The Exeter Bulletin, summer 2020

The Exeter Bulletin SUMMER 2020

Exeter Together

A HISTORIC SPRING AND HOW WE REMAINED CONNECTED

The Exeter Bulletin Principal William K. Rawson ’71; P’08 Executive Editor Karen Ingraham Managing Editor Patrick Garrity Senior Editor Jennifer Wagner Class Notes Editor Cathy Webber Editorial Coordinator Maxine Weed Creative Director/Design David Nelson, Nelson Design Communications Advisory Committee Daniel G. Brown ’82, Robert C. Burtman ’74, Dorinda Elliott ’76, Alison Freeland ’72, Keith Johnson ’52, Yvonne M. Lopez ’93 Trustees President Morgan C.W. Sze ’83 Vice President Deidre G. O’Byrne ’84 Wole C. Coaxum ’88, Suzi Kwon Cohen ’88, Mark A. Edwards ’78, Elizabeth A. “Betsy” Fleming ’86, Claudine Gay ’88, Peter A. Georgescu ’57, Scott S.W. Hahn ’90, Jacqueline Hayes ’85, Ira D. Helfand, M.D. ’67, Jennifer P. Holleran ’86, Cia Buckley Marakovits ’83, Sally J. Michaels ’82, William K. Rawson ’71, Ganesha Saverimuthu ’02, Peter M. Scocimara ’82, Sanjay K. Shetty, M.D. ’92, Serena Wille Sides ’89, Kristyn A. (McLeod) Van Ostern ’96, Janney Wilson ’83 The Exeter Bulletin (ISSN No. 0195-0207) is published four times each year: fall, winter, spring and summer,

by Phillips Exeter Academy 20 Main Street, Exeter NH 03833-2460 Telephone 603-772-4311 Periodicals postage paid at Exeter, NH, and at additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA by Cummings Printing.

The Exeter Bulletin is printed on recycled paper and sent free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, friends and educational institutions by Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH. Communications may be addressed to the editor; email bulletin@exeter.edu.

Copyright 2020 by the Trustees of Phillips Exeter Academy.

ISSN-0195-0207 Postmasters: Send address changes to: Phillips Exeter Academy Records Office 20 Main Street Exeter, NH 03833-2460

SUMMER

“KEEP IN MIND THAT IF YOU CHANGE THE LIFE OF ONE PERSON, THEN YOU HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD FOR THAT PERSON.” —page 32

IN THIS ISSUE

Volume CXXIV, Issue no. 4

Features 18 Virtual Campus Our students feed their appetite for discovery despite their separation

32 Long-Distance Goodbye Exeter celebrates the class of 2020 in a historic virtual celebration

46 Alumni in Action Exonians respond to the pandemic's toll

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52 A Requiem for Edmund E. Perry ’85 Remembering a beloved Exonian 35 years after he was fatally shot by police

By Sandra Guzmán

Departments 6

Around the Table: The plan to open school in the fall, a Q&A with Medical Director Katy Lilly, and a fond farewell to retiring faculty

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Sports: Exeter athletes refuse to let the lost season knock them off their games

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Class Notes: Keeping up with your classmates —Cover photo by Christian Harrison

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The trails in Academy Woods offer a cool place to beat the heat of summer.

PHOTO BY PATRICK GARRIT Y

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AROUND THE TABLE

What’s new and notable at the Academy

Prepping for Fall Opening AN ON-CAMPUS EXPERIENCE FOCUSED ON SAFETY

By Nicole Pellaton

For more information on opening plans, including a helpful FAQ, see exeter.edu/2020fallopening.

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xeter will welcome students to campus in the fall, with

staggered move-in dates based on class year, comprehensive safety and health protocols, and an emphasis on distance learning. The plan was announced on June 30 in a letter from Principal William Rawson ’71, P’08. “We believe we have created a plan that will support a robust educational and residential experience for all students,” he wrote.

The plan, which has built-in flexibility to allow for adjustments if conditions change, reflects input from leading medical experts, faculty, administrators and departments across campus responsible for student life, health and safety. The campus community has not been together since students departed at the end of winter term on March 6.

To ensure a safe and smooth start to the academic year, Exeter will transition students to campus over four weeks, starting on Sept. 7 with students in leadership roles. Uppers, seniors and postgraduates will follow two days later. Preps and lowers will move in on Oct. 3.

Fall term teaching and learning will be conducted online for all students, with classes starting on Sept. 10. For preps and lowers, the first few weeks of school will be distance learning. Students who choose to stay at home, or who are unable to travel to Exeter, will pursue distance learning for the entire term. A faculty group is researching opportunities for safe in-person learning. These include redesigned classrooms, classes and labs in smaller sections, outdoor

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classrooms and field trips.

Health and safety protocols will include COVID-19 testing for students and employees, mandatory wearing of masks, physical distancing and contact tracing. Dormitories are being reconfigured and capacity is being added so that all boarding students will live in singles or in twoand three-room doubles equipped with air filtration. Committees are reviewing possibilities for athletics and dining, with an eye to offering as many safe options as possible.

To minimize travel and attendant risks, students will leave campus at the end of fall term (Nov. 24) and remain off campus until Jan. 3, 2021. Winter term classes will begin on Dec. 7 with online instruction.

The Academy hopes to be able to reinstate in-person teaching as the primary method of instruction in January; decisions will be made based on a number of factors, including pandemic conditions at that time. E

All employees will be tested for the virus before the start of the fall term and will follow the same daily symptom and exposure screening and temperature checks as our students.

About this issue Our school, our communities — our world — were forced to quickly adapt this spring in the face of COVID-19 and the virus’ sweeping impact on our daily lives. Spring term became a live experiment in distance learning for our students and faculty. Around the globe, our alumni responded in the true spirit of non sibi, finding ways to help as they adjusted to life in a pandemic.

The Exeter Bulletin has had to adjust, too, for this summer 2020 issue. Our campus was mostly quiet throughout the spring, but Exonians absolutely were not, and in the pages that follow you’ll find new evidence of a very old truth: Exeter rises to meet challenges and thrives in spite of them. Our students, teachers, staff, and alumni — including the 314 newest ones from the class of 2020 — remind us again of our founders’ words that knowledge and goodness “united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to [hu]mankind."

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Letters to the Editor TASTY MESSAGE

Thanks for sharing Jason [Goodenough’s] story in “Kitchen Confidential” (winter 2020 issue). Jason’s story of charting his own course spoke to me. Many parents may have the best intentions for their kids to follow a certain path, in Jason’s case to Wall Street. I’m glad that despite unknowns, he found his purpose, charted his own path (and his way of raising his kids where he wouldn’t care to serve them lobster souffle!): “I loved food but I never thought I could make it into a career. It took me a while to find the confidence that I could live sustainably from a career as a chef.” His extending an invitation to Chris Johnson ’97 to collaborate is a great reminder and example too that Exeter connections can extend genuinely through life. Thank you.

Karen Tsui ’00 Hong Kong

PINCHOT CONNECTION

Pinchot ca. 1884

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I read with interest the note with a photograph that tells of Gifford Pinchot’s Exeter connection (spring 2020 issue). News to myself, who described the prior connection

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of Pinchot with my grandfather John’s very famous school in New York (1857-92). There, in the forming of the … boy Pinchot, the real work was done, to the gratification of John, outdoorsman supreme and a keen observer of the environment. He loved to share his experiences and thoughts with his students, their parents, and the city in general through its public media. My write-up of all this sits on the desk of a journal editor. Wish it luck.

Ramsay MacMullen ’46 New Haven, Connecticut

GRADUATION INTERRUPTED

Drafted into the army just after his 18th birthday in May 1943, Karl Lindquist, aka “Red,” was declared a non-returning upper by Exeter.

He had been admitted to MIT in spite of the fact that he had yet to graduate and receive his Exeter diploma. Not having to report to army duty until August of that summer, July of 1943 was idyllic. He spent this last carefree, magical youthful summer month sailing the waters of his native Nantucket Island.

Pfc. Karl Lindquist ’44 served in the infantry as a first scout and later as a medic in Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army. At the end of the war, Lindquist was only one of five remaining members of the original 180 who landed together in France. He had been awarded the Bronze and Silver stars for bravery.

Germany’s military surrender occurred on May 7, 1945, in Reims, France. It was Lindquist’s 20th birthday.

“Red” Lindquist, his graduation and youth interrupted by war and duty to country, this non-returning upper, lived another day, graduating from college all without his Exeter diploma.

Fast forward to the class of 1944’s 60th reunion in May 2004. Red returned to Exeter — and to his unabashed surprise was award his Exeter diploma. Jake Underhill ’44 worked hard to see this accomplished and wrote, “It seems to me that the granting of these diplomas (to Exeter veterans) would be a proud moment for Phillips Exeter Academy. It would underscore the Academy’s contributions to World War II; it would remind today’s students of the adult responsibilities many of us undertook at a young age; and it would be a headline event at the 60th reunion of a class of aging gentlemen.”

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And, so, dear Exeter class of 2020, you are following in the hallowed footsteps of the brave class of 1944. Life goes on and is full of wonder and hope and surprises.

In 2011, the French government awarded Karl R. Lindquist ’44 the coveted Legion of Honor, France’s highest civilian honor, for his WWII service.

Carol Lindquist Lake Worth, Florida

The Lindquists

BASKETBALL WIZARD

Although not mentioned in Wes LaFountain’s article, “150 Seasons of Hoops” (winter 2020 issue), it is hard to ignore Tom Sargent’s contributions to Exeter basketball. He was a truly gifted three-sport athlete, but basketball was his forte. It was a pleasure to watch him perform his magic on the basketball court in the early to mid-1950s. Those of us who went on to Yale were treated to four more seasons of his basketball excellence. On the few occasions when we have met over the years, I have always enjoyed talking to him about those days.

Although he would deny it, he had few equals on the basketball court.

George Roth ’54 Topsham, Maine

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A Conversation with Medical Director Dr. Katy Lilly

By Jennifer Wagner

apart) at an empty health center to hear about her experience.

You can’t plan for a pandemic, can you?

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practicing physician

for 16 years and the Academy’s medical director since 2018, Dr. Katy Lilly oversees nearly 50 professional caregivers, including dieticians, counselors, nurses and athletic trainers. She and her staff attend to some 17,000 visits each academic year on the medical floor of the Lamont Health and Wellness Center alone.

When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, life changed, and with it, Dr. Lilly’s role. As an essential member of the Academy’s Incident Response Team (IRT), she has been a leading voice of scientific and medical information for the Exeter community. She helped draft the Academy’s initial pandemic response plan, developed quarantine guidelines and best practices for students and their families, and has been a leading voice in establishing protocol for opening campus in the fall.

We met with Dr. Lilly (6 feet

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Actually, [Director of Campus Safety] Paul Gravel had reached out to me a few years ago, when I first started here, and said, “You know, we don’t have a pandemic plan.” So, he and I worked for several weeks and came up with an outline. We put this framework out there, but it was just sitting in Dropbox.

I thought we’d never need it.

And then in February, Paul reached out to say, “Alert: Should we be thinking about pulling this Incident Response Team together?”

What were your next steps?

We started meeting with the IRT, running through our pandemic plan, which nicely aligned with what was coming through the WHO guidelines.

We found very quickly that meeting once a week was not enough, and we ended up meeting at least daily. One night I counted my emails to see how many I got. It was 216 in a day.

What were you deciding on in those hundreds of emails?

There was so much to figure out, as students were getting ready to go home for spring break and we had kids abroad. Thankfully, we were able to get everyone home safely from abroad, and then all of our students from spring break home.

for a pandemic? A true pandemic like this is stuff that you read in science fiction novels. … But this is our day to day. I spend my days thinking about how to make “now” OK. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of interesting work, and I feel fortunate to be working with really great teammates.

How do you develop guidelines about a virus we know little about?

On Monday, we make a plan. On Tuesday, we revise it. On Wednesday, we change it. And then on Thursday, we’re back to the original plan. That’s what you have to be, flexible.

What were some other key moments for you over the last few months?

Maybe the most pivotal discussions we had were about spring term and changing to remote learning.

That was just huge. The impact that has on students and families who maybe weren’t expecting to have their students home, who don’t have physical space for them to be home, who don’t have mental wherewithal to have their student home.

Sounds like a lot of big-picture thinking rather than the usual bedside doctoring.

I joked with [Dean of Faculty] Ellen Wolff [that] I really just want to write a prescription for antibiotics for a sinus infection. But it’s good. I do like the mental effort it takes to think about public health. That’s really one of the reasons I liked coming [to Exeter], that combination of individual care and public health oversight.

Did you feel prepared for this?

Do you have thoughts on opening the campus in September?

No! Who would ever feel prepared

We have just announced our plan

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for a fall reopening. It’s exciting to think about having all students back on campus. We will be bringing our uppers and seniors back in September, followed by preps and lowers in October. Throughout the rest of the summer we will work to implement plans to keep our residential campus healthy. We have processes in place for testing and caring for any potential COVID-19 cases. We will have the ability to test on campus with results available within 15 minutes. We are fine-tuning our contact tracing plans and have a layered approach for quarantine options should the need arise.

Handwashing, mask wearing and physical distancing will be the key components of social responsibility that we will ask everyone to take part in while on campus.

Will students go to class in the fall?

Learning will take place for the most part remotely. Having remote learning as a back bone for the academic curriculum allows students to continue learning even if they cannot get to campus because of their own medical or personal situation. When and if conditions with the pandemic improve, we can incorporate more in-person learning.

How would in-person learning work?

We really are thinking outside the box right now. We’re creating things that haven’t been done before. Yesterday we sat around the Harkness table, took out a measuring stick and put 6 feet between us, and we said, OK, we are going to go from 12 students to four if we don’t make any modifications in a class. What are the modifications we can do? We all had our masks on, and while we were talking through the masks we realized you can’t see facial expressions. You can’t always understand people’s words.

We have some very lovely, soft-spoken students and I just thought, they’re going to get lost in a mask. So we thought, can we do face shields

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instead of masks? Can we do Plexiglas partitions?

Riverwoods [retirement community].

Did you always want to be a doctor?

Exeter is so interestingly collaborative. Harkness allows kids to really be together and brainstorm and develop relationships, which they should. I’m trying to keep that in mind with every plan. We could be very draconian about it and say everyone is basically going to live in a bubble. But that’s not fair to students; that’s not the Exeter experience that people deserve. So, it’s finding that balance between safety and self-fulfillment.

Always. For as long as I can remember. I love science. I love physiology. I love caring for people. I’m a self-proclaimed nerd at heart, and I went to a conference for girls in STEM when I was 15 at the University of Maryland.

I went to a session with Dr. Anthony Fauci and thought, who is this guy?

He is amazing. After the talk, he took us on a tour of the National Institutes of Health to see the real applications of all that research. So now when I see him on the news I’m like, ‘Guys, guys, I got to meet him!’

What about opening the health center? Would that be different?

Have your views on scientific research evolved due to the virus?

We are redeveloping our normal traffic patterns for the health center in order to separate well checks from sick visits. As part of this process, we are temporarily relocating our counselors, our dietitian and the health education team. We are working to hire additional staff to help us with anticipated increased volume. Our counseling team is working proactively to prepare for the upcoming year and recognizes that students will be coming to campus after quite an unusual break. Things will feel and will be different for a while until a vaccine or better treatment for COVID-19 is available.

I have a new appreciation for science and the amount of gray it has in it. It can take a very long time for any scientific or medical theory to become black and white. So, I think just having a healthy respect for not having control over something.

How do you balance safety and maintaining the Exeter experience?

Meanwhile, you’ve done some concrete things along the way as well.

We have been in close touch with the town, with the state health department. Exeter Hospital reached out to us early on, before any of the National Guard field hospitals were up, and asked if we had any capacity. They reached out to us on a Friday, and by Monday we had our general counsel and their general counsel sign off on the agreement to allow them to use [the Lamont Health and Wellness Center]. … We donated several hundred N95 masks to Exeter Hospital and some other surgical masks to

Do you see any positive takeaways from this pandemic experience?

I think we all know that this is disproportionately affecting persons of color, perhaps underprivileged populations. The virus just amplifies what we knew historically, that we need to do a better job of getting health care to everyone in this country. I think that will be a positive change that comes out of this. I think that public health is now going to be viewed with the respect it deserves.

Personally, what will you take away?

Being able to spend time with my family at home. Never in my life would I have thought, being a physician, [that] I would be working from home. Those two things do not go together. To be able to do that, and be with my children — really be there for them as they’re going through their own losses and sadness and grief over being distant — I think is really special. It’s a real blessing. E

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Uninterrupted Service E SS O C O N T I N U E S I TS L EGACY O F WO R K I N T H E C O M M U N I T Y D E S P I T E S E P A R AT I O N By the ESSO Board

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spring term of separation

Students visit The Exeter Center senior living facility to serenade lockeddown residents while observing proper distance.

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and a world beleaguered by challenges did nothing to slow down the Exeter Student Service Organization’s efforts to positively impact people around the globe. As soon as we got the news that we would not be returning to campus, the eight newly appointed ESSO board members began the process of training new club heads, making sure that clubs could still operate while increasing accessibility and shaping ESSO for the school year to come.

ESSO was formally established in 1987, though service is a founding tenet of the Academy, and work in support of the community has been ongoing for generations.

This past school year, nearly 600 students filled 61 clubs under ESSO’s umbrella, focusing on everything from food insecurity among Seacoast New Hampshire residents, to teaching Chinese to local school children, to fundraising to find a cure for cancer. It was essential to the board to continue that work in spite of our separation.

For our co-presidents, Caroline Luff ’21 and Ellie Griffin ’21, preserving the human connection that makes ESSO so meaningful to be a part of was no small order. For board meetings, Zoom games like “Guess the Baby!” helped us get to know each other from afar. Kahoot, a digital game-based learning platform, helped us keep our club-head training session interesting and fun.

Although there is no replacement for in-person interaction, ESSO remains

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as connected as ever.

Luff, when not running ESSO or cross-country, is also one of the club heads of ESSO’s Gal Pals, which brings together women with disabilities from the Exeter community.

Ordinarily, Gal Pals meet biweekly in the basement of Phillips Church to paint nails, bake treats or do arts and crafts. Instead of letting quarantine hinder their fun, club members used Zoom to keep the Gals connected — getting almost all of their usual members together for a game of Pictionary.

When PEA’s curriculum transitioned online, ESSO Tutoring for Children reacted in kind. The need for tutors blossomed as more youngsters than ever before were at home, far away from their teachers, with parents juggling work and home life. By using seemingly every online platform under the sun, ESSO Tutoring — led by club heads Panchali Choudhary ’21, Jordyn Koche ’21 and Christian Molina ’21 — was able to expand its operations to more New Hampshire schools while connecting students in need with Exonians around the world.

ESSO Diversity, which usually travels weekly to Main Street School to read stories emphasizing the importance of diversity and inclusion to kindergartners and first- and second-graders, also adapted well to its circumstances. By partnering closely with Main Street School’s guidance counselor, club heads Zoe Barron ’21, Dilan Cordoba ’21 and Gabrielle Shetreet ’21 were able to make sure that the book read-alouds that they recorded from home continued to be a part of the school’s curriculum.

ESSO Diversity is also working over the summer to create a learning library full of more read-aloud books to help parents continue lessons with their children.

To bring all of the ESSO clubs’ online resources together, our directors of communication, Noah James ’21 and Phil Horrigan ’21, revived ESSO’s YouTube channel. In addition to ESSO Diversity’s read-alouds, the channel houses a wide variety of activities, from sports drills and a baking challenge to science experiments and dance lessons.

Along with the YouTube channel, Horrigan and James revamped ESSO’s website, now located at ExeterService.org. There you will find ESSO news, a complete list of clubs and our newsletters. Finally, an effort to completely rebrand ESSO began this past term. You can see a sneak peek of our new colors on the website, but our new logo and shirt design will stay secret until fall. E

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Top: ESSO Gal Pals meet over videoconference. Above: ESSO Tutoring for Children took its efforts fully online and expanded its reach.

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Exeter Bids Adieu to Distinguished Faculty TEN LEADERS COMBINED FOR 290 YEARS OF SERVICE TO THE ACADEMY

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xeter’s greatest strength is the quality

of its instructors. Few institutions can rival the experience and expertise of PEA’s faculty.

That is why this summer is bittersweet as we say farewell to 10 members of the faculty who are retiring after long tenures at the Academy.

Together, they have amassed 290 years of service, shaping the school through their passion for teaching and their devotion to the students. To understate the obvious: They will be missed.

The PEAN yearbook editors gathered and shared at a virtual assembly testimonials from students, alumni and colleagues honoring the retirees.

Aaronian

Rich Aaronian Instructor in Science, appointed in 1971

“I had never been actively excited about waking up and going to class until Ornithology. Sure, some classes were more interesting than others, but I lost sleep over how excited I was to learn more from Rich, whether it be during a field trip or in the lab reviewing bird specimens. I think being able to inspire your passion in a student is the ultimate challenge for a teacher, and Rich managed to accomplish that with me and a suite of other Exonians who have gone on to contribute to the ornithological world. Exeter will have a gargantuan hole to fill in his absence.”

— Henry Stevens ’14

Xitai Chen Instructor in Mathematics, 1998

“Everyone who knows Mr. Chen talks fondly about his patience with students and rigorous attitude. We all have at some point put up the correct answer to a problem, albeit with lousy procedures, gotten roasted by Mr. Chen and prompted to elaborate our method, and eventually discovered flaws in our argument, or scenarios that hadn’t been considered. Mr. Chen taught me that the beauty of math exists not within the perfect solutions, but within the explorative, logic-based mathematical process.”

— Gloria Sun ’20

Jean Farnum Instructor in Physical Education, 1981

Amy Schwartz Instructor in History, 2001

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“I’ve loved working with Coach Farnum during my time at Exeter. She wants the best for her players and is always so supportive. She shows the most positivity when we’re competing and during practices. Her genuine personality makes her very easy to associate and communicate with. I’ll miss her light humor when traveling in the car to tournaments and her continuous encouragement.”

— Tia Stockwell ’20

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Michael Golay

significant personal event in our lives, and she always went out of her way to recognize us in unique ways. These acts of kindness happened often, and while she would say they are no big deal, they meant the world to me and my colleagues in the Lamont Health and Wellness Center.”

— Michelle Soucy, Chair of the Health Education Department

Instructor in History, 2004

“As a student, I probably spent more time in Mr. Golay’s classroom than any other room on campus. Blearyeyed and clutching a large coffee, I poked my head in multiple times a day, looking for help, support, advice, wisdom, a laugh, a quote, an idea for a headline, a cartoon on the blackboard.

I was never turned away. He helped me pick classes, edit The Exonian and navigate tiffs with friends. He sat at the Harkness table and listened, Wendell fiddling with a pen and doodling little squares on a piece of scrap paper, as he carefully considered whatever problem I was facing. Mr. Golay’s capacity to listen and to care changed the lives of countless students, advisees and Exonian editors.”

— Julia Ryan ’09

Richard “Hobart” Hardej Instructor in Mathematics, 1987

“Hobart’s steady hand, his ability to make everyone around him feel appreciated and wanted, and his great work ethic and organizational skills made him a great chair during his fiveyear appointment.

Hardej Hobart concentrated on his first love of classroom teaching over the latter part of his career. His knowledge, compassion and empathy made him a student favorite, especially among his many students who profited from his extra help outside of class.”

— Eric Bergofsky, Instructor in Mathematics

Cary Wendell Technical Director and Instructor in Theater and Dance, 1998

“I’ll always be grateful for the fruitful conversations, the humility and generosity Cary brought to the table. His miniature 3D models growing into their final forms are forever burned in memory as treasured experiences of the stories we told together. I will forever see him with his painting shirt, scaffold and colored smudges. Perhaps what I will miss most is seeing him amble into the theater in a floral shirt, carrying a cup of coffee, ready to start the day and tackle the next step in our shared vision. Thank you, Mr. Wendell, for all of your years at the Academy.”

— Rob Richards, Instructor in Theater and Dance

Joe Wolfson Instructor in Mathematics, 1987

“In class, Mr. Wolfson focused on making math interesting and honing in on issues that we might be facing. He made sure that the value of the course was to understand the material and grade you on your mathematical thinking, not just your calculations. I learned more in that class than I think I ever had in any other teacher’s. He made math fun for me, and I started to enjoy doing the homework. I can truly say that Mr. Wolfson has had such a positive effect on me.”

— Ervin Williams ’20

Connie Morse

Lee Young

Associate Director of Counseling and Psychological Services, 1997

Associate Director of Admissions, 1986

“Ms. Morse is like a mother, friend and co-worker, all wrapped up in an adorable, curly-haired package of love.

She has taken care of all of us in a way only she could.

Just the other day I was complaining about how I was in between classes and did not have time for lunch because I had to prepare for my afternoon class. A few minutes later, Ms. Morse appeared in my doorway with a bowl of fruit and a cheese stick. She never forgot a birthday or

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“Ms. Young was really my first encounter with Exeter. I met her at the Exeter Evening in Miami, Florida, an event I walked into with many questions and doubts. By the end of the event, however, I walked out certain of my desire to join the PEA community. When I visited Phillips Exeter, Ms. Young was my interviewer. Through it all, her kindness made me feel like I belonged at Exeter. “ — Tina Fernandez ’20

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Undefeated E X E T E R AT H L E T E S R E F U S E TO LET A LOST SEASON KEEP THEM FROM THEIR SPORT

By Brian Muldoon

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helps Stadium was empty, the Squamscott River

still, Love Gym and Nekton Pool quiet. The global coronavirus pandemic made last spring different than any before, but Big Red student-athletes showed the same perseverance, creativity and camaraderie that is seen during any typical day on campus.

Virtual challenges took the place of live practices, team trivia played the role of film sessions, and personal bedrooms turned into makeshift classrooms and fitness centers. Zoom meetings, group chats, TikTok and Instagram were the stomping grounds that emulated the typical entertainment found during long team dinners in D-Hall, Spikeball tournaments in the quad and team workouts in the Downer Family Fitness Center. Big Red pushed through together.

“We met at the beginning of the term and made it a point that we [would] stay connected and stay together as much as we can,” said J.D. Jean-Jacques ’21, who will serve as a captain of the boys varsity soccer team this fall.

“The team is already so close and we wanted to continue that. We held a Zoom meeting with the entire boys soccer program, encouraging teammates to stay talking with one another, motivating each other, and continuing to build the closeness that we already have as a team.”

“We have a big, very active team group chat,” said

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girls varsity lacrosse player Charlotte Lisa ’21. “We also have a Zoom meeting every Wednesday, during which we all laugh a lot and catch up with each other. Each Zoom meeting is planned by a captain, and they’ve come up with really great ideas so far, whether it was a team trivia game, a baby photo challenge, or creating a highlight reel of some of last season’s best moments.”

This period of social distancing has also allowed teams to create new avenues of activity and connection. The boys basketball team held alumni-led Zoom meetings where JD Slajchert ’14 talked about his book Moonflower and managing adversity, Mitchell Kirsch ’18 led a dribbling workout, and Josh Owens ’07, Dan Mavraides ’07, Greg St. Jean ’09, Harry Rafferty ’13 and Duncan Robinson ’13 joined the team to talk about their paths through collegiate and professional basketball.

The track team split into six different teams and competed against one another to complete as many fitness challenges as they could. The girls lacrosse team ran a virtual 5K to support PEA Relay for Life and even capped their season with a virtual Zoom challenge against the Andover girls lacrosse team, where New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick surprised the teams as he introduced both groups of seniors.

“I was taking a walk past Phelps Stadium a few weeks ago and was lamenting about the loss of the season and of course the culminating event: E/A,” said girls varsity lacrosse coach Christina Breen P’19, P’21. “Our team makes a really big deal about E/A, and have several team rituals that involve celebrating our team buddies and honoring our seniors. I wondered if there were some way to keep some of those rituals in place.

“I reached out to Andover coach Heidi Wall to see if she would be game and she readily agreed. We held a Zoom meeting with coaches and captains from both teams and mapped out a plan for the ‘events’ for the

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our student-athletes,” said Shaun matchup. Coach Belichick is a family Fishel, Exeter’s head strength and friend, and I thought if he were conditioning coach. “I have seen willing to announce the seniors for a lot of creativity when it comes both teams that this might really to workouts. I’ve seen them use bring some joy to the players who everything from their pets, younger have spent the spring pretty deflated. siblings, chairs, rocks, canned He was so generous to do this and goods and backpacks full of books.

I think his video really made the A common trend I see among our seniors feel special, which is what we student-athletes is the ability to keep work so hard to do for them when we moving forward, even in the face are together.” of adversity. That it is a part of our Navigating the day-to-day grind culture at Exeter; we don’t give up or and pace of Exeter proved to be chalthrow in the towel when things get lenging for student-athletes without hard, we keep moving forward and classmates and teammates by their pick up those around us.” side. Finding motivation to stay On top of daily coursework and staying active and push yourself while there were no Fawaz Omidiya ’22 in game shape, this spring also led to some games or practices on the horizon was a new competes in the boys self-discovery and new passions for our test of personal focus and accountability. basketball team’s student-athletes. Jean-Jacques says, “This “I really miss rowing with the boys,” alternating hand time has definitely allowed me to take a Justin Rigg ’22 of the boys crew team said. free throw contest. step back from all of my commitments and “On any given day, I will do one to two hours realize myself as an individual. I’ve discovered a deeper on the erg along with some sort of strength session. passion for writing. I’ve always been a conversational Erging is such a monotonous activity, and doing it guy — always sparking up a conversation about different together as a team feels almost ritualistic. Doing it on my own is a completely different experience, one that I would topics — and that has manifested into writing for the Opinion section of The Exonian. It is fun for me, somesay is less enjoyable without my team. I like to move the thing I enjoy doing, and it’s something different than erg around my house for a change of scenery.” watching Netflix or playing video games.”

Other Exonians have leaned on teammates to help Robbie Stankard ’21, who will be a basketball captain break up the cycle of individual workouts. during the next academic year, began listening to podcasts: “One of my favorite things that we do are Zoom “ I love learning and hearing about other people’s perspecworkouts,” said three-sport athlete Marymegan Wright tives and stories. I realized that different stories and opin’21. “Sometimes a couple of my teammates and I will ions come out so naturally every day across the Harkness Zoom and do a lift together, which really helps me stay table at school, and I have found myself honestly craving motivated.” that since being isolated at home.” E “I have been really impressed with the resiliency of

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Virtual Campus

You can take the Exonian out of Exeter, but you can’t take Exeter out of the Exonian. That was proved time and time again in a spring term disrupted by separation but characterized by teachers and students devoted to learning. The same spirit of exploration and discovery that brought so many to the Academy in the first place was on display even while we were apart.

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Teaching from a Distance E X E T E R F A C U LT Y M E M B E R S R E F L E C T O N T H E S P R I N G T E R M

By Daneet Steffens ’82

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his spring, Exeter joined almost all other educational institutions in pivoting

swiftly to distance teaching and learning. During a period of forced isolation, PEA faculty shifted their classes to provide both synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities and adjusted their teaching to engage their students across the globe. There were, inevitably, moments of not just technical troubleshooting but trepidation at the prospect of becoming, in effect, novice teachers again.

There were also new opportunities for innovation and growth as educators. Whether it was discovering how to teach poetry via screen-sharing, finding new ways to engage with students through digital equipment, or rethinking how to assess student learning, Exeter’s faculty, as individuals and collectively, faced a steep learning curve of their own.

“The speedy pivot from expecting a regular spring term to realizing we would be

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The first thing English Instructor Becky Moore did with her students during spring term was survey their access to technology and the course material.

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teaching entirely online placed a premium on resilience, flexibility and improvisation,” says Dean of Faculty Ellen Wolff P’17. “My colleagues are skilled and seasoned teachers who know how to work with adolescents; they are experts in their fields and at the Harkness pedagogy. But there is nothing like sitting with 12 kids around a Harkness table — nothing like it. … And there are no Harkness tables on Zoom.

“It was our commitment to caring for all students that kept us going,” Wolff says. “Our charge as boarding school teachers is to take care of the whole child, to take into account the social and emotional factors that have an impact on their learning and growth,” Wolff says. “Our pedagogy — our work across the board — is built on sturdy relationships between adults and students, so we kept a clear focus on relationships this term. We knew that we probably wouldn’t cover as much academically as we would otherwise. And because we have such a diverse student body, we had students living in varying circumstances. Some had few family responsibilities and ample Wi-Fi. Others were looking after sick family members or, because of the financial impact of the pandemic, taking on full-time jobs. As always, it was our responsibility to do our best to help all students succeed.”

The importance of engaging directly with students around their various situations and taking those into account was the clear first step for Becky Moore P’03, P’05, P’08. “The very first communication I had with my students was a survey on access,” says Moore, an Exeter English instructor since 1990.

Time zones proved to be a particular challenge, so Moore established one weekly synchronous class meeting that everyone could attend together, and two asynchronous learning opportunities that each student could access on their own time.

While Moore had her frustrations with Zoom, she realized that screen-sharing when it comes to poetry can be an unexpected gift. “If you choose a 14-line poem,” she says, “it fits on the screen. I’d say, ‘OK, we’re going to read the poem line by line,’ and [I would] type their names into the chat box telling them, ‘Here’s the order we’re going to read in.’ There’s a lot to keep track of with all these different features; but we read the poem line by line so you hear everyone’s voices.” Using the annotate feature, students would choose a color and, Moore adds, “mark up the poem: highlight a word, put a squiggle on something they want to talk about, draw brackets if they see a sound parallel.”

That collective reading clearly empowered the students. Moore listened as they queried each other’s mark-ups — “What about the red squiggle? Who made that? What were you thinking of?”

— asking questions of each other just as they would at the Harkness table. In a way, Moore notes, it’s an improvement from projecting a video in the classroom because at that point every head will twist toward one wall away from the table and from everyone else in the room. “[On Zoom], we were all involved at the same time, with the same focus on our laptops, discussing our collective work. The first time we did that was my most satisfying day.”

Eschewing novels for poetry also spurred Moore to tap into literary resources closer to home, teaching the poems of Ralph Sneeden, a fellow faculty member, who then joined the class for a live discussion online. “I felt responsible to offer learning experiences that were as engaging as possible,” Moore says. “To have the poet join us on screen, rather than just through his words in print, provided the opportunity for real human engagement, which was quite meaningful as we all lived and learned at a distance from each other.”

Computer Science Instructor Sean Campbell also embraced new approaches to teaching, giving fewer assignments but making them meatier, breaking them up into digestible parts so that students who were having difficulty were able to complete them.

“We can’t practice Harkness the way we do at school,” says Campbell, who has been teaching computer science at Exeter for eight years. “And I didn’t make that a focal point of what I was trying to do with online learning. Rather than try to do something that was not reproducible, I

“JUST TRYING TO THINK OF WAYS TO KEEP THEM ENGAGED, THAT’S WHAT I FOCUSED ON.”

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focused more on thinking about outcomes, thinking about engagement of stu- Dean of Faculty Ellen Wolff says dents generally, knowing that not everybody was going to be coming to class Exeter’s rapid transition to distance — it just wasn’t possible for all the students to be in class each time, whether it learning placed a premium was because of time zones or because they were watching brothers and sisters on “resilience, flexibility and at home, or for [many other] different situations. So just trying to think of ways improvisation.” to keep them engaged, that’s what I focused on.”

One example was his class in artificial intelligence. You could teach it in a purely theoretical way, says Campbell, but most students want to build something, they want to create. For their final project, Campbell gave them the freedom to choose their own approach. “I said, ‘Just do something that’s related to AI: You can write some code, write a paper, do some research — whatever. If you can connect the dots to artificial intelligence in some way, you can make a project out of it.’ I was glad I did that because it got me thinking about the project differently. Before, I had a much narrower view of what that final project should be; I would probably have expected them to build a software application. Now I can see that there are lots of interesting ways that kids can explore the topic.”

While some of the students did build an AI project that played chess or made a neural network, there were others who were curious about AI’s impact on the environment. “They did the research and it almost became like a sociology paper but with a technical bent,” Campbell says. “They were able to discuss the technical aspects because it was a field they had spent the whole term studying, and they could talk about what they knew about it in relation to this social issue or environmental issue. I wanted them to be able to express themselves though the project, and the variety of outcomes was pretty incredible.”

Similarly, Moore, who has always been focused on students creating written work, began to explore audio- and video-sharing opportunities and, in doing so, expanded her understanding of valid material for student expression. This term, a colleague of Moore’s sent around a link

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to the StoryCorps website as a resource for the Roots assignment in which students interview family members and then typically produce a written paper. In describing the storytelling site, Moore says, “I could link students to [StoryCorps] and assign them homework like, ‘Spend 30 minutes listening to some interviews. Explore them; choose a question list; choose a relative you have access to; record the interview.’” Other assignments included asking students to record themselves reading a poem to capture their interpretation of the piece’s mood through their verbal pace and tone. Moore also derived inspiration from The New York Times’ 15-second vocabulary video challenge and would ask her students to each select a word and define it for their peers.

One challenge, she notes, was the loss of certain kinds of interpersonal interaction despite everyone’s best efforts. “In the beginning, with this online stuff, I’d say ‘Goodbye’ to the students and then, clunk, you leave the Zoom meeting, and I’d suddenly be alone in my classroom.

It was awful. Exeter students have a lovely habit here of saying ‘Thank you’ as they leave class.

In the beginning, I just didn’t know how to end class.” She developed a new strategy: “I’d get scared before every class — I still do — because the technology might not work or something. But I learned that if I said, ‘OK, I’ll stay online if anyone has questions or would like to check in. Great job today, and have a good week,’ they started saying their usual ‘thank you’s and some would even stay and chat.”

Campbell missed that face-to-face interpersonal interaction, too. While he worked hard at making videos for asynchronous classes, the in-person feedback was absent. “I would try to be not too dry and a little bit silly and tell my dumb jokes and hope the students would think they were

Science Instructor Sean Campbell expects fall term will bring fresh challenges, particularly teaching students who are new to the Academy.

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amusing,” he says. “But not being able to interact with them, it just wasn’t the same.”

Even synchronous classes, he says, had a different feel. “Other teachers will also tell you: We’re used to awkward silences at the Harkness table, but this was different.” While synchronous classes were more interactive, Campbell was always aware that they were more interactive for some more than others.

“They were interactive for those who were in a reasonable time zone, or within reasonable proximity to this time zone, for those for whom it was not 2 a.m. where they were when class was happening, and if they didn’t have other home responsibilities. Teachers love the interaction, sure — that’s what we enjoy about teaching. But we have to keep in our minds what’s working for our students.

And particularly now, we can’t forget about the students in difficult situations.”

Future iterations of distance learning, Campbell says, will require new pedagogical tools that can specifically encourage discussion in a Zoom context.

“I was trying to think the other day, ‘What is a good icebreaker in that situation? What’s a good Zoom icebreaker?’ And I was lucky this term to be teaching upper-level classes with five students I knew already. … I can see having a totally different experience where meeting all of your students online for the first time and then trying to have this discussion class — I can see that being a whole other challenge.”

To collectively tackle some of the hurdles imposed by distance learning, Campbell and the other computer science teachers met weekly; they also met weekly as part of the larger Science Department. “I have a good understanding of what my computer science colleagues did, a pretty good understanding of what my science colleagues did, but outside of that I have less,” he says.

“I was also in a cross-departmental group that met daily, and we talked about technology and distance learning through the lens of equity. It was helpful in that it was my chance to hear from teachers in other departments on a regular basis, learning the kinds of things they were dealing with and how they were dealing with them.”

That continued sharing of experiences and knowledge exchange is key, Campbell says. “I think there’s a lot we can learn from one another in figuring out how to best accommodate students going forward with distance learning. I know somebody else is doing something better than me on campus and I want to hear from that person. And I like to think that there are some things I figured out pretty well, and I’d like to share that with others. That’s the way we move forward. As long as our focus is caring about the students, that’s what they’re going to respond to.”

In June, Exeter enrolled the entire faculty in a weeklong course in designing for online learning. Central to the faculty’s work that week were the cross-departmental discussions Campbell described, in which faculty members considered the online-teaching practices, tools and strategies they were learning through the lenses of Harkness, equity and anti-racism. And every afternoon that week, each department worked to develop a coherent plan for summer work on curriculum, course design, assessment, and pedagogy, so they would be prepared, Wolff says, to offer “topnotch online courses in the fall.”

“To say that spring term was challenging is an understatement,” Wolff says. “But my colleagues’ commitment to doing their best for our students was, as always, inspiring. It was great to come together at the end of the term and talk across departments about what we care about: teaching kids.” E

“IT WAS OUR COMMITMENT TO CARING FOR ALL STUDENTS THAT KEPT US GOING. OUR CHARGE AS …

TEACHERS IS TO TAKE CARE OF THE WHOLE CHILD.”

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Bringing the Stage Online SENIOR ACTING ENSEMBLE MOUNTS PRODUCTION OF B R I A N F R I E L’ S T R A N S L AT I O N S F R O M Q U A R A N T I N E

By Sarah Pruitt ’95

B

ack in late February, cast and crew members met at The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance to start planning for the spring term’s Senior Acting Ensemble production of Irish playwright Brian Friel’s celebrated 1980 work Translations.

Set in a fictional Irish-speaking village in northwest Ireland’s County Donegal in 1833, just a few years before the potato famine, the play centers on the drama that ensues when a pair of British military officers arrive to map the area for Ireland’s first Ordnance Survey, and translate the Gaelic place names into English. In addition to the central theme of language — from its ties to cultural identity to its role in communication — Translations delves into a wide range of issues, including colonization, Irish immigration to the United States, and the role of women in Irish society.

“I’m really interested, especially these days, about what connects and divides us, not only within communities but across boundaries and barriers,” says Sarah Ream ’75; P’09, P’11, instructor in theater and dance and the ensemble’s director. “So [Translations] felt timely to me.”

In March, the spread of the new coronavirus created barriers of different sorts for the cast and crew, as the Academy transitioned to distance learning and they found themselves without a stage on which to perform.

The student thespians met via Zoom three times a week for rehearsal and collectively began to study the rich history and culture behind the play. “[Research] helped us better understand our characters and frame our acting,” explains Suan Lee ’20, who served as the play’s dramaturg and took on the character of Bridget, one of the Irish-speaking villagers.

As not everyone had access to the same technology for video recording, the group decided to turn their full production into a podcast. An audio-only format would not only allow people to experience the play differently, but also posed new and welcome challenges for the actors. “It really forced us to make our voices the character,” says Ervin Williams ’20, who plays Hugh, the hedge school’s hard-drinking headmaster.

The stage crew faced their own challenges, including navigating how to produce and edit the material into a podcast format. Caitlin Sibthorpe ’20, the play’s stage manager and assistant

“TWENTY-FIVE YEARS FROM NOW, WE’RE GOING TO SAY, ‘REMEMBER THAT TIME WHEN THE WHOLE WORLD ENDED, BUT WE STILL HAD A PLAY?’”

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director, believes these obstacles only made for a better learning experience. “In theater,” she says, “you’re going to be in a lot of different situations and you have to learn to adapt.”

To accompany the podcast, the cast also recorded a dress rehearsal on video, and both versions were streamed for the Exeter community in late May, with a run time of nearly two hours.

The production opens with the strains of Celtic guitar and a voice-over by Director of Global Initiatives and English Instructor Eimer Page, who hails from Northern Ireland and has relatives from the region where Translations is set. In the video version, as Page narrates the stage directions, the actors materialize in their respective Zoom windows, which appear and disappear as they enter or exit the virtual stage. Dressed in black or dark clothing, they sit against plain backgrounds — white walls, a draped sheet — with barely a picture frame or edge of a window sill peeking out behind them. Their movements and facial expressions are also spare, making their voices the central feature of the viewing, or listening, experience.

From the play’s first scene, the actors tackle its complex central theme of language, as Manus, the son of the hedge schoolmaster (played by Colin Vernet ’21, one of several uppers involved in the production), patiently teaches Sarah (Grace Ferguson ’20), a student with a serious speech impediment, to say her own name. Meanwhile, during their lesson, the older villager Jimmie Jack (Emmanuel Vasquez ’20) intones phrases from Homer in ancient Greek.

The actors playing villagers relied on Page to help hone their Irish accents, while Classics Instructor Sally Morris contributed by coaching the cast on the pronunciations of the play’s Latin and Greek phrases. Having taught Friel’s play often in her English classes, Page developed a new perspective on it when the cast asked her to act as narrator for the virtual production, in which all the stage directions must be read.

She particularly remembers recording one key scene: a rendezvous between one of the British officers, the earnest Lieutenant Yolland (Paul Rogers ’21), and a village girl, Maire (Ella Fishman ’20), that Page calls the “emotional high point of the play.” In that scene, which closes Act 2, soft guitar music plays in the background as the couple exchanges a torrent of romantic declarations. While both of them are speaking English, in the world of Friel’s play, Maire (like all the villagers) is actually understood to be speaking Irish, of which Yolland knows only a few words. As the scene continues, the two characters grow closer and closer — even as they completely fail to understand what the other is saying.

“I was so moved, even as I was attempting to be a neutral narrator,” Page recalls of the scene, marveling at the actors’ ability to “play off one another in their tiny moon screens.”

The cast and crew found some much needed unity and creative expression in the virtual production process. “Given the state of the world right now, it’s been hard to keep creativity a part of my day-to-day life,” Fishman says. “This production allowed me to focus on art, which I don’t really think that I would have done a whole lot of otherwise.”

Ream shares Fishman’s view about the value of art for its ability to sustain people in hard times.

“I take a huge amount of comfort in the idea that theater prevails across time and culture no matter what’s going on,” she says. “They kept it going during the Peloponnesian Wars, and I think that says something good about humanity.”

To Vernet, the podcast version of Translations promises to remain memorable in a way unlike any production on Exeter’s mainstage. “Twenty-five years from now,” he predicts, “we’re going to say, ‘Remember that time when the whole world ended, but we still had a play?’” E

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With Broadway dark, students join cast and crew on Zoom

By Sarah Pruitt ’95 As an instructor in PEA’s Theater and Dance Department, Lauren Josef always looks for ways to expose her students to people working in the world of professional theater. “It can be really easy to get caught in our little bubble,” she says.

After New York City’s famed theater district suspended all plays and musicals and Exeter’s spring term went online, Josef saw an opportunity.

She knew a number of Broadway performers who were, like her, graduates of James Madison University’s musical theater program. Now that they were temporarily unemployed, why not see if they could talk to Exeter students about their experiences?

Starting in May, Josef hosted “Catching Up on Broadway,” a series of Zoom chats featuring performers and crew members from such high-profile shows as Hamilton, Chicago, Kinky Boots and Evita. She publicized the chats by sending out schoolwide emails, as well as contacting students involved with past Exeter productions (especially musicals) and posting on the department’s Instagram feed.

Open to all members of the Exeter community, the conversations covered such wide-ranging topics as auditions for musical theater programs at the university level, working in productions on cruise ships, the importance of doing your best as an understudy, and the perks of getting an Actors’ Equity card.

One of the performers, Jake Odmark, was most recently part of the cast of The Inheritance, one of the shows that ended its Broadway run early due to the pandemic. Josef recalls that his advice to students that they “congratulate other people on their successes rather than to think of it as their own failures” really resonated. “A theme that rang true throughout the entire series was how important it is to cheer your friends and your colleagues on,” Josef says, “even if that means that you’re not being chosen for a role or a part. Because their success is also your success.”

A Zoom conversation with Anna-Lee Craig, who works on the sound design and engineering for Hamilton, drew a somewhat different crowd than the others. “That brought in our tech students,” Josef says.

Recently named chair of the Theater and Dance Department, Josef sees “Catching Up on Broadway” as another way to keep ties within the department and with the greater community strong, even while students and faculty are apart. Based on questions asked during the Zoom chats, she’s also been able to connect with students who are thinking about pursuing theater or dance in college or as a career, and open deeper conversations with them about their plans. “That’s been really rewarding for our department,” she says, “and for me as an educator.” E

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Whole Genome Sequencing

Science Instructor Anne Rankin, here working with Ellie Griffin ’21, aims to build a tolerance for failure in students.

S A N AT H G O V I N D A R A J A N ’ 2 0 M A P S T H E F R U I T F LY GENOME AND FINDS NEW MYSTERIE S TO EXPLORE

By Nicole Pellaton

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t’s 10 a.m. on Sunday, a few days before the end of winter term, and 25 students are gath-

ering in classroom 307 of Phelps Science Center to do something that no one at Exeter has done before.

As cool light pours in through the windows, the students unbundle from coats and sweatshirts. Twelve sit at the Harkness table in the inside corner of the room. The others perch on high stools or lean against lab tables. Dotted throughout are indicators of the room’s focus: beakers, plastic models of chromosomes, 12 microscopes, a near-life-size human anatomical model. The students, enrolled in two sections of BIO 586: Molecular Genetics, are here on Sunday because it’s

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the one day that allows for extended unscheduled time. They have the relaxed poise of teenagers unhooked from weekday or Saturday demands.

Today’s task is the “wet lab” prep work that will isolate, clean and amplify (or copy) small snippets of DNA from four lines of Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly.

These snippets will be packed with dry ice and shipped to a lab for sequencing. The hope is that the resulting data will be accurate enough to allow an Exeter senior, Sanath Govindarajan, to analyze it and assemble a whole genome for one or more of the lines as a spring-term project. A lot is riding on today.

All eyes are on Science Instructor Anne Rankin ’92 as she describes the protocol. There will be four procedures, she explains. You will work in pairs at your own pace, but we will wait until everyone is done to start the next procedure. Avoiding contamination is essential, so wear gloves and use new pipette tips at each step.

“We will spend hours in the lab, and then you will end up with less than a drop in a vial,” Rankin says with a broad, encouraging smile.

Students eagerly file into the adjoining lab, find spots at one of the six large black lab tables, don gloves, and lean down over tubes of DNA. Thumbs pump pipettes as liquids are precisely measured and released into vials. Rankin works the room to inspect progress, lend a gloved hand or answer questions. The students gravitate to the incubator and thermocycler (a device that raises and lowers the temperature of DNA samples in preprogrammed steps) as they work through the 10-step procedure. The first pair finishes at 10:25. Twelve minutes later, everyone is back in room 307.

“Your DNA is getting snipped up!” Rankin says before she launches into instructions for the second procedure, which uses a specialized magnetic rack to separate the DNA from the liquid used to suspend and clean the fragments. “Remember to pipette slowly!” she says as the students stream back to the lab. At 11:45, two boys high-five as they complete the 20-step procedure.

Selma Unver ’20 uses a pipette to disperse precisely measured liquid during the DNA prep lab.

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By 2 p.m., everyone has finished the third procedure — amplification of the fragments, the most sensitive of the protocols, which involved a friendly scrum at the centrifuge as nine students waited for their 30-second turn, and lots of excitement at the thermocycler (“It’s the big moment!” one boy announced) — and they are nearing the end of the final 33-step procedure: purifying the DNA libraries. The energy in the room is palpable.

At 2:09, Ellie Griffin ’21 and Audrey Choi ’20 are the first to place their small vial, carefully, into the carrier that will ultimately hold 12 precious drops of liquid. “Did you mark your vial correctly?”

Rankin asks repeatedly as pairs approach, aware that mislabeling could wreak havoc with the data.

Within minutes, the carrier is full. The wet lab is over.

WHY GENOME SEQUENCING?

In 2012, Exeter and Stanford University initiated a collaboration dubbed “StanEx,” which brought real-world genetics research into the Exeter curriculum. StanEx was originated by Dr. Seung Kim ’81, Stanford professor of developmental biology and of medicine, along with Rankin and Science Instructor Townley Chisholm. The first StanEx course, which continues today, teaches Exonians how to genetically modify and breed new stocks of fruit flies. To create the stocks, students insert into fruit flies an artificial transposable element (a small chunk of DNA that can change its position within the genome) that carries a “switch” to highlight proteins in fluorescent green, allowing researchers to visually track specific genes in a fly’s development. At Kim’s Stanford lab, scientists use these stocks to research pancreatic disease and diabetes. The stocks, all derived from the StanEx-1 base line, are also made available to researchers around the world.

In 2019, a group of almost 90 Exonians, assisted by three science instructors — Rankin,

“I HAD TO LEARN HOW TO CREATE AND REFINE A QUESTION, SO IT REALLY FELT LIKE DISCOVERY.” Chisholm and Erik Janicki — along with Kim and Dr. Lutz Kockel from the Stanford lab, published an academic paper in which they addressed a perceived anomaly in the Exeter-created stocks. The process of inserting the transposable element was meant to support totally random locations, but analysis indicated a “hot spot.”

“The fact that we were getting all these things in the same spot was, first of all, a disappointment because you don’t need something in the same spot over and over again. But then it became just plain interesting,” Rankin says. “We were observing that there was this little piece of DNA that was calling our piece to it, and basically they were switching places. It was a really, really cool outcome. I mean, that’s real science.” The question was: Why is this happening?

The Stanford lab tested a few hypotheses, to no avail. “So then comes the next logical question: ‘What else is in the DNA structure that we didn’t know?’” Rankin explains. “We tried to buy something clean, that didn’t have funny background stuff that was going to act like DNA magnets. And that’s where the whole genome sequencing project comes in, because with sequencing, you get all of the DNA. You can look at it and see, ‘Well, what is actually in there?’”

TEACHER AS LEARNER

You could say Rankin’s route to Exeter dates to the 1950s when H. Hamilton Bissell ’29 offered a newsboy scholarship to her father, Dr. Kenneth Rankin ’59, then a newspaper delivery boy

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in Cleveland. She and all her siblings in turn attended Exeter. In 1999, at a crossroads, Rankin applied for a teaching job at Exeter and to her top-choice doctoral program. She was accepted by both and decided to teach at Exeter to “get it out of my system.” She’s still working on that.

“You never get bored in a Harkness class because you never quite know what the students are going to ask,” she says. “And you never know how things are going to unfold in front of you.”

To observe Rankin in the classroom is to see many roles: teacher, researcher, scientist and learner. “I think kids respond super well to me when I invest everything I have into learning something new and share with them the places I see for more growth in myself,” she says. “I try to model how to learn rather than present myself as someone who has learned.”

She jokes easily with the students (“You are good at many things,” she told one student during the wet lab, “but slow pipetting is not one of them!”) while making it clear that the work in the

“I TRY TO MODEL HOW TO LEARN RATHER THAN PRESENT MYSELF AS SOMEONE WHO HAS LEARNED.” classroom is important and of much greater value than the topic at hand. “By becoming learners shoulder-to-shoulder with our students, we authentically model the characteristics we hope to instill — humility, empathy, inquisitiveness, openness, adaptability and continual growth,” Rankin wrote a few years ago in a note to herself that she titled, “Paradigm shift on the concept of teacher.” As one of the founding faculty members of the StanEx project, she has helped it expand over the years into more classes at Exeter, summer internships at the Stanford lab for Exeter students, collaborations with other high schools, and the whole genome sequencing project. All of this has helped feed Rankin’s hunger for “a culture of continual exploration and experimentation.”

Central to Rankin’s approach is balancing failure with success and, ultimately, encouraging students to feel comfortable taking risks. “The dance for me as a teacher is always how much failure can they tolerate. What’s the trade-off? They can’t fail all the time. The authenticity is not worth it then. But if you tip the scale the other way and there’s no authenticity but they always succeed, that’s not really worth it either. That’s like a cookie-cutter kit lab.”

For the students in BIO 586: Molecular Genetics, she carefully planned a trajectory. “We worked our way from things that I was pretty sure would work, all related to the Stanford project, all the way up to the thing that I was pretty sure would fail. I feel that it’s my job to bring the students on that development of building their tolerance for failure.”

To Rankin’s surprise, the data that came back from Genewiz, the lab that processed those 12 precious drops of liquid, was excellent. “It looks as though it worked — for every group!” she wrote on March 20 in an email to Science Department Chair Alison Hobbie. “I honestly cannot believe it and had not even thought to hope for this level of success.”

SEQUENCING FROM HOME

Sanath Govindarajan ’20 was ready to dive into the data from Genewiz as soon as it arrived, but he faced a problem. Exeter’s campus had closed down because of the coronavirus pandemic. On March 18, Govindarajan received an email stating that distance learning would extend to the end of the term.

This was far different from the plan he had laid out in his senior project proposal, which included

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upgrading a server on campus with software to allow for serious number crunching.

Sanath Govindarajan ’20 He soon discovered that the data set from Genewiz was massive, “millions and milassembled a genome lions and millions of lines” representing almost 150,000 megabases of DNA data. (A sequence of the Stan-Ex megabase equals 1 million base pairs, or individual “rungs” in the DNA double helix; in fruit fly line as a senior contrast, a fruit fly genome comprises 175 megabases.) The data consisted of sequences project. He is continuing of the letters A, C, G and T, the bases of DNA. Some sequences overlapped, some were his work over the summer. duplicates. “It’s impossible to analyze this manually,” Govindarajan explains. “You need computer programs to filter it and make sense of it.” When Govindarajan tried to download the data to his PC, he was obliged to let it run all night. “Just opening up the file in a text editor caused it to crash,” he says.

Govindarajan structured his senior project as three major activities: quality control of the data; developing a reusable “pipeline” of software that can analyze and align the data to assemble a whole genome; and comparing the StanEx-1 genome to the published Drosophila melanogaster genome to see if there are any significant differences.

He had invested long hours researching open-source programs that could perform the complex computing tasks — alignment and transposable element mapping — but they had been designed to run on a server. The path forward was to rewrite them. He started by converting them to a lower-level programming language to gain more control and changing them from single- to multithread, “so that they can do multiple things at once.” Then he attacked memory. “I found a way to be able to process the data without storing it intermediately,” he says. “This is what really cut the memory usage and allowed me to run it on a PC.” Govindarajan estimates that he wrote a few thousand lines of code, rewriting some of the programs more than once. “But more than the lines of code, it’s about making that code work with existing ...continued on page 107

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Commence

Long-Distance Goodbye E X E T E R C E L E B R AT E S T H E C L A S S O F 2 0 2 0 I N A H I STO R I C V I RT UA L C E R E M O N Y

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Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 descended the front steps of the Academy Building and strode to a podium framed by brilliant floral arrangements and gleaming silver cups.

“Good morning. Welcome to graduation in this, the 239th year of our school,” he said to an empty lawn.

So began an out-of-the-ordinary ceremony for an extraordinary time. Exeter celebrated the class of 2020, but it was a virtual grand finale, with 314 seniors and their families tuning in to an online production that began streaming at 10 a.m. on Sunday, June 7.

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ment 2020

“This certainly is not the graduation ceremony you had in mind when you left for spring break, nor is it the graduation ceremony we would like you to have,” Rawson said, addressing a video camera instead of the customary audience of a few thousand gathered on the Academy Building lawn.

The production included powerful remarks from Senior Class President Audrey Vanderslice ’20 and the awarding of annual graduation prizes by Dean of Faculty Ellen Wolff P’17. Princi-

during the COVID-19 pandemic and the class members’ effort to “create virtual community and to hold us together during our time apart.

“In every aspect of school life, seniors, you have led the way, set a high standard, and made a positive difference. You have challenged the school to live up to its mission and ideals. You have spoken out when you felt the school was falling short. You have supported each other in all that you do.”

took turns reciting their classmates’ names as then-and-now photos flashed onto the screen. Diplomas were distributed later, picked up in person by dozens of day students or shipped to far-flung ZIP codes for those hundreds more who haven’t seen campus since departing at the end of winter term.

As an image of a beaming Jian Kai Zhang ’20, the last name to be read, faded, the scene turned to Principal Rawson at the podium.

“It is my pleasure to present to you,

pal Rawson followed with his remarks, praising the class of 2020’s resilience

The traditional reading of the graduates’ names followed. Six seniors

the great class of 2020.”

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The Yale Cup, awarded each year by the Aurelian Honor Society of Yale University to that member of the senior class who best combines the highest standards of character and leadership with excellence in his studies and in athletics.

William Menken, Woodbury, Minnesota The Ruth and Paul Sadler ’23 Cup, awarded each year to that member of the senior class who best combines the highest standards of character and leadership with excellence in her studies and in athletics.

Elizabeth Dentzer, Cambridge, Massachusetts The Perry Cup, established by the class of 1945 in honor of Dr. Lewis Perry, eighth principal of the Academy, and given annually to a senior who has shown outstanding qualities of leadership and school spirit.

Ayush Noori, Exeter, New Hampshire

Graduation

Prizes

The Williams Cup, established in memory of George Lynde Richardson Jr., and given annually to a student who, having been in the Academy four years, has, by personal qualities, brought distinction to Phillips Exeter.

Lucy Gilchrist, Portsmouth, New Hampshire The Eskie Clark Award, given annually to that scholarship student in the graduating class who, through hard work and perseverance, has excelled in both athletics and scholarship in a manner exemplified by Eskie Clark of the class of 1919.

Gannon T. McCorkle, Odenton, Maryland The Thomas H. Cornell Award, based on a vote by the Senior Class, is awarded annually at graduation to that member of the graduating class who best exemplifies the Exeter spirit.

Ayush Noori, Exeter, New Hampshire The Multicultural Leadership Prize is awarded annually to the member of the graduating class who has most significantly contributed to educating the community about, and fostering greater understanding around, topics of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, ability, religion, spirituality, or other aspects of identity.

Kileidria Aguilar, Homestead, Florida Elizabeth Kostina, Okemos, Michigan Genesis Reyes, Bronx, New York The Cox Medals, given by Oscar S. Cox, Esq. in memory of his father, Jacob Cox, are awarded each year to the five members of the graduating class who, having been two or more years in the Academy, have attained the highest scholastic rank.

Aiwen Desai, Madison, Wisconsin Lucy Gilchrist, Portsmouth, New Hampshire Mai Hoang, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Marcelle Kelley, Tampa, Florida Ayush Noori, Exeter, New Hampshire The Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence, given to that member of the graduating class who, having been two or more years in the Academy, is recognized on the basis of scholarship as holding the first rank.

Mai Hoang, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

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Senior

Awards

The Philip Curtis Goodwin ’25 Athletic Award, presented annually to the fouryear students who best embody the qualities of sportsmanship and participation.

William Coogan, Exeter, New Hampshire Dennesha Rolle, Exeter, New Hampshire The Wyzanski Prize, given in honor of Judge Charles Wyzanski and awarded “to a student whose ethical beliefs and practices have contributed significantly to the welfare of the Academy or community.”

Matthew Wabunoha, Hamden, Connecticut

Dean of Faculty Ellen Wolff reprised her role as presenter of the graduation prizes and expertly read through the long list in a single take on an empty Academy Lawn.

The Warren Burke Shepard ‘84 Award, given in honor of a member of the class of 1984 who died of fulminant hepatitis two months before he was to attend the Academy. This award is given annually to a student or students at Phillips Exeter Academy who tries hardest to realize the Exeter opportunity.

Mai Hoang, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Pepper Pieroni, Dallas, Texas The James A. Snead ‘71 Memorial Prize, given to students who have written effectively on multicultural themes; who have contributed to the evolution of a non-racist culture in the community; or who have exemplified a passion for the humanities that promises to be lifelong.

Johan Martinez, Chicago, Illinois Tatum Schutt, Wilmington, Delaware David T. Swift Award, given “in recognition of significant contributions as dormitory proctor, in helping to create a positive residential experience at Exeter.”

Katherine Davis, New York, New York (Merrill) Samuel Farnsworth, Austin, Texas (Wentworth) Kelly Mi, Alpharetta, Georgia (McConnell) Maureena Murphy, Newark, New Jersey (Lamont) Joshua Riddick, Camden, New Jersey (Peabody) Claudia Sanchez, Denver, Colorado (Hoyt) Nathan Sun, Greer, South Carolina (Abbot) Ervin Williams, Royal Palm Beach, Florida (Peabody) SU M M E R

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To the Tower

Gradu

Seniors were given their traditional tour of the bell tower the Friday before graduation, only this time it came through video and 360-degree photos.

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ationReimagined H O W T H E Y E A R - E N D C E L E B R AT I O N C A M E T O L I F E

W

hen your guests of honor

are spread from Hampton, New Hampshire, to Ho Chi Minh City, it’s hard to throw a proper celebration. But departments around campus, under the guidance of the Graduation Committee, got right to work.

Within just a few weeks, they had created an end-of-year experience that the senior class would remember, culminating in a 90-minute prerecorded ceremony. We take you behind the scenes on how the ceremony came to life.

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Online

Watch the graduation ceremony on demand at

exeter.edu/graduation2020.

Plus, access other videos, photo galleries, messages to the senior class, and more.

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On the Podium

ADDRESS

Presidential

Every senior — all 314 of them — sent in photos from eighth grade and senior year, which were woven into a video montage played during the online ceremony as diplomas were awarded virtually.

Senior Class President Audrey Vanderslice prerecorded her poignant commencement address from her grandparents’ home on Cape Cod.

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The commencement presentation opened with the trio of Dacha Thurber ’20, Nathan Sun ’20 and Max Tan ’21 performing a crisp rendition of “Pomp and Circumstance.”

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Two dozen members of the faculty and staff recorded video messages of congratulations that were shared with the graduates through social media and the graduation website on the big day.

Principal Rawson spoke directly to the seniors in his commencement remarks when he said “the world needs the kinds of citizens and leaders who will act with empathy, understanding, respect and humility, and engage across differences. I urge you to go out and be those kinds of citizens and leaders, as you so often have been right here at Exeter.�

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Mail Call

After graduation, diplomas were tucked into a Big Red care package courtesy of Institutional Advancement and picked up locally or shipped around the globe.

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Senior Class!

M E E T F I V E G R A D U AT E S W H O E M B O D Y T H E TA L E N T, P A S S I O N A N D C H A R A C T E R O F T H E C L A S S O F 2 0 2 0

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hen they headed for home to close winter term, the 314 members of the class of 2020

had no notion their time together on campus was over. There would be no senior spring, no proper goodbye. Just a raft of Zoom meeting invitations and the ache of unfinished business.

But a lost term doesn’t define the class of 2020, its students do, and the mark they made on the Academy is indelible. Here we meet five from their ranks who represent a senior class challenged unlike any other in Exeter history.

The Class President

AUDREY VANDERSLICE

As class of 2020 president, Audrey Vanderslice ’20 knew she’d be addressing her peers at their June commencement. What neither she nor anyone else anticipated was that she’d be orating from her grandparents’ living room on Cape Cod, backlit by her dad’s bike light, her phone propped on a ladder and a Lion flag pinned to the wall. Nor did she anticipate speaking in the context of what she describes as “a world on fire: a world lit by not only this global pandemic, but racial injustice, widening socioeconomic disparities, a health-care system pushed to the brink, climate change, and countless other domestic and international dilemmas.”

It’s a dystopian picture, but Vanderslice defies despair. She focuses not on the negative, nor on her own accomplishments, but on collective successes. “I’ve never been prouder to be a member of Exeter’s class of 2020 than this spring,” she said in her commencement address. “Seeing everything my classmates accomplished [after being sent home] … was the perfect culmination of everything I’ve always loved and admired about this uniquely talented, brilliant and compassionate group.”

She praises those classmates staffing food pantries, making masks and protesting the deaths of Black people at the hands of police. She extols classmates’ Instagram-documented, quarantine-era projects in painting, writing and cuisine, which, she says, “bring so much light to students’ days and ensure we stay connected from afar.” For her part, Vanderslice was a voting board member of the Exeter Relief Fund, which as of July 1 had distributed almost $7,500 to PEA students and families experiencing COVID-19-related financial struggles.

Vanderslice is impressed but unsurprised by her peers’ engagement. Exeter is “an academic and social community unlike any other,” she says, built on “discourse, relentless rigor, selfless collaboration and profound affection.” PEA graduates are equipped “not simply to defend ourselves against whatever life throws our way, but to positively change the new communities of which we will now become a part.”

Challenge, Vanderslice says, is what Exonians thrive on. She vividly recalls writing a 35-page history paper on Uighur internment camps in China, only to have thousands of government documents leaked two days before it was due. Rewriting her essay to incorporate this information felt impossible, yet she

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did it. She calls it one of the most daunting and rewarding undertakings of her life.

This combination of challenge and fulfillment characterizes Vanderslice’s four years on campus, where her passions included Concert Choir, Student Council and Mock Trial, for which she won “Outstanding Attorney” at the state competition. A lifelong language aficionado, she spent semesters in Beijing and Paris before beginning high school. “The linguistic skills I acquired from my studies [abroad] had a profound impact on my time at Exeter and will undoubtedly continue to influence my academic and professional path,” she says. “I’m fluent in French, and during my time in China, I became fluent in Mandarin and acquired my greatest pride and joy: a native Beijing accent.” Last summer, she attended an Arabic-language State Department program in Morocco, where she played piano for strangers at a local restaurant. “It turns out they enjoy belting out Billy Joel’s lyrics as much as Americans do,” she says with a laugh.

What lesson will the world traveler take with her to Harvard next fall? “I used to think that being an Exonian was about being physically present at Exeter,” she says. “After all, most of our memories at PEA consist of going to dinner at Elm on Sunday nights and shouting hello to friends across the quad. … But now that we’ve experienced our final term off-campus and seen what we can do together from afar, I realize being an Exonian has nothing to do with where we happen to be residing at the time — it’s who we are, the values we cherish, the choices we make. …

Exeter will always live within us.”

— Juliet Eastland ’86

The Poet

ERVIN WILLIAMS

At the southeastern edge of campus, tucked among the acres of Academyowned woodlands, sits an armchair-sized chunk of granite protruding from the forest floor. Steadfast in position and appearance for generations, the slab of stone overlooks a stream. In perfect complement and contrast, the meandering tributary remains in constant motion, altering in shape and size as it swells and shrinks by the season.

For Ervin Williams ’20, this natural nook became his refuge, a place to sit and think about that day’s English lesson, write poetry or just clear his head. The senior stumbled upon his serene sanctuary on a Sunday afternoon stroll through Exeter’s network of trails during his lower year.

“I decided to go off-road and drag myself through the brush like a rugged adventurer,” he jokes. “I sat down and I was listening to the water and listening to the birds and thought, ‘This is a place I will cherish.’”

Williams’ first steps in his journey to Exeter likewise required him to tread off a well-worn path and explore what lay beyond the immediately visible.

“My [initial] visit to Exeter was the first time I’d had ever been up North,” the West Palm Beach, Florida, native says. “I didn’t see a lot of the avenues in Florida that would allow me to achieve what I wanted, so having this ability to go to Exeter and really find who I am and what my passions are was awesome.”

It was on that trip that Williams sat in on instructor Willie Perdomo’s English class as they discussed Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He still recalls “Mr. P” encouraging him to contribute to the conversation as the class dissected the play’s legendary “To be, or not to be” soliloquy.

“Listening to what the students were saying and being given the opportunity to participate was something that really drew me to the school,” Williams says.

Just a few months later, as an enrolled student, Williams once again found himself being encouraged to express himself by Perdomo, now his adviser. Bonded by their mutual love of poetry, the two hit it off.

“Mr. Perdomo’s really become a father figure to me,” says Williams, using a phrase he does not take lightly. When Williams was 3 years old, his father died.

“Mr. P taught me that to truly know yourself is one of the greatest things that you can ever accomplish,” Williams says. “Teaching me how to be a better man and be a better student is something that I’ll never forget.”

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In his four years, Williams pursued what can only be characterized as a holistic Exeter experience, playing as a lineman on the football team, honing his musical craft on piano and as a rap lyricist, and serving as a proctor in Peabody Hall.

Williams was also a regular in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, developing a similar paternal bond to the one forged with Perdomo with deans Sami Atif and Hadley Camilus.

“I found solace in OMA,” he says. “It’s been integral to my success and survival at Exeter.”

In the wake of the recent string of killings of Black people at the hands of police, Williams has relied upon the guidance of his mentors on campus, conversations with his peers at the virtual Harkness table and reflection about his own life experiences in an attempt to make sense of the senseless. Williams says his reflex is to get out in the world, to start doing, to affect what he can affect.

“I’m most concerned about trying to make a change that will last, especially for my children and my children’s children, versus expressing anger that won’t lead to justice,” he says. “It doesn’t help if we deepen these wounds or if we decide to not address them at all.”

Williams has already taken steps toward meaningful change. He’s currently working with the Florida Education Fund and the National Urban League to develop a program that aids inner-city, underprivileged students by connecting them with opportunities at schools like Exeter.

With a foundation built on a bedrock of varied experiences, meaningful discussions and lasting relationships, Williams flows on, set to attend Wheaton College in the fall and pursue a degree in law. With the time on campus in his senior year cut short, he wasn’t able to visit his hideout in the Academy Woods one final time as a student.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get to say goodbye,” he says. “But I plan on coming back next year and taking my time down that trail.”

—Adam Loyd

The Editor

SUAN LEE

Suan Lee ’20 thrives on difficult conversations. It’s what drew her to an English class, Writing the Body, during her last term. Such a topic can push “you to be uncomfortable and therefore understand yourself and the world better,” Lee says, “so I wanted to engage in that discomfort.”

Uncomfortable conversations have become a theme for this former editor-in-chief of The Exonian, who is drawn to stories about inequity and privilege, stories “indicative of the issues that the rest of the world is starting to engage with, especially in this political moment.”

“I was really fortunate enough to start engaging with those stories in a very upfront way because as a journalist, there’s no place to hide,” she says.

When Lee became the student newspaper’s editor-in-chief during her upper year, the accountability for others’ voices intensified: “You are the person who decides what stories get to be told and in what way.” She and her staff were forced “to reckon with those stories, not only as journalists, but as people.”

At first, Lee saw sharing others’ stories as a service. But experiences on the Discipline Committee and as a Student Listener in her dorm taught her just how transactional conversations about identity and fairness could be. “You’re not just doing a service in listening to someone’s story. They’re doing you a service by sharing it with you,” she says. “You can’t really practice non sibi without other people from the community you’re trying to serve offering you the same gift of trust and openness.”

Lee enjoys discussing issues that have divided past cultures, as well as current conflicts. She says earning a classical diploma gave her the chance to consider centuries-old ideas about “love and mortality and faith, which are still things that we grapple with and are still relevant to us today.” A French archeological dig during her prep year enabled her to “live history,” she says, and “engage with it quite literally on my hands and feet.”

“We were working on uncovering a Roman house that hadn’t been touched in hundreds of years,” she says. “At first we kept just being disappointed because we were just finding little pieces of ceramic.

And then we realized that this was a remnant of the actual architectural structure of the people we

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were reading about in class.”

Such class conversations were, of course, altered by COVID-19. Lee described the virtual end to her final term as “heartbreak,” but acknowledged that her reaction “speaks to how much Exeter means to all of us.” She gave an illustration of her classmates’ eagerness to talk with one another: an online book club organized by the Office of Multicultural Affairs hit its enrollment maximum immediately.

But Lee is reflective as well as sad as she moves on to Columbia University this fall. After all, she says, the work at Exeter was often grueling, as were interviews for the newspaper. Like her classmates’ collective loss, “my love for Exeter grew out of the difficult moments.”

That’s why she sees a benefit to the class of 2020’s experience: “Because we didn’t have that kind of closure, it actually might keep our class closer together in the years ahead.

“Increasingly,” she adds, “I’ve realized that Exeter is about a lot more than the actual interactions we get to have on campus.”

Thinking about the non sibi values “intertwined in the academic lessons,” Lee says, “There is no possible conclusion to being an Exonian.”

—Leah Williams

The Captain

CHARLIE VENCI

Co-captain of the swimming and water polo teams, Charles “Charlie” P. Venci ’20 broke several records during his time at Exeter, including in the 100 backstroke and 200 individual medley. But it isn’t these accomplishments that he remembers most vividly. It is the memory of watching assistant coach Avery Reavill ’12 — whose relay record Venci’s team was in the process of breaking — cheering them on as they did it.

Teamwork was Venci’s biggest takeaway from Exeter: in the classroom, in The Exonian newsroom and in the water. It’s what he’ll carry with him when he joins Williams College’s swimming team and water polo club this fall: “The camaraderie that Exeter and especially water polo has brought out in me, I’m very proud of that.”

That’s why he describes the achievements of his teammates so enthusiastically, like when his co-captain, Andrew Benson ’20, broke Venci’s 200 individual medley record at the New England finals. “I knew it was going to fall,” Venci says. “He obliterated the field. It was a great race to watch.”

Venci entered Exeter an accomplished swimmer but was hesitant to join the water polo team, despite coach Don Mills’ encouragement. But it was that team, where he’s won fewer accolades, that Venci learned how to be an Exonian.

He had to join the starting lineup during his lower year when a senior broke his thumb before the match against Navy Aquatic Club. When Venci scored a goal, his captain said, “Welcome to the squad.” It taught Venci something that swimming — a more individual sport — hadn’t yet done: “You can’t make it without those around you.”

By the time Venci became co-captain of both teams, he’d learned from those who preceded him and were leading alongside him: To show respect for others. To lead by example. And to ease jitters on deck with laughter and noise. “One of the things we pride ourselves in is being the loudest and most supportive team,” he says.

Teamwork was key to his success as sports editor for The Exonian as well. He and his fellow editors “each brought our own strengths to the table.” He leaned on a co-editor’s grammar skills, just as his co-editor relied on Venci’s structural talents. And Venci went beyond writing about other teams’ achievements. He rooted them on, just like his upper spring history teacher, Jack Herney, did for him with emails about upcoming matches.

He chose to manage the girls water polo team during spring term of his upper year in this same spirit. When he ran the clock for the New England tournament, he discovered a task he’d have found tedious before “could be both exciting and rewarding, as I watched some great water polo and followed the progress of the talented Exeter team through a field of equally talented competition.”

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Venci’s value for community made the virtual conclusion to his senior year a great loss. Describing the last class of his Exeter career as surreal, Venci says, “Instead of shaking someone’s hand and saying thank you for a great term and waving, you hit the ‘Leave Meeting’ button.” But he replayed in his mind moments during his time at Exeter to make it all feel less amorphous: standing in line at student registration, sitting at a Harkness table, or finishing his paper on Hawaii’s role in Pacific trade during an eight-hour bus ride to Eastern Pennsylvania for a meet.

And perhaps most tellingly, he remembers moments with his teams. The water polo squad ran early morning steps in the stadium and he’s not likely to forget one ritual that followed those practices: “I loved watching the sun rise with my team.”

— Leah Williams

The Activist

LILLY PINCIARO

Learning to install sheetrock wasn’t on senior Lilly Pinciaro’s original spring-term to-do list. But in between online classes and on weekends, she pitched in on projects to finish the family basement and plant a garden.

“Missing out on the community aspect of class was difficult,” she says, but, having spent the fall term in France, the “silver lining” of studying from home was the quality time she spent with her parents and three younger siblings.

Taking a break from traditional classroom learning was already on Pinciaro’s agenda. Accepted early decision to Northeastern University in December, she immediately deferred to fall 2021 — in part, she says, to help her “get clarity” on her goals. A former co-head of the Academy’s Democratic Club, Pinciaro will begin her gap year volunteering for Alexis Simpson’s campaign for the New Hampshire House of Representatives.

Growing up in New Castle, New Hampshire, a small coastal town with a predominantly white population, race wasn’t something Pinciaro had previously focused on. But one assembly during her lower year featuring Anthony Ray Hinton, a Black inmate wrongly imprisoned on death row for 30 years, inspired her to join one of Exeter’s Equal Justice Initiative trips to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. Daily Harkness-style discussions and programming centering on racial inequality and mass incarceration in America cemented her desire to become more politically active.

“I’ve always been taught that the world was fair, and learning that that is very clearly not true was disappointing,” she says. “Every night we would have a discussion back at the hotel where we were staying.

Sometimes we would stay up until like 10:30 p.m. talking about what we learned that day, or just kind of the new perspectives that we were seeing and hearing. Spending so much time expressly focusing on topics of race in America really solidified my interest and my understanding that it’s a very pressing issue that we need to focus on.”

Back on campus, Pinciaro joined committees for MLK Day and Exonian Encounter (a club that establishes community events to embrace difference) and attended meetings of the Afro-Latinx Exonian Society. “Through my extracurricular activities and the people I’ve surrounded myself with,” she says, “I’ve spent several years learning about racial injustice and then also combating it.”

In her upper year, Pinciaro collaborated with Tatum Schutt ’20 and Rose Coviello ’20 to start the campuswide Anti-Racist Alliance to engage white students in racial justice initiatives through discussion and self-education. Though the Alliance has since folded, that work formed the basis of Pinciaro’s and Coviello’s joint senior project: “Whiteness, White Supremacy and Antiracism in the United States: A Learning Guide for High School Students Who Hold White Privilege.” “The goal was to create a syllabus or learning guide students can use in a group setting or individually to get an overview of the history of whiteness,” she says.

Pinciaro plans to build a website around the project to reach a larger audience and hopes to see the guide adopted as part of an Office of Multicultural Affairs-led discussion group or as the basis of a new class.

“For me, the biggest takeaway was that this work is more important than ever,” Pinciaro says. “White people need to do the work of self-examination and self-reflection and then educate their communities.” E — Sarah Zobel

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Alumni in Action E XO N I A N S R E S P O N D TO T H E PA N D E M I C ’S TO L L

With the spread of the COVID-19 virus, many Exonians have shown their non sibi spirit in myriad ways, working to improve the lives of others during these challenging times.

We cannot possibly share all of those stories here, but we can highlight four alumni who represent the different ways in which the battle against this disease and its effects is being waged. We invite you to read more at exeter.edu/today or to submit your own story at exeter.edu/nonsibistories.

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SUJATA SHETH ’97

Fighting the Virus Head-On

By Sandra Guzmán

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or emergency room physician Sujata Sheth ’97, the coronavirus pandemic brought affirmation.

Treating and saving the lives of hundreds of patients in one of Singapore’s busiest public hospitals, she says, has made her fall in love with being a doctor all over again.

Since February, when the first coronavirus case was diagnosed in the Southeast Asian nation where she’s lived for the past eight years, Dr. Sheth has not lost one patient.

“Considering the devastation this virus has caused around the world, I feel very fortunate,” she explains from Changi General Hospital, one of the 10 public hospitals on the island.

Before COVID-19, Dr. Sheth remembers days practing in the U.S. filled with prescription writing and treating “college students who got drunk and fell into dumpsters,” and asking herself, “Is this really why I went into the field of medicine?”

“It was not very rewarding,” the 41-year-old admits.

“I feel that now I am really making a difference. I’m doing what I was trained to do.”

For the past five months, Dr. Sheth has been working intense, 45-hour work weeks in a high-pressure ER environment fighting a virus that had killed more than 500,000 people worldwide by the end of June. In Singapore, a nation-state of 5.6 million people, there were 44,000 confirmed cases and 26 deaths as of July 1.

“I’ve seen how this public institution with just enough resources has managed the pandemic really well,” she says.

Her biggest worry is bringing the virus home to her husband, two young daughters and 82-year-old father.

Experiencing the precautions taken from the top down and the reaction of the citizens in her adoptive nation calms her. “The response here has been one of togetherness, not one country for just some,” she says. “I have had all the personal protective equipment I have needed.

There is comfort in that safety.”

Dr. Sheth always thought she’d return to America when her daughters were teenagers, but now she’s decided to stay put, partly because of the positive way Singapore has handled the pandemic and also because she feels it is a safer place to raise her children. “It’s been difficult to see what is happening in America right now,” she says. She recalls when she was a student at the

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Sujata Sheth ’97, here with her daughters, is part of Singapore’s success in treating the COVID-19 virus.

Academy she never walked downtown alone because she didn’t feel safe. Twenty years later, she says, she sees that only baby steps have been made toward racial equality.

Dr. Sheth’s success fighting the virus has been bittersweet. In fact, at times she confesses to feeling pangs of survivor’s guilt. She trained at the Elmhurst trauma center in Queens, New York, an area beset with the coronavirus. Hearing that colleagues there, including her mentor, did not have enough personal protective equipment was distressing. “It was devastating when some of my former colleagues asked me to help them source masks and to later learn that some were infected with the virus,” she said. “They are on the front lines in some

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of the hardest-hit places without all the personal protective equipment — at the most basic level, that is what was owed to them.”

She credits the soft skills she learned at the Academy for helping her weather the pandemic’s most difficult moments. “At Exeter you realize how resilient you are,

that you can survive through the toughest challenge,” she says. “You learn self-value, that you can do something and even if it’s hard, you keep going and you come out healthy and strong.”

What else did the pandemic teach her? “I learned how to drive on the right side,” she says with a laugh.” E

CHRIS DAVIS ’04

Answering the Call

By Jennifer Wagner

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team to see what was possible to make on their existing factory equipment. After considering gowns, face shields world shuttered their shops in March followand shoe coverings, they decided on single-use face ing government mandates to control the spread masks, commodities that were in high demand and low of the coronavirus. They placed restrictions on supply at the onset of the virus. corporate travel and developed remote workflow and Each day, the New Balance social-distancing protocols to team constructed multiple protofurther safeguard the health of types that were sent to MGH or their employees who remained Brigham and Women’s Hospital on the job. for testing. Based on feedback And some enterprising from doctors and nurses, the leaders took this volatile juncteam made modifications, ultiture of economic uncertainty mately producing a five-ply to move beyond the reactionlaminated fabric mask with elasary and rethink what their tic shoelaces as the adjustable companies could do for the straps (pictured on facing page). public good. Among them: A design process that would norChris Davis ’04, chief marmally require months was comketing officer and senior vice pleted in a week. president of merchandising for “People were passionate New Balance, a Davis family about contributing to the cause business since 1972. “Whether internally and so we willed our you have the ability to help on way in a matter of days to transan individual basis or through form our lines from making donating your time or with a shoes to masks,” Davis says. larger organization, these are Chris Davis ’04 and New Balance pivot from “It was a huge effort with our the moments where we need making sports gear to personal protective development teams and supply to all band together,” he says. equipment for essential workers (opposite). chain teams, but it was realized “If you have the capability to relatively quickly through great partners at Mass General, rise, we believe that you should. It’s really our civic duty.”

Harvard Medical and MIT’s Langer Lab.” Since mid-June, Opportunity arose when the Boston-based sneaker New Balance has produced about 200,000 masks. and sports apparel company got calls from Massachusetts Davis attributes the company’s rapid response to “a General Hospital and state officials asking if it could proculture of entrepreneurship” that New Balance strives duce personal protective equipment, or PPE, for essenfor during normal courses of business. “We will never tial workers. It was a no-brainer, of course, the company be a brand that talks about what we are going to do, we would help, Davis says — it just need to figure out how. are going to be a brand that talks about what we do do,” New Balance immediately assembled a brainstorming usiness owners across the country and the

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Davis says. “And I think that the learning methods at Exeter, the kind of problem solving, critical-thinking skills and action I was taught, directly correlate to moments like this one.”

Another reason New Balance was able to adapt quickly to the pandemic was intel gleaned from its supply-chain offices abroad. “The coronavirus impacted our China office months earlier than it did the Western part of the world, so we were able to utilize the learnings from Asia and appropriately prepare for employee safety,” Davis says. “We actually had a couple of test days of working from home to ensure that our technology was able to withhold the capacity and the volume of everybody streaming constantly and working digitally.” New Balance closed its stateside offices before Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker passed state-mandated closures.

While the virus has exposed some of our country’s deepest shortcomings, it has also spawned new modes of thinking and ways of caring for others. For its part, New Balance won’t be going back to business as usual.

“We adjusted to the new environment — we created a new infrastructure, new goals, new parameters,” Davis says. “We’ve reconstructed our ways of working, which are very analogous to how Exeter is constructed around the Harkness table and just that notion of teamwork and positionless learning. … The whole team has really rallied around bringing risk, innovation and evolution to the table, which I couldn’t be more proud of.” E

DEB D’ARCANGELO ’82

Healing the Mental Wounds

By Debbie Kane

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eb D’Arcangelo ’82 is passionate about building community and creating opportunity — two guiding purposes she discovered and honed as a student at Exeter. She’s accomplished both as chief executive officer of the Council for Relationships, an 88-year-old nonprofit providing mental health services to more than 6,000 residents of greater Philadelphia. The COVID-19 pandemic has given her work new meaning. “It’s really brought mental health to the forefront,” D’Arcangelo says. She’s ensuring that the organization is rising to meet the challenge.

D’Arcangelo has been just as passionate about her support for PEA. She served as a trustee and was among the inaugural recipients of the President’s Award, established in 1989 to recognize Exeter volunteers who have made outstanding contributions to the Academy.

D’Arcangelo emphasizes the importance of community mental health in a challenging and rapidly changing environment. The Council for Relationships is “a very people-centered place,” she says, but the transition

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to online therapy had actually been in development for two years. “There were a lot of procedures and policies that had to be in place before going online and, initially, many of our therapists didn’t want to do it. Then, in March, we went from seeing all of our clients in person, face-to-face, to videoconferencing and on the phone.

Our therapists discovered that it works. All of our education programs, classes and clinical practicums were moved online as well.”

D’Arcangelo says the COVID-19 crisis has created an opportunity to focus on mental health. “It’s going to take a terrible toll on our health care workers. We think many are powering through this crisis now because they need to, but they’re going to need significant help to address their trauma. Many of our therapists are trained in trauma.

“We started a new initiative, ‘Those Who Care for Our Community,’ which provides free therapy for health care workers and other essential workers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. That includes grocery store workers, delivery

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services grew by 30% in April.”

D’Arcangelo says the rise in requests for their services has been accompanied by a new set of challenges for clients — and new insights by their therapists. “It’s a different dynamic for clients: Couples on video in their own homes act differently than when they’re in a therapist’s office.

Our therapists are also noticing that people who appeared to have their act together before COVID-19 are having a hard time. It seems people generally do better with structure in their lives. Clients have a range of concerns. People are either too close (in their homes) or too far away due to social distancing. Parenting young children as well as home-schooling is challenging.

There’s a lot going on.”

D’Arcangelo says the crisis reaffirmed for her what is important in her life — personally and professionally — and what is not. “My family is so fortunate. I try to focus on how much we have that is good and what we’re doing to look out for others and make sure they don’t get sick.

The things that would stress you out in normal Deb D’Arcangelo ’82 works to treat the underappreciated impact times — for example, a messy house — you realize on mental health the COVID-19 crisis causes. mean nothing now.”

The work is ongoing, even if it looks and feels workers, transit employees and others who are making different. sure we have essential services but are worried about “I come to the office daily using appropriate social disexposure to disease. We launched a public relations camtancing,” she says. “Normally, there are hundreds of peopaign to help get the word out to all of these workers that ple coming through each week; our waiting room was full they can come to us for free. during the late afternoons and evenings. Even though peo“We also provide low-cost services to people with ple aren’t here physically, I know our services are happenlower incomes; they’re often essential workers with ing online. Our staff is very connected and still serving the underlying health conditions and are disproportionately community. The work continues even from afar.” E affected by COVID-19. Our waiting list for our low-fee

WOLFF KLABIN ’92

Plugging Holes in the Safety Net

By Sarah Zobel

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s a social entrepreneur, Wolff Klabin ’92 has

long been attuned to the needs of his fellow Brazilians. It was only natural, then, that when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Klabin immediately got to work, helping to establish União Rio (United

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Rio). It’s a collaboration among individuals and a handful of nongovernmental organizations to provide food for hungry people in Rio de Janeiro, a city of 13 million, and furnish hospitals with needed medical supplies, including personal protective equipment.

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“We’re putting all our energy in to help,” Klabin says. “We quickly realized the epidemic was going to have terrible consequences here, so we joined forces with specialists in the health sector.” Getting the NGOs — Instituto da Criança, Instituto Desiderata, Ekloos, Philantropia Inteligente, and Banco de Providencia, which focus primarily on human rights, health care and education — on board meant the infrastructures needed to conduct outreach were already largely in place, allowing the group to concentrate on fundraising.

“We live in a very poor country. For people in the favelas, it’s not just about not having any beds in the hospital, but about not having food to eat,” Klabin says. Roughly 100 reals (currently equivalent to about $20 U.S.) will feed a family of four for a month; União Rio is giving 100-real vouchers to families to use at local markets. Funds come from individual donations solicited by Klabin and his partners, as well as from celebrity asks and televised live music events.

“It’s really beautiful to see this current of solidarity,” Klabin says.

The money has also covered the purchase of 60,000-plus masks for health care professionals and local police. But the bulk of the União Rio budget — R$16 million — is earmarked for hospital beds: 200 will be provided for a temporary hospital to treat people with COVID-19 and another 60 will go to an existing hospital’s ICU. Some of the organization’s accomplishments are centered on making connections. Klabin says one Rio hospital had no ventilators, while another had ventilators and no need for them. Learning of this imbalance, a União Rio member who’s a doctor collected and transported the unused ventilators in his car to the hospital with patients in need.

When Klabin first arrived in the United States at age 15, sent because his parents wanted him to have greater educational opportunities, he didn’t speak English. A fivemonth intensive English course in Norman, Oklahoma, prepared him for two years at Exeter, where, among other activities, he hosted a Brazilian music program on WPEA. “I always felt very privileged, and also like an ambassador-representative of my country,” Klabin says. He went on to study government at Harvard before returning to Brazil and a job at JP Morgan. He left it after two years, and since then, he’s focused on social entrepreneurialism. Programs he’s founded or co-founded include Prep Estudar Fora, which supports underprivileged, high-performing public-school students. To date, it has successfully guided more than 400 Brazilian scholars through the U.S.

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Wolff Klabin ’92 launched a nonprofit in his native Brazil to help that country feed its underfed and provide financial assistance to those affected by COVID-19.

college admissions process, including paying application fees. Klabin serves as mentor to a student each year. He also co-founded Renova, a training program to help people understand how to run for political office. Last year alone, the organization prepared 120 candidates; 17 were elected to Brazil’s National Congress. More recently, Klabin founded Alexia Ventures to support entrepreneurs who “focus on large, capital-efficient disruptions that are often countercyclical and outside of ‘hype cycles.’”

All of that was put on hold when the COVID-19 crisis began.

“We’re trying to do our part,” says Klabin, who adds that União Rio’s successes have inspired the creation of similar movements in some 20 other states around Brazil.

“It makes us proud, but it also makes us frustrated we can’t do more. The state has a scale, but it’s slow to move, so we’re stepping in as a bridge. We’re just trying to save lives and move forward.” E

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—ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH JONES

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A Requiem for Edmund E. Perry ’85 R E M E M B E R I N G A B E LOV E D E XO N I A N 3 5 Y E A R S A F T E R H E WA S F ATA L LY S H O T B Y A P O L I C E O F F I C E R

By Sandra Guzmán

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n most nights, the sounds floating from senior Edmund E. Perry’s dorm room in McConnell Hall were funky fresh: Run DMC, Kool Moe Dee, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. These hip-hop artists may be considered ancient today, but back in the ’80s, the young innovators from New York City were birthing a cultural movement of music, dance, social consciousness and political ideologies that spoke to Black teens like Perry.

The 17-year-old Harlemite listened intently to the songs, dissecting and scrutinizing the lyrics to find meaning in every word. He had a deep curiosity to know beyond the superficial, a trait that motivated him to interrogate everything he heard and read. From Shakespeare to Afrika Bambaataa’s music — Perry went deeper than most. He understood that this music was his legacy, too, that he was part of a generation of Black men who could transform the world for the better.

“The first time he played Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Live! for me he gave me a commentary on each song with an extra 10 minutes on “No Woman, No Cry,” recalls Arminda Thomas ’89 with a laugh. “The thing that I most loved about him was the thing I most hated: He always asked, ‘Why, why, why?’ And sometimes I was too lazy to ask, ‘Why?’” Perry was the first student Thomas met at the Academy when she arrived from Memphis, Tennessee, as a lower. A young Black girl lost on campus, she says, she must’ve had a frightened, sad look. She was on her way to Langdell Hall and ended up on Spring Street by the bookstore. “Eddie saw me and introduced himself and walked me to my dorm, then gave me a tour of campus and we walked and talked,” Thomas says. “By the end of the day, we were dating.”

The relationship lasted one week. Perry asked to meet her for another walk along the paths to talk about the breakup. “He thought it was not fair that he was leaving and I was just arriving. We remained best of friends.”

Perry graduated from the Academy with honors in 1985 and headed home to New

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York City to begin working for a Wall Street brokerage firm for the summer before starting at Stanford University in the fall. Just 10 days later, 24-year-old plainclothes police officer Lee Van Houten fatally shot Perry, alleging the teen had tried to mug him.

“Eddie’s death left a gaping hole not just in the hearts of people who knew and loved him, but in the world,” Thomas says.

Accusations of excessive use of force and unnecessary killing of an unarmed Black teen by a white NYPD cop sent shock waves through the tightly knit Black community, the nation and the Exonian community. Candlelight vigils and protests erupted, not unlike what is happening in cities across America today — demonstrators demanded justice and an independent investigation. A grand jury ultimately cleared Van Houten of any wrongdoing in the shooting, saying he had acted in self-defense.

Friends say that if Perry, who was a leader of what is today the Afro-Latinx Exonian Society, were still alive, they have no doubt that he would be active in the current Black Lives Matter movement. “He would be angry and incredulous that not more had changed since the time he was a kid,” says Kennett Marshall ’85, one of Perry’s closest friends. “He would demand change and speak for it passionately and eloquently.”

Perry’s mother, Veronica, was a Head Start teacher and education activist who instilled

in her three children a deep love of God, family, community and learning. Perry, her second born, was her renaissance child. He enjoyed playing basketball and football, running track and dabbling in the arts — photography, poetry, music, design and dance.

Ed, as his family called him, was also a comic book collector who kept each of his Archie comics in its original plastic bag in pristine condition. One Christmas he overheard his mother saying she was low on money, so he sold his entire collection and gave her the cash. “He loved his Archie collection but was willing to part with it because his love of Mom and the family was bigger, more important,” recalls Perry’s older brother Jonah. “That was the kind of kid he was — selfless.”

A shy child, Perry first found his voice in middle school after starring in a school production of The Wiz. One of the fondest memories Jonah has of his brother was seeing Ed star as the Wiz, wearing a shiny silver shirt and pants with a black bow tie. “My mom sewed all the costumes under the artistic direction of Ed, who knew exactly how Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion should be dressed. It was a Black musical and it was great. He was so good playing the Wiz everyone talked about it for years. It was then that I saw him come out of his shell.”

Perry always dreamed of helping others through scientific research. “He wanted to find a cure for sickle cell,” Jonah says.

Their younger sister had the trait and while it was not grave, young Perry recognized that it was a disease that negatively affected millions of Black people around the globe.

“He was a big, bold thinker who wanted to use his smarts to change the world,” Jonah says. “It’s the values we were raised with. We didn’t just go to private school and work hard in school to get A’s and attend Ivy League colleges so that we could make money and become famous — for us, it was about helping our family and the Black community move forward.”

“EDDIE’S DEATH LEFT A GAPING HOLE NOT JUST IN THE HEARTS OF PEOPLE WHO KNEW AND LOVED HIM, BUT IN THE WORLD.”

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Perry was not only a kind heart, he was also brilliant. Friends and classmates say he would have blazed new trails in anything he chose to focus on, whether it was science, business, art, social justice or politics. “With his intelligence, big personality, competitive nature and desire to improve people’s lives, in particular

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Black and BIPOC, I have no doubt that Eddie would have become mayor of New York City if he wanted to,” Julio Peterson ’86 says. “He had everything going for him.”

Retired English Instructor David Webber recalls an astute student. When the class read Shakespeare’s King Lear, Webber says, Perry chose to examine a line uttered

by Lear’s daughter, Cordelia: “No cause, no cause.” “In Eddie’s case, this focus of the line was about honesty, about not pretending to feel what you weren’t feeling because there was social or conventional pressure to do so,” Webber says. “It seemed to me to fit with what I knew of him.”

“At Exeter there are hundreds of kids who are ridiculously awesome,” says Michael Eberstadt ’85, a fellow New Yorker. “But Eddie was one of those wicked smart kids who was extra ridiculously awesome — his energy, politics, his willingness to mix it up in a positive way. It’s not easy when you’re a teen; you have a lot of things on your mind: school, girls and sports. He was admirable.”

When Perry walked into a room, friends recall, people focused on him pretty quickly because he had a lot to say. Sometimes this brash directness would rub people the wrong way. But the gangly teen’s big and honest personality also showed itself in a more nuanced way. “A lot of times he would sit back and observe to see if the conversation was worth his time,” Marshall says. “He was also very patient with the whiteness of the school and the microaggressions he experienced, even when the ignorance was coming from a friend.”

Marshall recalls a time when he was in his room with Perry and they were getting ready to go to Grill and Perry was putting Vaseline on his arms. “I asked him if Vaseline is what Black people use to moisturize their skin,” Marshall remembers. “Eddie looked up and responded, ‘I don’t know if all Black people use Vaseline, Kennett, it’s what I use.’

I asked a stupid question and he gave me a straight-up answer. I always appreciated that about Eddie.”

“SPAIN CHANGED HIM. HE CAME BACK UNDERSTANDING THAT HE WAS PART OF A LARGE BLACK DIASPORA.”

Perry spent his upper year in Spain and friends say the experience transformed him.

Peterson, who shared Perry’s love of hoops and books, remembers that even though Spanish was his own first language, Perry spoke it better than he did. “Eddie’s Spanish was flawless; he loved reading Borges and Márquez,” he remembers. “Spain changed him. He came back understanding that he was part of a large Black diaspora. Spain for him was like when Malcolm X went to Mecca — he returned with an understanding of himself as a young Black man in the world and that his story was bigger.”

Witnessing the diversity of the people in Spain — ethnically, racially, culturally — coupled with convenient access to cities like Barcelona, it was as if a new, bigger world was now open to Perry. “I sensed that he felt accepted and cared for by the hosting family and he immersed himself in learning the Spanish language and culture there,” Andre Francois ’86 says. “He spoke about how much he enjoyed the food and the language, how he frequented the city often and the fun he had and how he missed the family who hosted him, especially their young child.”

Chris Fuller ’85, who got to know Perry when the two played pickup basketball at Love Gym, remembers how much it meant for Perry to go overseas, especially as a student receiving financial aid. “Going away gave him a peek beyond the duopoly of life, beyond what he had experienced: single mom, living in Harlem, white rich kids in white school in New Hampshire,” Fuller notes. “That was a tough dichotomy. Going to Spain opened up a different perspective, a different lens. He came back with a very mature

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look on all this and a reaffirmed commitment to have an impact on life and that he had to push that.”

Fuller also remembers the provocative speech Perry recited at a schoolwide assembly his senior year, “I Am a Black First,” which examined the Black student experience at Exeter and in America. “I am at Exeter, not to be like you, nor to prepare myself to enter your society as a Roy Wilkins or a James Meredith,” Perry said. “This school’s efforts to prepare me for that type of role in tomorrow’s world are futile. That no longer offers effective leadership for change, because it is based on the theory that a Black leader should strive for assimilation of the Black masses. Assimilation is no longer the solution, though. Civil rights, as a movement, is dying. My most effective role in tomorrow’s society will be to lead the advancement of Black power; and I, the New Black, dedicate my life to that role.”

The relentlessly honest speech shocked many students in attendance and served as a scorching rebuke of the racial inequality and insensitivity Perry felt on campus. At the end, Perry revealed he did not pen the words he had just read. The speech was originally written and delivered in chapel on March 4, 1968, by another Black student, Theophus “Thee” Smith ’69. “It was quite a powerful speech that reminds you that things hadn’t changed a lot,” Fuller says.

That assembly is emblazoned in Eberstadt’s memory as well. “Eddie’s salient point [was] that the particular challenges faced by an earlier generation of African-American students were still being faced today,” Eberstadt says. “I was so proud of Eddie. He had come into his own sense of power and self. It was awesome to see.”

“THE TIME HAS COME TO RECOGNIZE THE PERVASIVENESS OF STRUCTURAL RACISM.”

“When it really came down to it,” Marshall says. “Perry was just a kid most of the time

he was at Exeter. He was there from age 13 to 17, graduated, and was killed when he was still just 17.”

“I could not believe the number of PEA students that attended his funeral,” Francois says. “When the ceremony was over, I remember the lack of closure. This was not how Eddie’s story was supposed to turn out.”

Friends insist that Eddie’s story and tragic ending continue to offer lessons for the Academy and the country. “I say this as a white man,” Marshall says. “The time has come to recognize the pervasiveness of structural racism and to recognize how horribly people of color are still treated not only by police, but by so many legislators, judges, business leaders, and ordinary racist or clueless or silent members of our society. It’s the difficult conversation that Eddie would want us to have.”

Marshall hopes that today’s students are encouraged to read and write about Perry — to examine, to go deep as Perry did — and look at him in context of what has gone on over the past few months in our nation and since 1619, when the first African slaves arrived in mainland North America.

“Eddie was ‘woke’ as a 13-year-old at Exeter,” Marshall says. “He spent years trying desperately to express his view of how bad things were for ‘his people’ in American society, to awaken the promising young minds at Exeter to the injustice that he lived and knew to be reality. He spoke out constantly about injustice in a very direct way, and he was in large part ostracized and criticized for it by not only many students but by faculty and later journalists who should have known better.”

To ensure Perry’s legacy continued to touch the lives of Exonians in very tangible ways, a group of his classmates — including Eberstadt, Fuller and Stephanie

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Neal-Johnson ’85 — came together at their five-year reunion to create a fund in his memory. The Eddie Perry ’85 Fund, established in 1991, was designed to provide aid to a Black senior who demonstrated leadership. Over the years, the fund has grown to support additional students of color from low-income families, providing for everyday items that other scholarships don’t address but are quite necessary. “It’s not super glamorous,” explains Stephanie Bramlett, Exeter’s director of equity and inclusion, who helps distribute the fund, along with the dean of the Office of Multicultural Affairs. “The things we help students with are small, but significant, like a coat to make it through harsh New Hampshire winters, eyeglasses, or repair services for broken laptops,” she says.

“Sometimes it seems random, but the quality of the fund is that we fund the basics so that students can compete intellectually at the table.”

Eberstadt is passionate about the fund and the myriad ways it can improve the lives of individual BIPOC students as well as the Exeter community as a whole. “The money has been well used over time and last year we endowed the fund,” he says. “The relevance of Eddie Perry — from a political and historical perspective — is that he is a part of the horrific 400-year-old American narrative of racism.”

Eberstadt has been following closely the Black@Exeter Instagram page — an independent, non-Academy account where Black students and alumni are sharing personal stories of racism they experienced on campus and in the town of Exeter. “This is not the proverbial few bad apples at Exeter; Black and brown students who have been accepted are fully entitled to having an experience at Exeter that is challenging and interesting, but not miserable in a racial way,” Eberstadt says. “Clearly the experience of Black students at Exeter is different than the white students and the time for a reckoning and real change is here.”

He points out that successful institutions are the ones that face racism head-on.

“This is going to be messy — heads will roll, people will get angry — but this is what happens when you wrestle with the truth and the past,” Eberstadt says. “I hope that Exeter will have the wherewithal and steadiness to take their lumps, accept that they deserve their lumps, and work to fix the school.

This is clearly the moment for systemic change to happen.”

When the nation saw the George Floyd video, he says, they knew Floyd did not have to die, and neither did Perry. “Even without a video and even if the specifics of the events are different, I always have had the same basic feeling with Eddie’s death — it should not have happened,” In addition to the Eddie Perry ’85 Fund, Exeter Eberstadt says. “And, it did happen preis fortunate to draw from a number of other cisely because Eddie was Black. This never would have happened to me. And endowed funds. From providing scholarships that difference is the heart of the matter. and financial aid to low-income students of Lynching, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, color to ensuring resources for the purchase of police brutality — it’s all the same thing. classroom books and intercultural programming And it all happens to Black people. At and training for the community, generous Exeter, I believe that all students and donors have long supported the Academy’s faculty should learn both about Eddie Perry as well as the overall American efforts to provide a more equitable and inclusive history of race. The result will be a more experience for all students. empathic school for everyone.”

To read more about these funds, go to exeter.

“Eddie was interested in engagement; edu/funds. he challenged us to go deeper,” Thomas says. “This quality feels rare. Questions that ask, ‘Why?’ get to the core. Eddie would want us to rewind and ask why.” E

In Support of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

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FROM EVERY QUARTER

E XO N I A N S M A K E C O N N E C T I O N S AT H O M E A N D A R O U N D T H E WO R L D

In the face of a global pandemic, Exeter’s community of alumni remained connected, gathering together online from points across North America and around the world. In true Exeter fashion, Exonians showed up with enthusiasm and ingenuity to help make events fun, meaningful, educational and inclusive.

VIRTUAL Engagement 46 virtual events 1,500 alumni participants 22 class minireunions Exeter Industry

MEETUPS

A new virtual networking experience is off and running, featuring Exonians sharing advice and best practices related to their industry and professions. Molly Silvia ’11, senior marketing and communications manager at Nickerson, hosted the first Zoom meetup for professionals in marketing and public relations. Academy Trustee Peter “Scotch” Scocimara ’82; P’16, P’18, Google’s senior director of cloud support, spoke about small business and entrepreneurs. And award-winning New Orleans chef Jason Goodenough ’97 hosted an event for hospitality professionals.

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Exeter in

HOLLYWOOD

Brandon Riegg ’95, vice president of nonfiction series and comedy specials at Netflix, talked about his career in an event hosted by Jeff Locker ’89, actor, playwright and author. Among topics discussed were “Tiger King” and “The Last Dance,” two of the programs Riegg’s team is responsible for bringing to television.

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Harkness Discussions on Racism

In response to recent anti-Black racism and violence, Alumni Relations worked with their volunteers and Russell Weatherspoon, instructor in religion and director of Exeter Summer, to host a series of virtual Harkness discussions on racism. More than 500 alumni joined the discussions, which started with a focus on the Greater New York region, and then expanded to include Exonians from around the globe.

PARENTS

Parents and guardians are invited to visit

www.exeter.edu/parents for the latest updates on all events scheduled for the 2020-21 school year.

Additional ways for Exeter parents to connect are included in the parent newsletters and the email invitations from the Family Engagement and Giving Office. Contact familyengagement@ exeter.edu with questions or ideas!

Creating

CONVERSATIONS

In the first discussion with Exeter innovators, leaders and entrepreneurs, journalist Brian Shactman ’90 of NBC 10 Boston and NECN spoke to activist Tom Steyer ’75 about his current work in California to facilitate equitable economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Please visit the events calendar at www.exeter.edu/ alumni and select Alumni Virtual Events for a complete list of engagement opportunities.

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CLASS

Gatherings

1955 &1957

provided extensive reading recommendations for their classmates. In March, the class of 1955 book project, I Can Still See it Now, was published and features works by a number of classmates and several PEA students.

1953 1964 1974

held a virtual event on navigating their 67th year since graduation. hosted meetings for musical performances, orations and amusing rants.

listened to a concert performed by Gli Scalatori (Italian madrigals), one of the student music ensembles whose spring break plans to perform in Italy were cancelled due to COVID-19.

2009

ramped it up on their class calls, hosting workouts with Lauren Greer, a theatrical costuming webinar with Sam Reckford, an open mic night with music by Lucy Duan and Andrew Weinstein, a cooking class called “The Stew” with Jen Solyanik, and a carrot cake bake-off.

2005 1988

held a virtual reunion with music by classmate Nick Curcio and his band, Ephemeral Fires.

offered an opportunity to check in, share perspectives and hear from physicians in the class who fielded questions about the pandemic.

Dorm Events Highlights

Alumni from 1979, 1980 and 1981 welcomed Soule sisters to a dorm reunion organized by Leonie Glen ’80 and Miriam Leuchter ’81.

The class of 1995 held a day-student gathering hosted by Kelley O’Connell and Ben Wagner, and 22 Langdell ladies from the class responded to Keya Guimarraes’ invitation for a dorm-specific Zoom.

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Whole Genome Sequencing

...continued from page 31

tools and putting them together. If you consider all of that, it’s been pretty complex.”

Govindarajan’s approach to this hurdle is typical of how he handles problems, Rankin observes: “He sees the outcome for himself. And the outcome is not so much a better working product, but how much he will learn in the process of doing it.”

NICE TO HAVE COMPANY

Since the campus shutdown, Govindarajan has been working next to his father, both seated at desks in a sun-filled home office just a few miles from Exeter’s campus. Behind him is an upright piano. (Govindarajan’s passions include playing the piano and the violin; he also loves plane spotting and learning languages — he speaks three: Tamil, his native tongue, French and English.) He can turn to his father any time for a chat, a question or to share a success.

Early in the term, Govindarajan set up a rhythm that included a weekly Zoom call with Rankin, his senior project adviser, and Kockel, research scientist at the Stanford lab. “A lot of times, we would combine our forces and talk about not only how to use computers to analyze the data, but what the bigger picture of it is in biology and how the two interrelate,” Govindarajan explains. “At the beginning, I would show my results, and they would have a hard time understanding them because they’re biologists, not computer scientists. I would show a giant table full of information, and it would be incomprehensible. I learned how to present my data in a way that other people can understand. On the flip side, I also learned how to ask for more clarification when they were talking about something that I didn’t really understand.”

FLY OR HUMAN?

The data came back from Genewiz with high marks, but it still needed to be tested to verify that it was, in fact, fruit fly DNA and not from some other source (human cells or yeast, for example). To do this, Govindarajan compared the millions of snippets, or “reads,” of SU M M E R

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DNA to the reference Drosophila melanogaster genome (published as one of the first whole genome sequences two years before Govindarajan was born). Snippets that didn’t find a match against the fruit fly were compared to other genomes to determine their source.

The next step was an alignment that “takes all the reads, which are just randomly located everywhere, and it tries to say, ‘Where is this read found within the genome?’” Govindarajan explains. “We were really only expecting something like 60% of the reads to align, but we got over 97%,” an indication that the data was extremely high quality.

After that, the focus turned to matching the validated reads against specific locations in the genome. This exercise generated the whole genome sequence. Based on that, Govindarajan could undertake the process of mapping transposable elements and research differences between StanEx-1 and the reference genome.

SURPRISING FINDINGS

On June 1 at 4:30 p.m., more than 20 people sign on to Zoom to watch Govindarajan present his project. Kim and Kockel from Stanford are there, along with Exeter faculty and staff, a handful of Exeter students, and teachers from other schools involved in the StanEx project.

Ten minutes in, Govindarajan, wearing glasses and an open-necked lightblue shirt, shows visible excitement as he ramps up to his findings. He compares the quest for the hot spot to sailing into a tiny island in the ocean. We discovered the island by chance, he explains, while making the insertions in the StanEx-1 stocks. With the StanEx-1 whole genome sequence, it’s as if “we’ve taken a satellite image of the entire ocean and we were able to find this island at exactly the spot where we expected it. That lets us know that our entire process is working.”

With the proof of process established, Govindarajan announces that he has discovered two unpredicted characteristics in the DNA, both of which he hopes to research further over the summer. The first is that the StanEx-1 strain has significant differences (more than 200 new transposable elements) when compared to the published Drosophila melanogaster genome, a finding that surprised even the

scientists at Stanford. The second is that there is evidence of possible other attractor sites, in addition to the known hot spot, within the StanEx-1 line.

‘A PURE QUESTION’

During the Q&A that immediately follows, Kim congratulates Govindarajan on developing the workflow and pipeline to be able to analyze a whole genome sequence on something as complex as the fruit fly, adding that the project was “audacious” and could well “have gone awry.” Kim says: “The key question would be, ‘Who’s already done this or been able to use whole genome sequencing as a tool to assess something like the metastability of transposable elements in the species?’ … It’s a pure question in a way. … It’s more, ‘What is the natural history of this thing?’ I think if the answer is there’s nothing published on that, then that’s an opportunity.”

“I have not found a single paper mentioning a single line of explanation,” Kockel pipes up, referring to the existence of 200 natural transposable elements in StanEx-1 that are not in the reference genome. “You can take two views to this: [One is that] this is just mind-bogglingly complex. The other side is it’s really exciting because I think this is actually a novel thing that is not described at all. I hope I don’t let my excitement gallop away with me here, but this is really exciting data.”

As questions wind down, Govindarajan relaxes. He may be thinking already about the summer, when he will have the chance to explore further for the sheer sake of learning. Where do those 200 transposable elements exist?

Do they have an impact as a controlling force to explain the hot spots observed in StanEx-1? Will a new fly line (currently called StanEx-4) resolve the issue with the hot spots observed in StanEx-1? For Govindarajan, these and other questions are starting points for the next few months’ work. He will undoubtedly enjoy extending his project, which he identifies as one of the most “thrilling” things he has ever done: “I had to learn how to create and refine a question, so it really felt like discovery. … This is new, cutting-edge research that we’re doing. The results that I find have not been seen by any other person.” E

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F I N I S

O R I G I N E

P E N D E T

Being Bi and Brown

By Kileidria Aguilar ’20 Bows and beatbox And brownies and banquets And brown bottoms Be so goddamn beautiful.

ALLAN BURCH

Beliefs and blemishes And busboys and boycotts And being bisexual Be so goddamn beautiful.

Brown babies, butterfly bravery Becoming Bigger and badder Bearing bigots and bullets And breakdowns and backlash And beatings, bottled up Black bees beckoning the broken Bitterness to be buried.

Goddamn.

Don’t you know, we were Born Beyond beautiful. E

Editor’s Note: This poem originally appeared in the studentfounded publication Unite: Gender & Sexuality at PEA: Past & Present, Volume II.

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Share Your Story

In 1970, girls first sat at the Harkness table. Their voices have grown in number ever since. It’s time to celebrate all they bring to the Exeter experience.

Join us in commemorating 50 years of coeducation. Add your voice to this historic story project designed to highlight the past, present and future impact of Exeter alumnae at the Academy and in the world.

Visit exeter.edu/myvoice

PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY 20 Main Street Exeter, NH 03833-2460

Parents of Alumni: If this magazine is addressed to an Exonian who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please email us (records@exeter.edu) with their new address. Thank you.

HONORING EXTRAORDINARY SERVICE Joh

llips Award is

bestowed upon an alumnus or alumna for outstanding contribution to the welfare of community, country and humanity.

Founders Day Award