to come online, and we had an instant connection because we knew we could phone or email each other.”

In an era of Hotmail accounts and accessing the web via CD downloads of America Online (AOL) software, the campus was changing. “Everyone was excited about the potential of the internet,” Weaver says. “A lot of students became quite tech-savvy and came from families who may not have had computers or internet access. It was a big step forward.”

After receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees from MIT in mathematics and computer science and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, Weaver started her career at IBM, doing predictive modeling and machine learning. She joined Google in 2012 as the company’s first product lead for machine learning. Now Weaver is involved in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at Google and draws on her Exeter experiences to maintain connections. She returns to campus often as a mentor and speaker, and founded an Exeter alumni employee group at Google. “At Exeter, I was surrounded by bright kids who were nothing like me, but we all loved to learn,” she says. “That common sense of belonging was magic.”

20th-Century learning

The dot-com boom of the late 1990s popularized personal computing and computer science as an academic discipline. When the Phelps Science Center opened in 2001, computer science classes were relocated from the Academy Building to a designated space in Phelps. The move was both practical and symbolic. Three years later, the Curriculum Review Committee approved a course on algorithmic thinking as a diploma requirement for all four-year students, further legitimizing computer science as valuable coursework and making Exeter one of the first prep schools to require computer science for graduation. Instructor Matt Brenner recommended the course, believing that understanding computers would help students fully understand contemporary social issues; the new course was first offered during the 2005-06 school year.

As computer science has evolved over the last 20 years, so, too, has Exeter’s curriculum. Now led by three full-time computer science instructors teaching more than 30 sections of computer science a year, the program combines practical learning with less structured room to explore (course content forCSC590, for example, is suggested by former students, and the class can be taken more than once). “We have a lot of hands-on learning,” Sean Campbell says. “People don’t perceive computer science as a creative act, but students are creating and they bring all kinds of other interests, connections and abilities to their projects. It’s cool to see what they come up with.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the winter 2023 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

“Borges y yo” es el título de una página que escribió Jorge Luis Borges sobre sí mismo. El “yo” se refería a ese ser interior que quizás él, y sólo él, conocía: el cotidiano, el que comía, dormía y se vestía. Borges por otro lado, era el hombre público: el que se había convertido en gurú de los intelectuales; el que llenaba auditorios; el que recorría el mundo con invitaciones para ser visto, escuchado y admirado.

Mi relato no es de esa dualidad o el desdoblamiento del yo que fueron temas centrales en la obra de Borges: El buscado que es el buscador, en “El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan”; el traidor que es el traicionado, en “La forma de la espada”; el soñador que es el soñado, en “Las ruinas circulares“. Esta narración tiene que ver con Borges y yo: la que escribe.

En el otoño de 1980, el Departamento de Inglés de Phillips Exeter Academy (un preparatorio universitario en Nueva Inglaterra) me comunicó que su Departamento había decidido invitar a Jorge Luis Borges a pasar una semana en nuestra institución. ¿Podría yo ponerme en contacto con quien fuese para lograr ese milagro?

Y de milagro se trataba. Borges rondaba ya por los 80 años; a los 50 perdió casi totalmente su vista y hacía mucho que no contestaba su correspondencia. Era necesario acceder a él a través de sus contactos. A Borges no le faltaban invitaciones. Fue con la ayuda del Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos e Ibéricos de la Universidad de Harvard que logré que Borges nos incluyera en su itinerario de aquel año.

Cuando conversaba de mi proyecto con colegas de otras universidades, me advertían lo difícil que era complacer a Borges como invitado. Supe que muchas veces había abandonado el podio desde donde hablaba porque le habían hecho alguna pregunta impertinente, o que saturado por las pomposidades de quienes interpretaban su obra, se marchaba ¡Y cuidado con las comidas o el lugar donde lo hospedaran!

Conocía la obra de Borges bastante bien; era un autor favorito en nuestras clases de literatura a pesar de que sus magistrales pautas presentaran ciertas dificultades inicialmente. No lo conocía como persona; por lo tanto, me dediqué a leer sobre él todo lo que estaba a mi alcance. Decidí preparar su llegada en la mejor forma posible y esperar que su supuesto mal genio no terminara su visita abruptamente.

Algunos días de primavera en Nueva Inglaterra suelen ser oscuros y lluviosos. El viaje desde Connecticut (donde Borges acababa de participar en un coloquio en su honor) hasta New Hampshire debía ser por tierra. Una cierta mañana de abril, entré en una biblioteca donde Borges, solo, sentado en una silla, sosteniendo entre sus manos su inseparable bastón y con la mirada de ciego perdida en el infinito me esperaba. Sintió mis pasos y levantó la cabeza. Me presenté. Casi de inmediato hizo su entrada en el salón una mujer extremadamente delgada (a mi modo de ver). Llevaba unos pantalones (estilo pescador) negros y ceñidos, una blusa blanca y sandalias de tacón. Era morena y de mediana estatura; sus ojos eran levemente rasgados y una cascada de pelo lacio color pimienta, le caía sobre el rostro; era María Kodama, la compañera de viaje de Borges.

Ya en el automóvil comenzamos a deslizarnos por las carreteras en medio de la lluvia. Se interesó por mi origen; le conté de mi niñez ecuatoriana y de la vida conventual (en ese entonces) de Quito. No sé cómo empezó, pero por un largo rato nos pusimos a cantar rondas infantiles, sobras de nuestra infancia latinoamericana: “Arroz con leche/me quiero casar/con una señorita/de la capital/…”

“Jugando a la pájara pinta/sentadita en un verde limón/…” Para cuando llegamos a Concord (Massachusetts) habíamos establecido una inusitada camaradería.

Conocedora de la admiración que Borges sentía por los escritores del siglo XIX de Nueva Inglaterra, yo había llamado a la Administración de Parques y Monumentos del Estado de Massachusetts para informarme sobre las horas de visita de la casa-museo de Louise May Alcott. Pensé que podríamos hacer una parada para que Borges descansara allí. La persona que me contestó me dijo que el museo estaba cerrado el día que planeábamos visitarlo.

“¡Qué lástima! Pensaba ir con un escritor ciego que está de visita en el país”, le dije.

“¿No se tratará de Borges?”, me respondió una voz asombrada.

Al escuchar mi afirmación, replicó: “Para él, el museo está abierto a cualquier hora, cualquier día.”

Seguía lloviendo cuando entramos en la casa de la autora de Mujercitas. Allí, al calor de una chimenea alimentada por gruesos leños, nos esperaba una comitiva de personas con tacitas de té humeante y pastel de manzana recién salido del horno. Una guardaparques enorme, con pocos conocimientos literarios pero muy consciente de la importancia del personaje, se apoderó de Borges diciendo que era experta en guiar a ciegos. Borges disfrutaba del privilegio que le dieron de acariciar a gusto los lomos de los libros de la biblioteca de Alcott.

Nueva Inglaterra es famosa por sus bellas y antiguas hosterías esparcidas en su zona rural. El pueblecito de Exeter tiene una, encantadoramente acogedora, allí hospedamos a Borges y a María Kodama. Lo vi entrar en la habitación e ir tocando de una en una las paredes para familiarizarse con su nuevo ambiente. Supuse que esto le hacía menos dependiente de otras personas.

Cerca de mil estudiantes de Phillips Exeter Academy se habían preparado para su visita leyendo algunas de sus obras en varias lenguas. Los que no estudiaban castellano lo leyeron en traducciones al francés, inglés, alemán, ruso o italiano.

La noche de su llegada le pedí a Borges que se dirigiera durante unos minutos a la Asamblea General de estudiantes.

“¿De qué quiere que les hable?” me preguntó.

“De lo que Vd. quiera”, le respondí.

En el escenario del Assembly Hall (por donde muchas figuras importantes de la vida cultural y política de los Estados Unidos han desfilado) había una mesa con tres sillas. Allí, con el rector a un lado y yo al otro, se sentó Borges. Con una voz debilitada por los años y en un inglés británico se dirigió a la Asamblea por unos pocos minutos.

“Lean. La lectura es el camino más corto y seguro para llegar a la felicidad”, dijo.

Cuando dejó de hablar cerca de mil estudiantes irrumpieron en un ensordecedor aplauso que duró más tiempo del que Borges empleó en hablar. Mientras tanto la mano del Ciego buscaba la mía al borde de la mesa.

¿”Lo hice bien?”, me preguntó, con una humildad inusitada.

“Vd. lo está escuchando”, repliqué.

La figura de Borges caminando por los senderos del Campus, al lado de María Kodama, se hizo tan familiar que parecía que siempre hubiera estado con nosotros. Entonces me di cuenta de que el Borges irascible, de reacciones imprevistas, de quien me habían hablado había perdido sus aristas. Era un viejecito amable que gozaba de la atención que le rodeaba. Comía de todo, elogiando las viandas que llegaban a su mesa.

María Kodama tuvo un trato amable conmigo. Deseando que supiera que ella poseía su propio espacio me dijo un día:

“Acompaño a Borges sólo cuando sale de viaje. Yo tengo mi propia casa, mi carrera, mi vida”. Trataba a Borges con cierta brusquedad.

“Agáchese Borges que se va a golpear la cabeza”, le decía cuando Borges entraba y salía del coche.

“Coma con cuidado para que no se chorree en la camisa”, le recordaba cuando estábamos a la mesa.

María era quien tomaba muchas decisiones. Borges se mostraba solícito con ella. ¿Gratitud? ¿Amor? Lo que era claro era que tenían una afinidad intelectual extraordinaria; los dos pasaban las mañanas estudiando escandinavo antiguo. Borges también estudiaba japonés por ese entonces; había descubierto una nueva cultura, una nueva civilización, y se encontraba fascinado con ese descubrimiento.

Borges entraba y salía de las aulas entusiasmando a los estudiantes. Por las tardes Borges, María y yo nos juntábamos para tomar té; fueron momentos de deliciosa conversación. Cuando quise hablar de los autores del boom latinoamericano me dijo que no los había leído. Por otro lado, citaba libros, textos, páginas de los clásicos como si los estuviera leyendo. Entendí el por qué muchos críticos no consideraban a Borges como un escritor latinoamericano; él se sentía más heredero de la cultura europea en general (y de la inglesa en particular). No era sólo su estilo hermético, totalmente sugestivo, lo que le alejaba de sus contemporáneos latinoamericanos, eran los inesperados giros dados a sus narraciones que producían inusitados resultados. En las bóvedas de su biblioteca bonaerense extrajo el condumio de sus historias en la compañía silenciosa de los libros. Así nos hizo entender que las palabras de El Quijote de Pierre Menard, aunque parecieran ser exactamente iguales a las de Cervantes, no lo son porque Menard escribía en el siglo XX y Cervantes lo hizo a principios del XVII; que a Funes el memorioso le tomase otra vida de iguales dimensiones a la primera para recordar todo lo que había experimentado; o que Judas, el traidor, pudiera ser Jesucristo mismo por ser su traición esencial para el acto de la redención.

Borges no tenía interés en el presente, ni en la política, ni en el estado del mundo o la sociedad contemporánea. Vivía en un pasado elitista que aceptaba sin cuestionamiento la división de clases y las diferencias raciales, sociales y económicas. Borges tenía un talón de Aquiles que era una inexplicable ingenuidad. Quizás eso es lo que le llevó a recibir una condecoración del dictador chileno Augusto Pinochet y que, de acuerdo a algunos comentaristas, le costó el Premio Nobel de Literatura.

Durante su primera visita a los Estados Unidos, al oír hablar inglés a los que barrían las calles en alguna ciudad de Texas, se quedó estupefacto, según dice Emir Rodríguez Monegal en su Biografía literaria de Borges. Para él, porteño de nacimiento, en una ciudad anglosajonizada después de la independencia del país, el inglés era la lengua de la clase alta. Borges no vivía en el siglo XX, se encontraba a gusto en su esquinita de la historia donde las cosas parecían más simples, concretas y perennes. La complejidad, lo intrincado, lo recamado de la trama lo dejaba para sus creaciones literarias que no tenían origen en realidades fácilmente identificables, sino en ideas destiladas de otras ideas.

Una tarde conversábamos sobre la música contemporánea, y las discotecas donde la gente joven bailaba y se divertía; volviéndose hacia Kodama dijo:

¿“Es verdad lo que dice Francesca?”

“Sí”, contestó ella.

“Me está hablando de las puertas del infierno”, concluyó él.

Borges era un hombre clásico y cerebral a quien le importaba tanto el fondo como la forma. Era ajeno a toda vulgaridad. Su carácter estaba a tono con la era victoriana inglesa. En lo personal era un hombre circunscrito a un espacio en el que no concedía sino simples roces periféricos a otras personas. Era un hombre de puntilloso refinamiento y de trato exquisito.

La noche antes de su partida, Jorge Luis Borges, María Kodama, Peter Greer (un profesor del Departamento de Inglés) y yo cenamos en mi casa. La sobremesa se prolongó hasta pasadas las primeras horas de la madrugada. Sólo se habló de libros. Borges pedía libros para confirmar sus citas o leer un párrafo; yo iba a mi biblioteca para ver si, por suerte, tenía lo que Borges pedía. A la mañana siguiente, cuando fui al comedor, vi en el suelo, mesas y sillas libros cerrados, abiertos o semiabiertos, testigos mudos de esas últimas horas con Borges.

Tres años más tarde Borges moría en Suiza, donde María Kodama, convertida en esposa poco antes de su muerte, lo había llevado.

Editor’s Note: This is the Spanish version of an article which first appeared in the winter 2023 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Two decades after her graduation from Exeter, Rhoda Tamakloe ’01 still prizes her Afro-Latinx Exonian Society T-shirt collection. Being a member of ALES played an important role in her days as a student coming of age at the Academy in the late ’90s.

“It was the first time in my life that I was able to find community and people who shared my background,” says Tamakloe, whose father is Nigerian and Ghanaian and whose mother is African American and of Indigenous descent from the Narragansett and Wampanoag of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. “It helped me step into my own.”

Tamakloe cherishes her three years at Exeter, but she acknowledges that she struggled with being seen as a learning prop instead of a peer in certain instances. One unforgettable moment during a history class stands out. “I remember the lights went off and a video came on; it was that scene in Amistad where they are drowning the slaves,” she recalls. “Then the lights came on and the teacher said, ‘Rhoda, how do you feel about this?’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know, I was never a slave. How do you feel about it?’”

The incident left her confused, hurt and unclear as to what more her 15-year-old self could have added about the murder of human beings by despotic slavers. She was grateful, however, that later that day she could count on classmates in ALES to help her process what happened. “Without that support, I would have carried and swallowed what happened,” she said.

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

ALUMNI

1953—Peter M. Wolf. The Sugar King, Leon Godchaux: A New Orleans Legend, His Creole Slave, and His Jewish Roots. (Bayou Editions, 2022)

1956—Peter Brooks. Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative. (New York Review Books, 2022)

1956—William Peace. Nebrodi Mountains: The Billionaire and the Mafia. (Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Agency, 2022)

1957—Carl Pickhardt. Holding On While Letting Go: Parenting Your Child Through the Four Freedoms of Adolescence. (Health Communications Inc., 2022)

1962—Paul S. Ulrich. Topography and Repertoire of the Theatre, book series. (Hollitzer, 2022)

1964—John Kohring. “Report From the Midwest,” a collaborative online photo and prose exhibition.

1966—James E. Coleman Jr. “Living in the Shadow of American Racism,” article. (Law and Contemporary Problems, Volume 85, Issue 3, 2022)

1967—Robert Matisoff. Red Ivy. (Self-published, 2022)

1974—Julie Scolnik, with Sophie Scolnik-Brower . J.S. Bach: Complete Sonatas for Flute & Piano, CD. (Navona Records, 2022)

1977—Kathleen Engel, co-author. “Student Loan Reform: Rights Under the Law, Incentives Under Contract, and Mission Failure Under ED,” article. (Harvard Journal on Legislation, Volume 58, Number 2)

1981—Claudia Putnam. “Hardening,” poem. (ABQ inPrint, Issue 6, 2022)

— Book review of Suzanne Edison’s Since the House Is Burning. (MER Literary Journal, September 2022)

• “Raiment,” poem. (The Bookends Review, September 2022)
• “We Don’t Know, We Think Different Things,” fiction. (Variant Literature, Issue 12, Fall 2022)

1987—David Hollander, producer. Robert Irwin: A Desert of Pure Feeling. The documentary film premiered at DOC NYC in November 2022.

1989—Jeff Locker, actor, writer. Oliver, of Three, play. (Short+Sweet Hollywood theater festival, 2022)

1996—Eirene Tran Donohue, writer. A Christmas Spark, TV movie. (Lifetime, 2022)

— The 12 Days of Christmas Eve, TV movie. (Lifetime, 2022)

2003—Sara Jane Ho. Mind Your Manners, streaming series. (Netflix, 2022)

2004—Megan Halpern, producer. Deborah, film. (Streaming sites, 2022)

2006—Dwight Curtis. “Glasgow One,” short story. (Pangyrus, Nov. 1, 2022)

FACULTY

Willie Perdomo. El Cofre, short play. (Huizache: The Magazine of a New America, Issue 9, Fall 2022)

Nova M. Seals. “The Librarians, Arthurian Tradition, and Attainable Heroism,” paper presented at the Northeast Popular & American Culture Association’s annual conference in October 2022.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in the winter 2023 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

The dreams came often. When they arrived, spilling over with tangled instructions, Noah held his tape recorder to my mouth and so I woke to the smell of plastic, the heat emanating from his palm, as if he could capture what I saw: bees in hexagonal formation; tidal waves and corpses withering; sapling trees sped up into big oaks; red coral and water on fire.

“These are important, wife,” Noah would say, jotting notes into his big black notebook, charting numbers and lines. He took my temperature, my blood pressure, dilated my eyes. Each morning I woke not to sunlight across my face but his hands hovering near me, as if to pull the word-songs from my speech and hold them tight. He scrawled them down and posted what he discovered on his online forums, the ones making plans for the world ending.

“I think He’s speaking to you,” Noah said, those first mornings when I woke up fumbling with the covers, spilling my glass of water, startled by my own voice as if it was pulled from me.

I preferred not to think of source. There was my nightstand table, the same as ever. Bottle of melatonin. Stacks of paperback books I never read. A layer of dust. A photo of Noah and I, his arms around me at Coney Island. Behind us, bright blue sea.

The night he came home reeking of beer, with lipstick stains slashed across his neck, I decided my sleeplessness. Not sex he wanted but the blurred outlines and instructions, the cubit measurements and Latin names.

“Do we bring the elephants,” he kept asking, but I would not dream an answer. I paced the house, kept the kitchen lights on, opened and closed the fridge door. I poured glasses of milk and spilled them into the sink.

“Please sleep,” Noah begged, though he still had not wiped the lipstick stains off his neck. Noah, who did not or could not remember his dreams, who rocked and prayed for signs and symbols, and got nothing. He tried blue lotus tea and charms under his pillows, drank poppy seed tinctures, saw mediums and oracles — women in Queens with big blond hair who snapped their gum. They said, “Listen, honey, you’ve got to let go, the dreams don’t come to those who cling.” Under their breath, to me, they said, “Let me know if he gives you trouble. I’ve got something for that.”

All I knew about the dreams is that I liked being inside of them. I did not need to know their source. Just that I felt gathered instead of fragmented, watching deers running through forests, dipping my dream hands into humming rivers, even watching the forests burn.

When the dreams showed the destruction, the chaos and the cataclysms, I liked that, too. There was always a small crack in the pain — light pouring through, as if to scoop me up and say, “Even during this, you’ll be safe.”

In my dreams, Noah was nowhere to be found.

Raisa Tolchinsky is the 2022-23 George Bennett Fellow writer-in-residence. This piece is excerpted from the manuscript she is working on this year, about the unnamed women of the Bible.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the winter 2023 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

As we begin the new year, it seems a good moment to reflect on some highlights from our fall term. This year we welcomed the first wave of new Exonians admitted under the school’s need-blind admissions policy announced last November. In all, 341 new students sat in the gymnasium for Opening Assembly, which began with a procession of students bearing the flags of the 37 countries of origin represented among our student body. In my remarks that day, I told students what I tell them every year: You can do the work. You will make lifelong friends. Absolutely, you belong here.

This fall, we also saw the opening of New Hall, which provides a home for 60 girls and five faculty families as well as a new academic space for our Health and Human Development Department. The dorm has brought a new liveliness to its corner of campus, and I am especially appreciative of the flexibility the building gives us to renovate other residence halls, starting with Merrill and Langdell and the construction of a new dining center on the site of Wetherell, which will begin this spring. 

At The Goel Center for Theater and Dance, we saw a stunning fall dance performance, “Moments In Time,” featuring original choreography from our students and faculty, and a thought-provoking interactive theater production of “Everybody” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Audiences filled the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center for the start of our 2022–23 concert series, including performances by the Concert Choir and Symphony Orchestra and our fall student soloist concert.

We headed to Andover for E/A Weekend, where the predicted rain held off long enough for a trio of decisive wins by our boys soccer, girls volleyball and football teams, valiant efforts by all of our athletes, and an impressive display of Big Red spirit by our students and all Exeter fans, led by our new Pep Band and the irrepressible Red Bandits. Girls volleyball capped off a perfect 14-0 regular season, while boys cross-country captured a third straight Division I title. 

Being able to welcome visitors to our campus in ways we could not do a year ago added excitement to the fall term. We heard words of inspiration from distinguished alumni on the Assembly Hall stage, including Veronica Juarez ’00, Tomi Suchan ’08, Lt. Cmdr. Jean-Paul Christophe ’00 and Dr. Sasha Kramer ’94, winner of this year’s John and Elizabeth Phillips Award, along with other visiting speakers. Over Exeter Leadership Weekend in September, we welcomed trustees, members of the General Alumni Association and alumni and parent volunteers, all of whom relished the chance to meet in person for the first time in three years, including a Friday night dinner with the senior class. We also had a terrific Family Weekend in October, during which families were thrilled to be able to attend classes with their children again.

These are just a few highlights from the fall term. During the Opening Assembly, I proposed starting the academic year in a spirit of deep appreciation and gratitude for the opportunities and privileges we all enjoy as part of the Exeter community. In that same spirit, I want to say how grateful I am for the support of the alumni, parents and other friends of the Academy who help make it all possible. Thank you.  

Editor’s note: This column first appeared in the winter 2023 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

What is the fellowship program?

Established in 2013, the program provides advanced doctoral students who might not otherwise consider careers in a residential secondary school the opportunity to gain experience in such a community while working on the completion stage of their dissertations.

Who are the 2022-23 fellows?

Dominique Branson is a Ph.D. linguistics student concentrating in sociolinguistics at the University of Pittsburgh. Her dissertation topic, “Sounding Guilty: Criminalization and Black Racialized Speech,” investigates whether speakers who are assessed as “sounding Black” are also criminalized. “In my linguistics courses, I learned about the many ways that African American English (AAE) differs from standardized American English, or what we usually call ‘proper English,’” Branson says. “Since then, I’ve wanted to know whether Black Americans who speak AAE experience negative outcomes in our criminal legal system because of how listeners hear their speech.”

Maya Singhal is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Harvard University. Singhal teaches courses on anthropological research at Harvard and a writing course on business and labor in fiction and film at New York University. Singhal’s dissertation is a historical and ethnographic study of African American and Chinese American collaborations, solidarities and mutual aid in New York City from about the 1960s to the present. Singhal says, “I’m interested in how criminal and criminalized activities work as sites for a variety of pragmatic collaborations, from the African and Chinese counterfeit designer goods sellers in Chinatown to extralegal community defense patrols working to prevent anti-Asian violence.”

How do the fellows benefit the community?

The fellows teach online seminars and connect on campus with departments and students interested in their fields. They also make themselves available in an informal way to students interested in and student organizations related to their fields.

What do the fellows hope to accomplish?

Branson: “I hope to learn how I can better make my research relevant to youth. …I would also like to know what connections students see between language and justice and how they can use their voices to promote justice. I’m excited to work with diverse students and learn from their perspectives at Phillips Exeter Academy!”

Singhal: “I’m excited to see the really urgent political and social movements we’re faced with, especially since the pandemic, through students’ eyes. It strikes me that a lot of students see their generation as the ones who need to save the world, and I’m excited to think about the histories of social movements and our political issues in the present with people who feel this kind of urgency.”

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the winter 2023 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.