Opening Assembly 2026

Jennifer Karlen Elliott

Opening Address to Exeter Community

246^th year

September 4, 2026

Good morning, Exeter! Thank you, Assistant Principal Page and Dean Foley. What a privilege and honor it is to stand before you this morning. Welcome faculty emerita and your families to Opening Assembly. A special welcome to Principals Emeriti O’Donnell, Hassan, and Rawson.

Students, staff and faculty colleagues, it is a joy and delight to be gathered with you this morning. To families and alumni who are able join us remotely today, good morning and welcome. Thank you to the flag bearers—your spirited procession was an apt celebration of our “youth from every quarter.” Exeter is richer, stronger, and more vibrant because of the range of voices, perspectives, and identities we have deliberately brought together.

To the newest members of our Exeter community, we are so happy you are here. One of the most important legacies of our former Principal Rawson that I will work hard to maintain is the clear and consistent message that each and every one of you belongs here. The returning members of the community are eager to welcome and support you. We will continue to communicate Principal’s Rawson’s messages that have now become part of the physical setting in the Mary H. Rawson Reading Room and the very fabric of this place:

You can do the work.

You will make lifelong friends.

Absolutely, you belong here.

Collectively, we will strive to create a context that is warm, inclusive, and caring. Cultivating a culture of belonging is one my most essential responsibilities to you.

To the seniors, members of the great class of 2027, welcome to your final Opening Assembly—an exciting bookend to your graduation! I loved being with you all last evening, and I am proud of the ways that you have already stepped up to greet and mentor your younger peers. In the months ahead, we cannot wait to support your leadership, celebrate your hard work, and learn from you.

As is our tradition, at Opening Assembly we honor our history, embrace our responsibilities as community members with gratitude and integrity, and look to the future with optimism.

In the spring of 1781, as the American fight for independence neared its end, John and Elizabeth Phillips signed the Deed of Gift establishing Phillips Exeter Academy. This founding document outlined our enduring core values and mission, a lasting testament to the forward-thinking wisdom and generosity of the Phillips family. Honoring the fierce potential of young minds, our founders underscored that “the time of youth is the important period.” They sought to create a learning institution for “youth from every quarter” that centered academic excellence and paired deliberately “knowledge and goodness.” In outlining the responsibilities of our adult community members, the Deed of Gift states:

…[A]bove all, it is expected that the attention of instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care…

It continues:

…[G]oodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous, and […] both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind.

This call to seek goodness and knowledge was later inscribed above the doors of the Academy Building to remind all learners of our shared commitment.

In 1784, Paul Revere created the Phillips Exeter Academy seal to mark indelibly our core values. The rising sun over the sea of knowledge illuminates “non sibi,” “not for oneself.” Non sibi captures the grand purpose behind our pursuit of knowledge and goodness: that we will extend our learning beyond ourselves and our time here. Connection to a larger purpose, greater than each of our own, provides the foundation for lives of meaning and value.

As your Principal, I will work with you, day in and day out, like industrious bees in our shared hive, to carry out our mission. It distills the essential elements of the original deed of gift into one memorable statement: “Unite goodness and knowledge and inspire youth from every quarter to lead purposeful lives.”

We believe that our intertwining of goodness and knowledge enables our pursuit of academic excellence. Here at Exeter, we dream big, we aim high, and we work hard. One of the most essential competencies that we must constantly develop is how to manage the stress these personal and collective ambitions create. When chasing audacious dreams, we may feel that excellence and well-being are in tension. In my experience, this tension is borne out of a problematic perception that excellence implies perfection. I wholeheartedly disagree. Too often perfectionism invites pernicious behaviors that impede our progress. Striving for excellence is the dogged, persistent pursuit of progress and betterment. It invites intellectual humility, resilience, and growth; it can also promote wellness. To pursue progress every day, we must build habits that support balance and sustain our efforts: help-seeking, healthy sleep, intentional technology use, relationship-building, time outside, small daily acts of kindness, play and JOY. In learning to toggle between the seriousness and light-heartedness of our endeavors, we develop cognitive agility, stamina, and perspective. We lean into performance-enhancing eustress, and we take breaks and seek support when we begin to experience distress. Prioritizing wellbeing deepens our academic engagement, ties us to the greater good, and forms lifelong habits that enable us to thrive and ultimately pursue lives of purpose.

With a foundation of belonging and wellbeing, we are poised to engage across difference and persevere as learners committed to honing our craft.

Inspired by our founding documents and strong traditions, we believe that a deliberate community of learners from every quarter fosters collaboration, empathy, open-mindedness, and understanding. Our DEI Vision Statement pledges that:

Our commitment is to teach the skills, model the behaviors, provide the resources, and cultivate the environment of inclusion that is required to unlock the richness of that diversity. Only through inclusion can diversity act as a catalyst to dispel ignorance and fear and create space to achieve equity and excellence. Only when we put these values into action, by both our words and our deeds, can we construct authentic bridges across differences and empower all individuals to become their best and fullest selves, both at Exeter and throughout their lives.

In this era of increased division and polarization, we must prove—to each other and the world—that we can examine our assumptions, consider a wide range of perspectives, and engage constructively with each other. We can see, value, and honor the full humanity of every person in our community. We are capable of replacing vicious cycles with virtuous ones; and we are equipped to examine wicked problems, craft better questions, and design bold and ethical solutions.

As we approach 100 years of Harkness, we get to honor our methodological and philosophical commitment, while imagining its next century. At our Harkness tables, we model the power of human connection, the devotion to serious discussion, and the democratic exchange of ideas. We practice the art of listening, we sharpen our critical thinking, and we create space for sustained focus and growth. In our age of digital distraction, these skills have never been more important. We will continue to use Harkness spaces to discuss and explore if, where, and how Generative and agentic AI can enhance—not replace—our learning, our creativity, and our connections. Together, we will define responsible and discerning use and grapple with the ethical, artistic, environmental, socio-cultural, and pedagogical challenges these technologies pose. We will rely on our values to guide our efforts. At a time when the rapid expansion of machine learning rattles our conception of being, doing, and contributing, we get to uplift our most essential human strengths and build our human intelligence. Exonians, when you graduate from this place, equipped with savvy skills and sophisticated understandings of productive tools, you will leave here knowing the uniquely human qualities, values, and strengths that will prepare you to positively engage in and constructively impact your next community.

An alumnus from the class of 1968 recently wrote to me reflecting on his time here and highlighting the durable qualities of an Exeter experience. He offered:

In the current public swirls of (dis)information and debates, and the promise and risk and hope and fear of AI, one other Deed of Gift phrase that isn’t directly in the current mission statement may become increasingly apt.  That is the Phillips’s direction to instructors not only to ground the students in all academic disciplines but also “to learn them the great end and real business of living”.  To me, the real business of living in that text denotes the ways in which we create and constantly re-create a society where all those other essentials mentioned in the Deed of Gift are stirred in. It’s restless, always expecting and demanding new learning, sparking imagination and nurturing HI, human intelligence…it’s both daunting and exhilarating.

This same author described to me that over the decades through:

…moments of challenge for the Academy, some generated on campus and some in reaction to the larger world, the core values of dialogue and presence for one another have remained the steadying force. It seems almost trite to say that, but now amid other sorts of challenges, the Exeter verities are more important than ever – and alas, rarer. PEA is a sturdy vessel, seas are always choppy in some way or other, and the voyage of learning is happily endless.

I cannot wait to begin this work with you. My first responsibility is to be a student of this place and its people. Please come and sit with me in the dining hall, walk the paths with me, invite me to a practice, rehearsal, or club meeting, cheer with me on the sidelines, and visit me in J. Smith and in my living room in Saltonstall House.

To give you a head start on forging our relationship and work together, let me share a bit about myself: I am a learner and teacher who has always loved school. Every September, I celebrate the possibility and promise that a new school year brings. I am a daughter, mother, sibling, and partner; my family and friends mean the world to me; I love them fiercely. I am the 3^rd of 4 children to two parents whom I adore, the mother of four awesome sons, the aunt to 13 amazing nieces and nephews, and the partner to the kindest person I know. I am a loyal and devoted friend. Many of my dearest, most treasured friends are from my days in boarding school, including my roommate with whom I just spent last weekend, so I am living proof that you too will make lifelong friends during your time at Exeter. I am a team player, and I am drawn to thorny challenges. I love to play, read, puzzle, compete, belly laugh, run around outside, and dance. I am an enthusiastic and loud singer without much talent. If I had an extra hour in my day, I would spend it in the garden, working on NYT puzzles, or on a trail with my husband and our dogs.

I feel an enormous obligation to keep this community safe and well. I have little patience for behaviors that harm, dehumanize, or disrespect. I will emphasize policies and practices that promote safety, respect, empathy, care, and wellbeing.

I am drawn to and admire deeply communities that prioritize excellence and learning. AND, in these contexts, I believe that gratitude, love and joy are too often under-appreciated and de-emphasized as unserious distractions or unnoticed extras. I think that is a mistake. Gratitude, love, and joy are expansive, infectious, and deeply motivating. They serve our pursuit of excellence and learning.

I delight in young people—YOU are the source of my optimism and the very best part of my work. YOU are the very best part of this community.

To start the year and maintain a special tradition, we have t-shirts waiting for you! I hope you enjoy them; please do share your gratitude with the adults who made this gift possible.

Exeter, together—all the folks assembled in this space and connected through this place—we will build from our strong foundation and pursue progress with courage, integrity, and goodness. Here’s to an outstanding year ahead! Thank you.

Senior class.