On a sunny day in July, a group of Exeter Summer students headed off campus to the Browne Center at the University of New Hampshire for a day of trust-building and team-bonding exercises. Whether working their way through the ropes course or reclining carefully on a suspended tree branch, the students made sure to have each other’s backs — and got to know each other along the way.

“We had to work together to achieve a specific goal,” says Jack Lu, a rising eighth grader from Sarasota, Florida, of the field trip. “It really helped to build bonds, as we needed to trust each other to literally stay safe.”

This summer, Lu was one of the students taking part in the first official session of the Irene F. Hamm P’87 ACCESS EXETER Leadership Program, an immersive cluster of courses for seventh and eighth graders focused on learning the principles and theory of leadership as well as acquiring practical skills for effective activism and advocacy. One of nine clusters in the five-week ACCESS EXETER program, it was created thanks to the generosity of Irene Hamm P’87, a lifelong educator who helped her husband, Charles J. Hamm ’55, found his namesake leadership-focused program for Exeter Summer’s UPPER SCHOOL in 2008.

A summer of growth

In courses entitled Youth Leadership and My Voice Matters, students in the ACCESS cluster explore the relationships between leaders and their followers, read literature written by leaders in society and write their own essays and action plans. In a third course, The Art and Science of Creating Real Change, they learn to channel their identities and desire for change through both artistic expression and hands-on action steps.

“We’re starting from a really personal space for them: What are their values? What do they believe in? What are the causes that move them?” says Ben Cromwell, who teaches The Art and Science of Change, as well as a Practical Leadership seminar in the UPPER SCHOOL. “From there, we try and expand outward as we go.”

In addition to their coursework and their trip to the Browne Center, students in both Hamm Leadership Programs visited the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate in Boston, where they participated in a mock debate over voting rights legislation. While they were in the city, the students also toured a series of giant murals created by artists in association with the organization Sea Walls to bring awareness to issues of environmentalism, especially protecting the ocean.

Each ACCESS student teams with their older counterparts for a capstone project, through which they aim to make a meaningful impact on the Exeter Summer community in some way. Lu and his capstone group created a peer-to-peer tutoring program for fellow Exeter Summer students, while Garima Biyani, a rising ninth grader from Bellevue, Washington, worked with her group to plant seeds in Exeter’s community garden.

Learning to listen

Irene Hamm, who earned her master’s degree in special education from Columbia University, spent 32 years teaching students from preschool through high school ages. After watching the Hamm Leadership Program’s success in the UPPER SCHOOL, she’s excited to see it extended to the younger group.

“I think [the program is] about teaching the students how to work with other people instead of just going their own way,” Irene notes. “Having taught seventh and eighth graders, I think they have to learn to listen to other people and yet still have their opinions, and when they approach others, approach them with thoughtfulness — and with facts.”

For Charles Hamm, whose namesake UPPER SCHOOL program recently celebrated its 14^th year, his initial inspiration to create it still holds true. “The combination of good leadership and good followership has always, and increasingly, struck me as being critical to life on earth,” Charles says. “If we can jumpstart a sense of thinking, considering and approaching an understanding of what leadership might be — even if you don’t become a leader — it will enhance your ability to be a responsible follower.”

As the five-week program draws to a close, Jack Lu has taken the message to heart. “Through this experience, I’ve fully come to realize that leaders may be the ones who get most of the fame and most of the attention,” Lu says. “But without the followers, they really can’t achieve anything. The followers are equally — if not more — important than the leaders.”

Tools for the future

Cromwell says his ACCESS EXETER students come to the Hamm Leadership Program with a variety of motivations, from future leadership plans to simply connecting with the idea of the cluster. Many bring a passion for social justice to their work, and are inspired by Harkness discussions and other activities focused on gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, racial equality, climate change and other key issues. By the end of their capstone projects, the students were “running community meetings, engaging their peers, generating ideas,” Cromwell recalls. “They really stepped up and talked in depth about the things they had done personally to advance these causes.”

 “I’ve always kind of been more like head up in the clouds, but this [experience] has brought me down to earth to a degree,” Biyani says. “I know a lot about social justice, but I haven’t really done much. When I get back, I think putting my ideas into action — volunteering, maybe getting involved in some organizations, or starting groups at my school — is definitely something that I intend to do.”

What does an affirming, supportive, healthy conversation between a parent and child look like? How about under these tricky situations: when your child finds out the object of their affection is taking someone else to the prom; or when they receive lower-than-expected grades; or even when the kitchen garbage hasn’t been taken out yet again?

In his latest book, The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure: A Positive Approach to Pushing Your Child to Be Their Best Self, Exeter’s Associate Director of Counseling and Psychological Services Christopher Thurber offers myriad practical examples of how to chat with your child in a manner that’s both direct and empathetic, and reveals “Four Interrogation Methods to Avoid,” such as expecting the best rather than their best.

Thurber is well versed and expertly trained to offer such insightful advice. He has served as a staff psychologist at Exeter since 1999, and earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA. His doctoral graduate work on homesickness and summer camp generated 2015’s Summer Camp Handbook and led to multiple public appearances.

Co-written with fellow psychologist and emotional-intelligence expert Hendrie Weisinger, The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure shines a potent spotlight on the vagaries of parental pressure and how to morph unhealthy pressure into the healthy variety. As Thurber says, an ever-present element of warmth is key to successful adult-kid interactions. Warmth is a characteristic that Thurber also emulates successfully in his writing, making this book a particular pleasure to read.

With so many parenting books out there, what makes this one stand apart?

This is the first discussion of parental pressure that shifts the narrative from how much to what kind of pressure. Specifically, the instinctive nature of parental pressure means no one can tell parents to “stop pressuring” their kids. Well, they can say that, but nothing will happen. We provide lots of realistic examples to guide parents and other caregivers to transform what they might identify as harmful pressure into healthy pressure. [Second,] we’re addressing a circumscribed topic — the pressure that caregivers apply — but we include pressure from other adult caregivers, from coaches and clergy to teachers and mentors. And the third notable difference is a challenge to society at large to improve the college admissions process.

So much of parental pressure does seem to come from a desire to get kids into a good college so they can succeed in life.

One of the most frequently quoted passages from the book is where we write, “…prestige carries weight in some circles, but it never carries the day. How did pride in our kids become more about which school’s name is on the diploma than which student’s name is on the diploma?” My co-author, Hank, and I both worry about the unhealthy pressure that is part of today’s college process. I said to Hank, “I don’t want to pick on college and university admission committees, but if we could identify one place where the culture could change and produce better mental health and a better view of what success means, this would be the starting place.” Hank agreed. So throughout the book we say to parents, “Here are places where you can change the type of pressure you apply during the college process.” Then, in the Epilogue, we discuss our collective responsibility to improve the college admissions process through a cultural shift. We think it’s doable, especially in this period of rapid, pandemic-induced changes to the college admissions process.

I appreciate the distinction you make in the book, that the best parental guidance isn’t about direction or advice or structure, it’s about a better way to present that guidance to young people — to engage with them and to engage them with it.

That’s a big point that Hank and I make in the book: changing from harmful to healthy pressure doesn’t mean lowering standards and saying, “Oh well, we’ll stop putting so much pressure on you.” It’s how to stop thinking about pressure in a quantitative way — “Should I use more or less pressure?” — and start to think about it in a stylistic way: “How am I applying the pressure?” Parents love their kids, so they’ll naturally state expectations and apply pressure to fuel progress toward those goals. But it’s futile if that pressure is of the harmful sort. The beauty is that when parents learn the distinctions between harmful and healthy pressure, they realize that they don’t need to lower their standards one bit. They simply become more effective caregivers.

How did you decide to collaborate with your co-author?

Hank contacted me out of the blue. He had written a book on pressure management and found my online courses for camp counselors. He asked whether he could host a module on pressure for camp counselors. I said, “Well, they experience some healthy pressure, but happily it’s a break for a lot of them from the unhealthy pressure that they experience elsewhere … with competitive admissions and what recent alums tell me they’re experiencing in college.” He called me about a week later and said, “OK, so we need to write a book together.” And I thought, “I just met this guy over the phone!” But it was clear that we both had lots of complementary ideas. He sent me the research basis for each chapter along with a list of things we had discussed and then I wrote. It was a wonderful synergy.

The book mentions a communications workshop you run for parents, Cracking Kids’ Secret Code. Is that related to your work at Exeter?

That’s a workshop I do during [Exeter’s] Family Weekend where I teach caregivers to listen to the subtext of what students say, then respond with empathy to that underlying thought or feeling. After working at Exeter for a few years, I started going to The Association of Boarding Schools, or TABS, conferences. I’ve presented at camp conferences, and boarding school conferences seemed exactly the same, except that people wear different clothes (not Birkenstocks and shorts, a little more buttoned up.) But from a professional standpoint, they want to learn the same things: the risk and protective factors for psychopathology, as well as techniques of strong leadership, supervision and behavior management. So, I started presenting at TABS conferences and at BSA, the British equivalent, and the Australian Boarding Schools Association. That’s been a wonderful extension of what I’ve done at Exeter. It feels really good to share what Exeter students and faculty have taught me with the world at large.

You’ve been at Exeter for more than two decades. What have you learned from your students?

I’ve learned that it is a blessing to have contact with people whose backgrounds are different than one’s own — different geographically, socioeconomically, ethnically, racially, religiously, philosophically and in other important aspects of identity — because it necessarily stretches one’s thinking and that’s just enormously energizing. And what goes along with that exposure to differences is an appreciation of what our commonalities are from a social and emotional standpoint. We all need a sense of belonging, we all fear being abandoned, we all fear losing control, we all want to feel needed, we want to feel worthy of other people’s love and affection. If you would have stated those core hopes and fears to me in graduate school, I would have said, “Of course — I’m reading about those concepts all the time!” But reading about them is different than experiencing them or wrestling with them. If I weren’t constantly learning in my various roles at Exeter, I imagine I would have moved on to a different job long ago. But it is perennially inspiring, truly. My students are great at pushing me to see things differently, to ask different questions. And, with their challenges and struggles, they remind me, in all kinds of different ways, what our psychological human universals are. Perhaps The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure has illuminated those in fresh ways.

If you had one piece of original advice to offer parents, what would it be?

Ask your child, “How do I come across?” in different situations that involve pressure. At the end of the day, only our kids can tell us whether the pressure we are applying is helpful for harmful. Yet asking our kids how we come across feels so risky that we rarely do it. Those are missed opportunities to strengthen the relationship you have with your child. Try it and you’ll see the benefits immediately.

When I first came to Exeter as a prep, I was very lonely. In a country where everyone is different, I felt, more than ever, the particularity of my being. I wanted to fit in, wanted to be accepted, wanted to have someone to talk to who could understand me and tell me that I was not alone. It was then that I found Jean-Christophe. It is a novel recording the life trajectory of a fictional German musician (who ultimately inspired me to learn piano at Exeter). In Jean-Christophe I saw myself: sometimes confused, sometimes passionate, always changing. We had the same struggles, same questions, same doubts and fears. In a time where I was learning how to live by myself, it was my motivation and my comfort.

I am a senior now, with my own group of friends, but I still seek out Jean-Christophe. I think a book is amazing this way: It is always there, waiting to talk to you. It strips away the trivialities of life, and in that pocket of time, it allows you to reflect through the deepest parts of your being.

In each of my recommended books and plays, you’ll find a protagonist who grapples with the quintessential question of what it means to be human. They have inspired me to think, to open up, and most important, they have accompanied me in a precarious time of my life. They are my heroes.

Ishaan Velan and Joaquin Cavalcante took their places standing at the front of a classroom in Phelps Science Center as theme music from the hit reality TV show Shark Tank blared through the speakers of a nearby laptop.

For their final project in Entrepreneurship: Moral Money Making, a course in Exeter Summer’s Access Exeter program for seventh- and eighth-graders, Velan and Cavalcante were presenting their business idea for their teachers and peers to evaluate — and decide whether or not to invest.

“We found in research that over 50 million phone screens are shattered per year only in the United States,” said Cavalcante, an eighth grader from Rio de Janeiro. “We’re spending money … on phone cases and they can’t do their job well.” Enter their (hypothetical) product: a highly durable cell phone case made of a more sustainable bioplastic material derived from biological substances rather than petroleum.

>> How to apply to Exeter Summer

As this “Kind Shark Tank” exercise continued, the two students discussed estimated costs and revenue for their company, and described how at $55, their phone cases would still be priced lower than those made by competitors like Casetify, Nimble and Popsicase. “Unlike them, we’re very eco-friendly with our bioplastic cases,” said Velan, a seventh grader from Chicago. “And they’re fully customizable to create the ultimate phone that’s personalized just for you.”

The students’ pitch, like other businesses presented by their classmates, were firmly in line with the core philosophy of the Entrepreneurship course, one of three in the Access Exeter cluster titled Kind By Design: Make it Big in a Good Way. As the title indicates, Kind By Design focuses on aligning principles of business and technology with a philosophy of doing good not only for fellow humans, but for the earth as a whole. One of nine clusters offered during Exeter Summer’s 2022 session, it challenged students to take a non sibi approach to creating a useful product, marketing it ethically and building a profitable yet sustainable business around it.

Design inspired by nature

In Science in Nature: Biomimicry Beyond Benign, another course in the Kind By Design cluster, students took to the laboratory to explore how some of the most successful products draw cues from the natural world.

“We take concepts from nature and…apply them in a way that’s more ecofriendly and sustainable, but still innovative,” said Jim Enright, a longtime Exeter Summer instructor who has also taught classes in marine biology and business/economics in the Upper School.

In this lab-focused course, students studied the three principles of biomimicry — sustainable, innovative and inspiring — as well as some of the ways scientists have used it to create exceptional products. For one lesson, they studied porcupine quills, the unique structure of which has inspired scientists to design more effective hypodermic needles, among other innovations.

The students also conducted hands-on experiments, including building their own lava lamps using a mixture of water, vegetable oil, guar gum, vinegar and baking soda. “We looked at porcupine quills at 8,200 times magnification under the electron microscope,” Enright added. “That’s cutting-edge technology that’s not available at probably 99% or more of high schools in the country, [and] certainly not [at] middle schools.”

Ethical marketing

In Marketing: Dignified Digital Design, the third course in the cluster, students looked at well-known brands such as Apple, Disney, Starbucks, Tesla, Coca-Cola and The North Face, focusing on the way they market their products. The curriculum touched on an array of topics, from green marketing and affiliate marketing to search engine optimization (SEO), all with the intention of helping students hone their ability to distinguish between ethical and non-ethical marketing.

Instructor Davidson Joseph taught entrepreneurship in a previous session of the Kind By Design cluster, and pioneered the “Kind Shark Tank” activity for Exeter Summer. “I think the most rewarding thing is to see students at the end of the year come back and say, ‘Mr. Joseph, I’m serious about starting my own business,’” he says.

As part of their final marketing project, the students worked in groups to produce short commercials for their chosen brands. “I enjoyed learning about how commercials are made, and how you should have very short cuts — maximum five seconds — to really keep the audience engaged,” said Konrad Olczak, an eighth-grade student from Switzerland. “That was something that I probably saw [before], but I never actually realized it or analyzed it.”

Building a better business

In the Entrepreneurship class, Instructor Trevor Marrero ’12 — who attended Exeter Summer before matriculating at the Academy in ninth grade — used a variety of different media, including articles, podcasts and YouTube videos, to explore how to build a business that is sustainable as well as profitable. To give students a behind-the-scenes look at the day-to-day challenges of business in the real world, he invited several fellow alums and friends to talk to his students about their entrepreneurial ventures.

For Cian Sloan, a seventh grader from Ireland, listening to the guest speakers share their early experiences starting their businesses was particularly eye-opening. “It really showed me the amount of work you need to do to be an entrepreneur, and just all the finer things behind it and how to approach it,” he said.

Maika Liu, a seventh grader from the Philippines, agreed: “I was really inspired by their stories and how hard they had to work to get where they are today.”

Back in the “Kind Shark Tank,” Velan and Cavalcante fielded a few pointed questions from the “Baby Sharks,” their fellow students. They then looked to the two “Sharks” in the room — Marrero and Richard Schieber, associate dean of Exeter Summer and an instructor in the Academy’s Modern Languages department — for a verdict. “I like it,” Marrero said. “I’m gonna make an offer. I want 20% of your company, but I’m only going to give you $100K.”

The two students huddled together, then came back with a counteroffer: $150,000 for a 15% equity stake. “I’ll give you a hundred K for 15%,” Marrero said.

The two students wavered. Then Schieber jumped in. “I like your presentation,” he said. “I’m going to give you $100,000 for 10%.” Satisfied, the young entrepreneurs shook hands with Schieber as Marrero and their classmates applauded.

The wonder of art is born, in large part, from the imagination of the observer. The artist renders the work, and the observer fills in details. Managing Miscellanea, the exhibition currently running until Sept. 24 at the Lamont Gallery, has been curated by Gallery Manager Stacey Durand and Exhibitions and Collections Manager Dustin Schuetz from the Lamont Gallery’s art collection. While there are many impressive and evocative pieces on display, details of their provenance are scarce, and this is what makes the exhibit so intriguing. The gallery managers know for certain that the collection ranges from known works of importance by influential artists to work left behind by students. Wondering which is which is the fun of the exhibition and walking through it gives the undeniable feeling of having wandered into a treasure hunt.

Since its inception in 1952, developing a collection has never been part of the Lamont Gallery’s mission. Despite this, it has accumulated 700-800 prints, paintings, sculptures and artifacts, which comprise, inescapably, a collection. These works have arrived under a variety of circumstances: donations, bequests, student work and, in at least one instance, an unexpected truckload. What may not occur to a well-meaning donor is that stewardship of this art; keeping it well maintained, properly stored and documented over time are all part of the calculation in accepting an item. Because of this, the Gallery has ceased accepting new additions for the last seven years. In the meantime, Schuetz has been charged with uncovering as much possible about the collection and he has been making some impressive progress.

Two of the most important works in the Lamont Gallery’s collection are paintings by Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist and husband to Frida Kahlo. Both are currently on loan, one to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the other to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for its exhibition “Diego Rivera’s America.” A replica of this second piece, a portrait of Corliss Lamont, is displayed for the Managing Miscellanea exhibition.

Corliss Lamont graduated from Exeter in 1920. He was a humanist philosopher, author, poet and the director of the American Civil Liberties Union for 30 years. His family were all major donors to Phillips Exeter, with seven of them graduating from the Academy between 1888 and 1942. The Lamont Room in the Academy Library and The Lamont Poetry Fund which supports visiting poets, were both named after Corliss Lamont. The Lamont Gallery is named after Corliss’ nephew, Thomas Lamont II ’42, who died in World War II. Frida Kahlo died during the painting of this portrait and calla lilies, her favorite flower, figure meaningfully to the side of Lamont in the picture.

While the Rivera works are known to be important, another piece hangs across the gallery with a backstory only just discovered during the writing of this article. The large dark background pops with swaths of color, and the author’s signature is illegible but for the first three letters “Sch.” On the back, a label with cryptic markings provides clues: the word Kootz appears along with a series of numbers and letters “76 B” “6.55” and “VI.55.” They could be the title, the date or some other record of the work.

Kootz was a gallery which existed in New York during a short period from the 1940s to the 1960s and hosted works by famous abstract expressionists of the time including Picasso, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. The idea that this piece was there, rubbing frames with the greats, sent Schuetz to search records of the Kootz Gallery housed at the Smithsonian and he was able to determine the work to be that of Gérard Ernest Schneider, a major pioneer of the style known as Lyrical Abstraction.

A casual Google search of the artist’s name, now that it is known, turns up images with striking similarity to the painting owned by the Lamont Gallery, but this answer is only obvious once the mystery has been solved. Certainly, experts might be brought in to speed the effort, but this work is but a single example among hundreds with literally no organizing principle guiding their presence in the Lamont Gallery collection.

Nevertheless, experts do visit the Academy periodically. Recently an alumni artist came to lecture and, during a display of her works, Schuetz noticed an item bearing strong resemblance to an unsigned piece in the collection. When shown the painting, the artist confirmed that its similarity, much like the Googled pictures of Schneider’s work, meant that it was undoubtedly hers. During our visit to the gallery, the piece was being packaged up for transport back to the collection of its creator.

Art from former students and faculty

Another abstract piece suspected to be the work of a former student dominates one of the first walls in the exhibit. This oversized triptych of irregular panels bursts with geometrically precise color. There is a small signature and the likely date “’73” at the bottom of the work. The only clues to proper assembly are the holes on the back of the frame. Though the frame is slightly damaged, it’s easy to understand Schuetz and Durand’s urge to assemble it once it was found in storage. Nothing more is known about the piece beyond its innate appeal, but the guess is that it was displayed for a few years and then moved to storage.

By contrast, an impressive and mature looking abstracted cityscape of the Italian city of Matera at the back of the gallery expertly blends color and suggests clear artistic mastery even to the untrained eye. This painting was done by a former head of the gallery, the late Glen Krause. An instructor emeritus, Krause served as an art instructor at Phillips Exeter from 1946-1966, chair of the Art Department from 1962-1966 and director of Lamont Gallery 1953-1966. His three sons attended Exeter. The artist had a stroke later in life, and there is a clear demarcation in his style from before and after. This piece is meaningful as a representative of the artist’s work before the impact of the stroke.

A low-lit side room is devoted to World War I and II posters, with wartime slogans in French and English. Their vividness is even more surprising given that they are printed on fragile newspaper. The colors have been preserved by decades spent safely, but unfortunately folded, in dark storage drawers. It is suspected that they may have been left to the Gallery by a history teacher but why or what their significance may be is currently unknown. Nevertheless, they are impressive examples of their type.

Indeed, the entire exhibition, with its air of mystery and undeniable excellence provides impressive examples of technical mastery, specific styles and certainly any number of notable tales of provenance just waiting to be discovered by the gallery managers, students of the Academy or perhaps even by you should you find time to visit before it closes. The Lamont Gallery is open to public visitors by appointment. Please go to the “Visit the Lamont Gallery” page of the Lamont Gallery website to make an online reservation.