Feeling at home
I remember well the day I moved into Dunbar Hall as a new lower in 1968, with not much more than a single duffel bag and a lacrosse stick in my hands. I had never lived away from home, so naturally I found myself wondering what the other students would be like and how I would fit in. My room was sparsely furnished, and my few possessions did not do much to fill it up, nor take long to unpack. Then I was on my own.
I could not have been happier. I was at Exeter. Friendships quickly formed, and with the support of the proctors and faculty who lived there, Dunbar soon became my home away from home. Sure, the seniors looked impossibly old to me, and I wasn’t ready to join the fierce four square battles that played out in front of the dorm each evening, but I found my friends among the other new lowers, and felt that I could not have been assigned to a better dorm. In fact, like most students, I was certain I was in the best dorm on campus.
Fast-forward 50-plus years, and I now have the privilege of doing dorm duty in Wentworth Hall, and the pleasure of seeing firsthand how the important work of faculty, proctors and student listeners continues to foster community today. The day student affiliate program extends this sense of dorm pride and belonging to non-boarders, integrating them into the school more completely, including as proctors in our dorms.