The Exeter Bulletin FA L L 2 0 1 9
Out of this World STUDENTS SET THEIR SIGHTS ON S P A C E E X P L O R AT I O N
NOV. 6-9
RISE TO THE
CHALLENGE Leading into the heart of E/A Weekend, Exeter will compete against Andover in an online fundraising challenge. The school that tallies the most donor participants wins.
Make a gift to get in the game. | exeter.edu/rally The Exeter Fund
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 John A. Downer ’75 Vice President Wole C. Coaxum ’88 Ciatta Z. Baysah ’97, Suzi Kwon Cohen ’88, Walter C. Donovan ’81, Mark A. Edwards ’78, Claudine Gay ’88, Peter A. Georgescu ’57, Jacqueline J. Hayes ’85, Jennifer P. Holleran ’86, Cia Buckley Marakovits ’83, Sally J. Michaels ’82, Daniel C. Oakley ’80, Deidre G. O’Byrne ’84, William K. Rawson ’71, Peter M. Scocimara ’82, Serena Wille Sides ’89, Morgan C. Sze ’83, Kristyn M. Van Ostern ’96 and E. 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 2019 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
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“WE’RE GIVING THE STUDENTS A FLAVOR FOR WHAT BEING AN ASTRONOMER IS REALLY LIKE.” —page 28
IN THIS ISSUE
Volume CXXIV, Issue no. 1
Features 28 Space Cowboys Two seniors are working to inspire peers about space exploration. Plus, PEA’s new telescope and a look back at how the cosmos became part of the curriculum. By Jennifer Wagner
34 Not by the Numbers Exeter’s custom-made math curriculum aims to develop problem-solvers. By Patrick Garrity
40 Encore! Encore! 34 40
Celebrating a year of the Goel Center. Compiled by Karen Ingraham
44 Life on the Trail A Q&A with presidential candidates Tom Steyer ’75 and Andrew Yang ’92.
Departments 6
Around the Table: Meet the Trustees, Exeter Annotated, Campus Life at a Glance and more
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Inside the Writing Life: Madeleine Henry ’10
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Sports: The Anatomy of a Rivalry
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Connections: Catching up with our alumni
104 Finis Origine Pendet: Courtney Sender —Cover photo by Christian Harrison SU M M E R
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Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 reveals new class T-shirts during Opening Assembly. PHOTO BY CHRISTIAN HARRISON
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AROUND THE TABLE
What’s new and notable at the Academy
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The Exeter Way By Principal William K. Rawson ’71; P’08
E CHERYL SENTER
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xeter’s mission, captured powerfully in our Deed of Gift, to educate youth from every quarter in both knowledge and goodness, will never change. During my Opening of School address in September, I told students, “What you will accomplish in life, how you will live useful lives and the difference you will make will be shaped by what you learn and do here.” Our commitment to graduating compassionate, lifelong learners influences everything we do at Exeter, just as it did 51 years ago when I entered the school as a new lower. We do not stay excellent, however, by staying the same. The 50th anniversary of coeducation, which we will celebrate next year, is a profound reminder of that. The admittance of girls to Exeter critically redefined “youth from every quarter” and challenged our school community to think more broadly about the diversity of our student body — establishing, in the process, a greater need to ensure every member of our community has a deep sense of belonging and an equal opportunity to thrive here. Our success or failure in this pursuit is measured one individual at a time, and we continue to put students first in all that we do — their health and wellness, their feeling of belonging, and their appetite for rigorous academic inquiry and thoughtful discourse. Each student should be able to thrive outside and inside of the classroom, and we see the two as related, not independent. Last year, I hosted more than 30 events at Saltonstall House that included students. I have opened my doors to students again this year, and look forward to a year spent alongside them at the Harkness table, as well as through their dorm activities, extracurricular pursuits, athletic matches, performances, and other activities. As a community, we are strong and in good health, but there are many opportunities for us to build upon the hard work already underway. I am grateful to work with a community of adults whose mindset of constant examination and innovation positions us to consider the future with great anticipation. We must steward Exeter with courage, confidence and humility to grasp our opportunities and to address our challenges. We will do this the “Exeter way,” with an unfailing commitment to excellence and personal growth; an accountability to oneself and others; respect, gratitude, humility and generosity of spirit. E
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Meet Our Trustees
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xeter’s Trustees welcomed two new members to their ranks this summer. Jaqueline J. Hayes ’85 and Cia Buckley Marakovits ’83 began five-year appointments. We thank them for their dedicated service to Exeter.
JACQUELINE J. HAYES ’85
Hayes grew up in the small city of Evanston, Illinois. It was her fondness for a close-knit community that made her heart leap when she first visited Exeter’s campus. She entered as a prep and lived in Bancroft, later becoming a Bancroft proctor. Hayes spent much of her time in her other “residence” on campus: Fisher Theater. She studied theater arts and was involved in many productions, in roles both on stage and behind the scenes. In her senior year, she served as president of DRAMAT and sang with the PEADQUACS. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard with a concentration in French and American History and Literature, Hayes enrolled in Harvard Law School, graduated in 1992, and moved to New York to join the small firm of Moses & Singer. Her hours as a young associate spent in close proximity to Broadway’s bright lights only proved to torment her, so she moved to Boston and worked at the Goulston & Storrs firm. In 1996, Hayes and her future husband moved to Los Angeles, where she found that perfect balance between her intellectual love of legal issues and her passion for the arts when she joined Warner Bros. She has served as the general counsel of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment since 2015 and was promoted recently to executive vice president and general counsel of Warner Media Entertainment. She now manages the production and programming legal teams for HBO, the Turner channels, Otter Media, and the HBO Max service that will launch in 2020. Since graduating from Exeter, Hayes has served the Academy as an Admissions volunteer, as a GAA board member and as a GAA trustee. She believes much of her professional success is due to the experiences and skills she gained around the Harkness table and in
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Fisher Theater. She is honored to serve the Academy as a second-term Trustee. Hayes lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Jeff Branion, and their daughter, Hannelore, who is her greatest production of all.
CIA BUCKLEY MARAKOVITS ’83
Marakovits was a three-year student coming from Holy Spirit High School in her hometown of Absecon, New Jersey. She lived in Bancroft and Dunbar halls and participated in The Exonian, PEAN, ESSO, basketball and crew. She also served as a volunteer guide and class officer. She received an MBA from Columbia University and an A.B. in Economics from Lafayette College. Marakovits has held volunteer leadership positions with Exeter, including as class of 1983 president and vice president and major gift chairwoman for her 15th and 30th reunions. She is co-owner and chief information officer at Dune Real Estate Partners, a New York City-based real estate private equity investment firm. Marakovits is also a member of the Urban Land Institute, where she has been a trustee and member of the board and is currently a member of the Investment Committee. Other board memberships include: Board of Directors of Taubman Centers, Inc., a NYSE-listed REIT (real estate investment trust); and Board of Trustees of Collegiate School in New York City. She serves as a member of Columbia Business School’s MBA Real Estate Program Advisory Board and is a member of the executive committee of the Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center at the Wharton School. She is a member of Women Executives in Real Estate (WX) and was honored as the WX Woman of the Year in 2011. Marakovits was selected by PERE as one of the Top Ten Women in Real Estate Private Equity in 2012 and received an award recognizing leadership and achievement in capital markets from the Association of Real Estate Women in 2013. She and her husband, Bob Marakovits, live in New York City with their two teenage sons, Owen and Kyle. E
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Letters to the Editor ‘I, TOO, AM ONE OF HAMMY’S BOYS’
Bissell
I’m writing to tell you how much I identified with the feature “A Living Legacy” in the summer 2019 edition of The Exeter Bulletin. I, too, am one of the many “Hammy’s boys.” Hammy entered my life, unexpectedly, in 1955 and shaped my destiny in ways that I couldn’t imagine back then. It all began with my receiving a two-cent postcard from someone named Mr. H. Hamilton Bissell, director of scholarship boys at Phillips Exeter Academy. At that time, my family (and probably everyone else in the small Minnesota farm-country village where I lived) knew nothing about Mr. Bissell and the Academy he represented. I would learn later that because I was a paperboy for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Bissell had learned about my academic record through that paper, and apparently thought that I might have the right stuff to become an Exonian. The social, emotional and academic shocks of a sudden transplant from small-town Minnesota to a famous prep school in New England were challenging. Bissell helped make the process financially manageable by purchasing Minneapolis-to-Boston airline tickets for my travel and also sending me to an Exeter town clothing store for slacks and a sport coat with leather elbow patches that would make me look preppy-ish, rather than like a boy right out of cornfield farm country. After Exeter, I earned a B.A. at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, followed by a geology Ph.D. at Stanford University. I’ve often mused about what my life would have been without the PEA “intervention.” I’ll of course never know the answer. But I got a great education that began by becoming one of Hammy’s boys. Wendell Duffield ’59 Greenbank, Washington
FOREVER INDEBTED
I was one of Hammy’s boys, but was recruited by his Los Angeles “deputy,” Bob Mason ’05 (1905, that is). With a scholarship of $1,000 against tuition of $1,100, I climbed aboard a Greyhound bus for my first trip past the Arizona border. By Christmas, I was failing math and Spanish and trying to figure out how to piece together holiday invitations from newfound friends, since we couldn’t afford the roundtrip bus fare to Los Angeles. Hammy called me into his office, and I feared the worst. Instead, he said that the school thought I should go home for Christmas and offered to buy me a round-trip train ticket. Exeter changed my life for the better, and I am forever indebted to her. I am glad to see that it continues to reach into all corners, geographically as well as economically and culturally. Gratefully, Dick Walker ’51 La Jolla, California
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Photo Bomb
JASON BREMILLER
PIYA BRYANT
The photograph of Alex Fraser ’21 in an ice cave in Iceland shown on page 15 of the summer Bulletin (and at left) was fantastic. The photo credit was not. We should have credited Johanna Calderon ’21 with taking the image during a Global Initiatives trip in June. To make up for the error, we offer some more photos from that trip, led by English Instructor Jason BreMiller.
JASON BREMILLER
ISA MATSUBAYASHI
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The Stories English Instructor Mercy Carbonell’s Classroom Tells By Wes LaFountain ’69
CHRISTIAN HARRISON (ALL)
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ucked at the far end of the basement level of Phillips Hall, English Instructor Mercy Carbonell’s classroom is a visual invitation. There are books to look at for sure, stacks of them along every wall, but also vintage multilingual posters, framed team photos, ink drawings, a Native American dream catcher, even a half-bust mannequin sporting a scarf. All are items that Carbonell has accumulated during her 22-year career teaching and coaching at the Academy. “I love my room and sometimes I wish I could find ways to arrange all the clutter,” she says. “Sometimes I wish I was not quite a hoarder of stories and art and student lives, but it might be best to let go and just be who I am.” She is a collector of stories, carefully preserved in the keepsakes that fill her room. “The idea of objects as carrying stories and meaning and intimacy and proximity has always mattered,” she says. “I hold on to things so somehow I won’t forget the thing itself. … I’m terrified of losing my memory.” We visited Room 013 to learn more about a few of the pieces that can’t help but catch the eye. E
This quote from author James Joyce is attributed to “D.S.,” or the “Dining Society,” a group of boys who gathered for cooking lessons and conversation with Carbonell during her days as a faculty adviser in Dunbar Hall. “I love the history of etched names on the table and the moment when an alum comes in to find their name,” she says. 1 0 • T H E
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The first rubber ducks floated into Carbonell’s life through her late partner Christine Robinson, a fellow English instructor. Over time, the ducks multiplied and by 1996 they famously started showing up in goal cages at field hockey practice. Carbonell has been a coach throughout her time at Exeter.
Carbonell says she “would not be here [at Exeter]” if not for her friend and colleague Peter Greer ’58. He snapped this photo of an outdoor mural in San Francisco after 9/11. The large eyes provide a “wonderful entrée to an individual’s personality, character. ... An invitation to ‘see inside,’” Carbonell says.
These calcified pomegranates are part of a final art project Alex Fankuchen ’06 created for Carbonell’s senior elective course Spring in Love. “They have endured,” she says. “I love that moment in [Virginia] Woolf’s To the Lighthouse when she writes about ‘the thing is made that endures.’”
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The Impromptu Birding Society A N E W Y O R K C I T Y T R A N S P L A N T F I N D S C O M M U N I T Y AT E X E T E R By Sandra Guzmán
Sandra Guzmán (above) and fellow members of the Impromptu Birding Society on the bridge (right) spot a heron wading in the Exeter River.
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ou could say that a dead man introduced me to birding. Shortly after moving from New York City to Exeter with my husband, Willie Perdomo, who was joining the Academy faculty as an English instructor, I was walking home on Tan Lane when I heard the sweetest music flowing from Phillips Church. I was still learning my way around campus, and curiosity about the church and the sounds emanating from it inspired me to walk in. I sat quietly on a bench in the back and listened to speaker after speaker share delightful memories of English Instructor Peter Greer ’58. I remember most vividly his friends talking about his passion for birds. Greer had taken more than 30 birding trips to Canada, Costa Rica, the Caribbean and as far away as New Zealand. But I’m told his favorite birds were locals — chief among them the bluebird. By happenstance, I met Greer’s widow, Dale Ann Atkins, a few days later and mentioned that I had gone to her husband’s memorial. “I wish I had met him,” I confessed. On the spot, she invited me into the Impromptu Birding Society, or IBS, a small group of Exonians — including Peter’s friends; retired math, religion, English, history and science instructors; faculty spouses; the Academy’s doctor; and an occasional faculty kid — who meet, when weather permits, to bird. The IBS was officially formed on the Saturday of Greer’s memorial, in 2014, by Dave Weber ’71, ’74, ’83 (Hon.); P ’92 — English instructor emeritus and Greer’s close friend and birding partner. As mourners gathered by the Exeter Woods for a walk, people say a bluebird arrived and perched in a nearby tree. Dave thought it was a sign that the group should keep meeting, and five years later, he continues to scout locations and lead adventures. The first morning I joined the group at Kwaks Wildlife Sanctuary in Newmarket, Atkins brought me a stunning surprise — Greer’s binoculars. I felt blessed to be looking at birds through his “eyes.” That day, we saw a brood of ovenbirds, including three babies. The remarkable scene was so cute and so rare that it compelled one of my fellow birders to recite lines from the classic Robert Frost poem, “The Oven Bird.” Intriguingly, these New Hampshire outings remind me of my magical childhood in the Caribbean and long-ago moments with my grandfather, mother and aunties. They
PHOTOS BY CHRISTIAN HARRISON
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were my first teachers, patiently explaining the flora and fauna of the rain and dry forests that dot Puerto Rico, the island of my birth. Now, as often as I can, I wake up to greet the daylight and go on long walks with my fellow birders, hoping to get lucky and catch a glimpse of an indigo bunting or a whitethroated sparrow, or hear the songs of a chickadee or a wood thrush. This summer, birding gave me an unexpected gift. At my feet, the forest floor pulsated with a sea of bluets, violets, ferns and wild pink lady’s-slipper orchids (I counted 49). I imagine Georgia O’Keeffe would have had a field day painting them. The realization I had was sublime: Birding is not just for the birds. Being part of the Impromptu Birding Society has stretched my heart and offered me community. But also, the walks remind me about the ancient wisdom of my native clan — that we are not part of nature; instead, we are nature. A lovely man whom I never got to meet while he lived on this earthly plane introduced me to birding and I am forever grateful. E
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Class Connections On the eve of fall term, Exeter students gathered by class year to make new friends and catch up with old ones. The daylong orientation program — launched in 2017 thanks to funding from an anonymous donor — aims to provide greater opportunity for classmates to form bonds and support one another during the year.
AND THEY’RE OFF: Max Oulundsen ’21 and Hojun Choi ’21 steer and push to victory.
SWING SHIFT: Catherine Merrill ’23 goes for a ride.
TEAMWORK: Members of the class of 2023 get Maxwell Li over the wall.
LISTEN UP: Senior Jasper Yu addresses his classmates. HERE’S ONE FOR YOU: Aiden Silvestri ’22 quizzes a classmate. P H O T O S B Y D A V I D M U R R AY, M A R Y S C H W A L M , C H R I S T I A N H A R R I S O N , P AT R I C K G A R R I T Y
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SENIOR CLASS: The class of 2020 gathers in Thompson Field House for an impromptu class photo.
DON’T LOOK DOWN: Classmates offer new meaning to upper year.
OFF TO A GOOD START: Prisha Jain ’22 connects with a classmate.
SPECIAL GUEST: Principal Bill Rawson visits the lowers. WAIT, WHAT?: Osiris Russell-Delano ’21 and Ella Malysa ’21 prepare.
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Finding Common Ground P O E T A N D AU T H O R R I C H A R D B L A N C O O N W R I T I N G F RO M L I F E By Sandra Guzmán
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he excitement was palpable in Instructor Erica Lazure’s English class when author
Richard Blanco entered the room. The students seated around the Harkness table had spent their summer immersed in Blanco’s coming-of-age memoir, The Prince of Los Cocuyos, and were eagerly anticipating his campus visit in September. Blanco has written more than a dozen poetry collections and chapbooks. In 2013, he catapulted to national fame after being named President Barack Obama’s second inaugural poet. His latest book was the assigned reading for all 201 incoming preps — a first for the Academy. According to Tyler Caldwell, English instructor and Ninth Grade Program coordinator, the goal of the common reading was to create a sense of community and a base for discussion within the prep class. Blanco’s novel offers much to talk about as he explores his immigrant Cuban and American childhood in Miami, his homosexuality, and the often painful and difficult acculturation process of his parents and grandparents. The author’s daylong stay at the Academy was eventful. It included meeting with the Latinx and the Gender and Sexuality Alliance affinity clubs; speaking at assembly; hosting a lunch conversation in Phillips Hall where students engaged with him more casually; and visiting classes.
IN-CLASS LESSON
Lazure’s class began with each student introducing themselves and sharing an interesting fact that no one would know about them. It was an apt icebreaker for Blanco’s lesson on the use of detail in writing. The first thing he told students was to forget the most popular writing advice: show, don’t tell. Instead, he encouraged them to delve deeper and unpack the meaning of what he believes has become a hollow cliché. He advised the young writers to focus on the five senses to bring readers into the world they are describing. “Sensory details are the bridge between two understandings — the writer and the reader,” he explained. “We experience the world through our five senses, so you have to use sensory PHOTOS BY CHRISTIAN HARRISON
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Author Richard Blanco visits a prep English class and urges students to think beyond “show, don’t tell” in their writing.
details because they are the language of the experience of what it means to be human.” By example, Blanco read “Looking for The Gulf Motel,” a poem inspired by memories of family vacations on Florida’s Marco Island. On his 38th birthday, he told students, he returned to the island and, after three decades of development, everything about the place had changed. He says he felt a similar longing to what his parents must have felt for a Cuba they had lost. The themes he touches on in the shimmering poem include time, place, culture, nostalgia, family, memory, loss and love: “… My mother should still be in the kitchenette of The Gulf Motel, her daisy sandals from Kmart squeaking across the linoleum, still gorgeous in her teal swimsuit and amber earrings stirring a pot of arroz-con-pollo, adding sprinkles of onion powder and dollops of tomato sauce. My father should still be in a terrycloth jacket smoking, clinking a glass of amber whiskey in the sunset at The Gulf Motel, watching us dive into the pool, two sons he’ll never see grow into men who will be proud of him.” “This poem lives in me as a sensory experience,” Blanco explained. “When I read it, I have to move my foot as my mother would her flip-flops, or I have to hold the glass like my father would his glass of whiskey, or feel the
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cigar in my mouth as he would have it.” He recommended that students cultivate the practice of reading their work out loud to themselves, roommates, a cat or a stuffed animal, even if they sound “like crazy people.” Reading out loud, he said, transforms words on a page into moving energy and a sensory experience.
A POEM REVISED
As part of the poetic exercise, Blanco encouraged the students to rewrite a section of his poem, adding their own sensorial descriptions. Soon his Cuban mom was transformed into a social media maven. Instead of flipflops, she was wearing Vans, which she purchased on Amazon and not at Kmart. Her teal swimsuit was traded in for a long white T-shirt and short shorts. And instead of arroz-con-pollo, she made vegan organic quinoa salad. The class laughed at the vast difference between Blanco’s mother in the poem and what she had become in their 2019 teen imaginations. “I imagined what [Mr. Blanco] sounded like when I was reading the book, but now I know better his personality,” said Sofia Morais ’23. “He was as funny in person as he was in the book.” For Cassidy Hurabiell Trader ’23, having Blanco as a teacher made the learning experience complete: “I loved that I was able to meet the character in the book and also the person who wrote it.” E
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They Grow Up So Fast 2 0 2 0 C L A S S M AT E S TA L K A B O U T THEIR EXETER EXPERIENCE In the early days of fall term three years ago, we introduced in these pages members of the class of 2020. They were new to Exeter, excited and anxious. They were eager to explore their new school, make new friends and embrace the opportunities ahead. We caught up with those students to see how their Exeter experience has unfolded — and find out what their hopes are for their final year at the Academy.
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Dallas, Texas Hoyt Hall You said three years ago, “I want to squeeze every ounce of creativity and creation out of Exeter.” Have you? I think that I’ve definitely taken on a lot and worked with so many great organizations and people to create some amazing things. And, it’s been creativity in a way I wasn’t expecting. I underestimated so much, so many parts of Exeter that I wasn’t looking forward to or was afraid of. What are some things that you have discovered about yourself during this time? I am not afraid to fail. And I love failing. Not in the normal sense but, I think, you know, taking leaps and falling down has been part of my Exeter experience, because it’s taught me that with all the support systems we have here, it’s worth it to take that risk and find something that you never even thought you would love. And falling in love with it.
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PHOTOS BY CHRISTIAN HARRISON
Leah Delacruz
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Lawrence, Massachusetts Hoyt Hall If you could tell yourself something you didn’t know when you came here, what would it be? I’d say get out of my dorm room and actually just go explore. I remember being just so nervous and so shy and overthinking everything I was saying. Especially at the Harkness table, I would stay silent; I was so scared of saying the wrong thing. So, I’d say branch out and make more friends. When do you think that clicked for you? When I went abroad in the School Year Abroad Program to Spain. Everybody was new, so I had to branch out and had to talk to people. In classes, I actually felt like I could just talk because we were all starting from the beginning with our Spanish language. I’m thinking, “Everyone is making mistakes anyways. I might as well join in and learn from them.”
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Leah Cohen
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Allentown, Pennsylvania Amen Hall What’s the best advice you’d give your prep self? Ask. For. Help. Definitely, ask for help. I think I came into Exeter thinking that everybody knows exactly what they’re doing, and knows how to study, knows how to do this all by themselves. It took me until the middle of lower year to really reach out to my teachers, and ask for help. What are you most looking forward to in your last year? I’m really excited for my classes. I [now] have the freedom to choose all these different classes. I’m taking American Politics & Public Policy. I’m taking Intro to Psych right now. I’m taking Statistics. And, also, I just want to get to know as many people on campus as I can before I leave. I want to know everyone’s name in my grade and [have] some kind of connection with them before I leave.
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Jack Liu Dublin, Ohio Webster Hall What’s the best advice you’d give your prep self? I probably would have been more outgoing and tried to get more involved with student music. There were a lot of seniors I looked up to, a lot of good musicians. It was a dream to get to play and practice with these talented people I knew. I’ve kind of joined that echelon. I just wish I would have started earlier, started honing my skills then. Just be outgoing and put yourself in these situations to do really cool stuff. What’s something you discovered about yourself in your time here? I really do enjoy taking math and physics here. I feel like I’m a much more complete math student after running through the excellent math curriculum. That’s something I do really appreciate that I’ve found at Exeter.
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Thomas Matheos Hingham, Massachusetts Webster Hall If you had any advice for your prep self, what would it be? The important thing prep year is not to focus on learning to keep things in balance. Yes, do well in your class[es]. But I think it’s really a good time for you to figure out what you want to do and what is important to do with your life in the broader sense. Figure out what those [passions] are, then really pursue them all. Do you feel you’ve discovered those things about yourself here? I think as I’ve been here, I’ve discovered more of the things I want to be pursuing and more how to be bold enough to go pursue them. I feel like I’m getting better and better at that.
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Caroline Fleming
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Palo Alto, California Bancroft Hall If you had to summarize these past three years in a sentence or two ... I feel like it was really hard, but I grew up a lot and then ended up having more fun than I anticipated. What are some of the ways you’ve changed at Exeter? Plot twist: Now I play lacrosse. I didn’t when I came here, but now I’m more excited to be in lacrosse than I am to play soccer. I’m also the sports editor of The Exonian, surprisingly. It’s one of my favorite things. I thought it was going to be like a total grind, but it’s actually really fun.
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An Update on Equity and Inclusion Efforts By Stephanie Bramlett, director of equity and inclusion
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ear One, my “prep”
year, has been busy and exciting as we work together on campus to create a more inclusive community. In support of the Trustees’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Vision Statement adopted in January 2018, Exeter hired its first director of equity and inclusion (that’s me) last year, as well as an Asian student coordinator and an LGBTQ+ student coordinator in the Office of Multicultural Affairs — thus rounding out the team of five. That same year: • We changed the job descriptions for all teaching faculty candidates to explicitly name cultural competency as a key qualification. • Forty-three Exeter employees attended diversity, equity and inclusion professional development conferences. • The MLK Day Committee hosted, for a fourth year, the student social justice performance program Unsilenced. • The English Department began a pilot curriculum for lowers to help students learn how to talk about race. We were busy, but we were just getting started. In August, we hosted our first in-house Exeter Diversity Institute for PEA staff and faculty. English Instructors Alex Myers ’96 and Courtney Marshall and Interim Director of Religious and Spiritual Life Heidi Heath served as discussion facilitators for nearly 50 of our colleagues in disciplines and departments all across the campus. We engaged with scholarship on race, gender, class and religion. We also explored topics such as “Teaching for Equity and Inclusion in STEM,” “Supporting Asian Students” and “Courageous Conversations.” Perhaps one of the most important aspects of this program is that participants began to build relationships with people from around campus.
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Students have also been engaging in conversations about identity and culture. The new student publication Unite! provides an intersectional space for students to dialogue across differences and share their voices. The Office of Multicultural Affairs continues to support more than 25 affinity and cultural groups and numerous programs and events throughout the year. A team of student leaders and the Office of Multicultural Affairs faculty and staff welcomed 38 students and their families from 16 different countries this fall, ensuring that new international students are well connected to campus resources. Our students are embracing the opportunity to engage in this work, too. To kick off this year, student proctors and listeners participated in a training that asked them to consider their own most salient social identities and how to create inclusive dorm communities. These student leaders will take what they learned back to their dorm communities and facilitate similar conversations about identity there. We have students interested in social justice leadership attending the Hutchins Center Honors at Harvard University this fall, and in December, six student leaders will attend the Student Diversity Leadership Conference in Seattle. I’m looking forward to being out on the road again this year meeting members of the broader off-campus community at PEA receptions and events. I will continue the Institutional Advancement program “Learning to Talk about Race” and I’m looking forward to meeting more alums and learning about their experiences at Exeter. In December, Exeter will once again bring a group of teachers and students to the National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference — if you are in the Seattle area, I do hope we can connect. Thank you, again, for all of the support you gave me in my inaugural year. We’ve built a lot of momentum around diversity, equity and inclusion on campus, and I’m looking forward to keeping it going this year. E
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A RO U N D
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EXETER DECONSTRUCTED
T H E S C H O O L W E L O V E I N D E TA I L By Patrick Garrity
SHIP AHOY! Exonians for a century have peeked anxiously toward the Academy Building’s bell tower clock as they’ve scurried to get to class on time. And for just as long, the Sidney S. has sailed quietly above the fray. The triple-masted ship perched atop the bell tower has served as the Academy’s weather vane since the school’s fourth and current Academy Building was completed in 1915. Given by an anonymous donor, the ship bears the name Sidney S., a reference to Sanford Sidney Smith, class of 1866, who was the president of the Trustees at the time. Why a ship? According to Myron Williams, in his 1957 book, The Story of Phillips Exeter, the ship is an homage to the great seal of the State of New Hampshire, which features the Raleigh, one of the original 13 warships commissioned by the Continental Congress for a new American navy, built in 1776 in Portsmouth. The weather vane is also believed to be recognition of the town of Exeter’s once-vibrant role as a mercantile seaport and shipbuilding center. In 2000, the weather vane received a fresh gilding with 23-karat gold leaf when the clock and bell were restored. The Sidney S. sails on, 104 years after her maiden voyage.
Left: Principal Stephen Kurtz examines the weather vane, circa mid-1970s. Above: The Sidney S. atop the bell tower.
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Chasing the Dream A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H N O V E L I S T M A D E L E I N E H E N R Y ’ 1 0 By Jennifer Wagner
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ver the past decade, Madeleine Henry ’10 has been a sketch comic, neuroscience lab assistant and financial analyst. Now the Yale grad is a full-time writer. Ditching what she refers to as “the rat race” to pursue her dream job wasn’t easy, but the experience did provide a compelling plotline for her debut novel, Breathe In, Cash Out. The story centers on a 20-something who quits her stable investment banking gig to become a yoga instructor. Drawing on real-life anecdotes from her days crunching numbers at Goldman Sachs in New York City, Henry peppers her book’s pages with juicy, insider tidbits that range from improper interoffice instant messages and bathroom meditation sessions to a steamy affair with a boss. With Breathe In, Cash Out in bookstores, Henry is busy pitching a television series adaptation to Hollywood, building her Instagram feed, and putting the final touches on her second novel. We sat down with her at a picnic table behind Jeremiah Smith Hall, just before she headed to an author’s night in the Hamptons. You were on the pre-med track at Yale, then went into investment banking after graduation. Why not go directly into writing?
I did a lot of writing at Exeter. I was editor of The Exonian. But for some reason, I switched into science at the beginning of college. I think it was a fear impulse that led me into science. I felt like there were a lot of options and being pre-med was a track and it led somewhere. I can be a linear thinker sometimes. It took time to overcome the fear. What helped you overcome that fear?
I started practicing yoga while I was in investing. Yoga gave me peace in a way I hadn’t felt before because a lot of my life had been very intellectual. Exeter, Yale, Goldman Sachs — it’s a lot about what’s in your brain. Yoga is a lot about what’s in your heart. I was really taken with that and it gave me a sense of security in myself to
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take a risk. I know it sounds really weird. It’s not something a lot of people talk about, but that happened to me. How did you get introduced to the practice of yoga?
I came to it through a very New York City way, which is exercise. Then I started following these Instagram yogis who post pictures in cool poses and I just wanted to learn the poses. They usually caption each picture with a bit of life advice or wisdom. Over time, those became very meaningful to me — the ideas of calming down, living from the heart. I got that through an Instagram yoga community, which is not traditional. But that is how I found it and it really transformed my life. Your book is really about transformation in a way.
At its center, the book is about someone leaving the rat race for something that’s more fulfilling, and that’s resonating with people who have their own dreams.
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Was the book difficult to write?
While I was writing it, I was working a full-time job in finance, where you are not told or encouraged to be creative or artistic or come from a soulful place in your everyday life. You’re basically told to be productive and excellent. So, it was really hard to write it because it was like two different ways of being. I would get feedback from the people I was working with on the book and they would say things like, “All your characters suck. They don’t have hearts.” And I was like, “Well, yeah. Welcome to my world.” You worked at The Yale Record, the oldest university humor magazine, and did improv as well. Are you a funny person?
I am. I’m hilarious. It’s like one joke after another with this girl. No, I wrote and performed sketch comedy. It was really just me having a good time. That’s where I found my creativity in college, through this humorous route. The group I was in was called His Majesty and the Baby. Is it true you started at The Exonian in the first week of your first fall term?
Oh, yeah. I was there the first meeting. I went to every meeting basically my entire time at Exeter. I loved it.
internal rhyme. I read it aloud to the class and I remember thinking, ‘What an amazing teacher that he’s encouraging his students to do something so unusual.’ Ms. Burke-Hickey was just very kind. Are you working on a second novel?
Oh, that’s already done. It’s called Love Proof. It will be out next summer. It’s a love story, which I’m really excited about. Part of it takes place at Yale, but it’s much more focused on relationships than an insider-y view into anything.
“THAT’S WHERE I FOUND MY CREATIVITY IN COLLEGE, THROUGH THIS HUMOROUS ROUTE.”
I read the op-ed piece you wrote about eliminating the dickie. You made a strong argument.
That’s a very professional way to put it. You know what? I like to be a little provocative. There’s a little bit of rebellious spirit in the Exonian pieces I wrote, but obviously it was done respectfully. The book’s a little provocative too. I’m pushing the envelope. I also wrote a piece in The Exonian that was pro-leggings. My writing is entertainment; it gets people going. You wrote both “just-for-fun” and “think” pieces.
Exactly. I think a teacher came up to me after that leggings piece and said something like, “You know, you need to choose subjects worthy of your argumentative ability.” And I was like, “That’s a great point, but I’m a second-semester senior, so maybe next time.”
I understand Breathe In, Cash Out may get adapted into a TV series, a workplace comedy like Sex and the City in an investment bank. How did that opportunity come up?
This book is represented by William Morris Endeavor, the talent agency. They came to me a couple months ago and said, “Hey, this is going to L.A.” That’s not my world. I didn’t grow up with any screenwriters. I didn’t grow up with people going into entertainment. Where I’m from, people are lawyers and doctors and businesspeople. This is new. Are you writing the pilot?
No, I’m not going to write the pilot. I don’t want to be a TV writer. But I wanted to be involved, so I’m writing the pitch. It’s all happening now. I’m also working on a third novel that I want to finish before Love Proof comes out, just to ride the momentum.
You’re flying from coast to coast on your book tour. What’s your airplane reading?
The last book I bought was Recursion, by Blake Crouch. It is a science fiction novel that got picked up by Netflix. It’s about false memory, so it’s kind of trippy if you want to get afraid before you get on a plane. I’m also reading Where Reasons End, by Yiyun Li. It is an imagined conversation between a mother and her son, who is now dead, so that’s pretty heavy. I write light things; this is off-brand. I can’t be caught with this. Do you worry about the book being successful?
Do you remember anything else about your instructors?
I really enjoyed Mr. [Nathaniel] Hawkins and Ms. [Patricia] Burke-Hickey. They stood out because they encouraged me to experiment. In Mr. Hawkins’ class upper spring, I wrote a prose piece that was filled with
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For sure. But I think that if you just take your ego and you put it in a box and you leave it alone, then you’re fine. It’s like, so what? Does this failure or success affect what I actually do every day? No, I still get to write. Hello? That’s great. E
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E XO N I A N S
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Alumni are encouraged to advise the Bulletin editor (bulletin@exeter.edu) of their own publications, recordings, films, etc., in any field, and those of their classmates, for inclusion in future Exonians in Review columns. Please send a review copy of your published work to the editor to be considered for an extended profile or review in future issues. Works can be sent to: Phillips Exeter Academy, The Exeter Bulletin, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833. ALUMNI 1955—John M. Saul. What the Stork Brought: African Click-speakers and the Spread of Humanity’s Oldest Beliefs. (Old Africa Books, 2019) 1956—John Sinton. Devil’s Den to Lickingwater: The Mill River Through Landscape and History. (Levellers Press, 2018) 1961—Stuart L. Rawlings. The God Child. (Sierra Dreams Press, 2019) 1962—Henry Hitz. Squirrels in the Wall: A Novel in Stories. (SparkPress, 2019) 1962—Myron Magnet. Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution. (Encounter Books, 2019) 1962—Chester E. Finn Jr. with Andrew E. Scanlan. Learning in the Fast Lane: The Past, Present and Future of Advanced Placement. (Princeton University Press, 2019) 1966—Clyde A. Milner II, editor, with Brian Q. Cannon. Reconstruction and Mormon America. (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019)
1999—Kate (Allen) Lacour. Vivisectionary: A Convocation of Biological Art. (Fantagraphics, 2019) 2008—Tara Isabella Burton. Social Creature: A Novel. (Anchor, 2018) 2015—Jordan Cynewski. The Big Business of Saving the World. (New Degree Press, 2019) BEYOND BOOKS 1946—David Purdy. “Bergantins and Barges,” article. (Nautical Research Journal, summer 2019) 1950—Louis Browning. “Notes on a Small Island,” article. (Shooting Gazette, July 2019) 1962—Ted Shen, composer. “Broadbend, Arkansas,” musical. Playing at The Duke Theater in New York City through Nov. 23, 2019. 1976—Andrew Lear. “Out on View: LGBTQ+ Perspectives on the Collection,” a mobile audio tour of works at Hartford’s Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art.
1991—Ana C. H. Silva. One Cupped Hand Above the Other, chapbook. (Dancing Girl 1971—Doug White. Wounded Charity: Lessons Press & Studio, 2019) Learned from the Wounded Warrior Project 1993—Greg Brown, composer. “A Black Crisis. (Paragon House, 2019) Birch in Winter.” (MSR Music, 2019) 1977—Ann Cooper Albright. How to Land: 1998—Evan Hayes, producer. Free Solo, Finding Ground in an Unstable World. documentary film. (2018) (Oxford University Press, 2018) 1980—Laura Wharton. Is the Party Over? How Israel Lost its Social Agenda. (Yad Levi Eshkol, 2019)
1999—Colby Gottert, producer. Momentum Generation, documentary film. (2018)
1980—James Meyer. The Art of Return: The Sixties and Contemporary Culture. (The University of Chicago Press, 2019)
Tom Simpson. “Shooting the Hay,” book review. (Times Literary Supplement, August 16, 2019)
1986—Shirley Lim. Anna May Wong: Performing the Modern. (Temple University Press, 2019) 1991—Joseph Reid. False Horizon. (Thomas & Mercer, 2019) 1994—Vanessa Everts. Living Iron. (Visual Legacy, 2018)
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FAC U LT Y
— “A Familiar Pain,” book review. (Tar River Poetry, Spring 2019) Tara Lewis. “Too Cool for School,” solo art exhibition at Blackbird Gallery in New York City. (2019) Willie Perdomo. “Head Crack Head Crack,” poem. (The Best American Poetry 2019)
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E/A: The Anatomy of a Rivalry A M E R I C A’ S O L D E S T H I G H S C H O O L S P O R T S F E U D B E G A N I N 1 8 7 8 By Patrick Garrity
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ays before America’s oldest high school sporting
rivalry took root, the editors of The Exonian newspaper expressed high hopes for the occasion: “We are looking forward with interest to the game of football with Andover,” they wrote in the Oct. 26, 1878, edition. “We trust that the game will be a friendly one, and that the beaten party will accept their defeat as a fair and an honorable one.” If the ensuing 22-0 Exeter defeat altered those warm thoughts, it didn’t stop the schools from continuing their “friendly” competition. On Nov. 9, Big Red and Big Blue will resume a thrice-annual athletic clash for the 141st year. Ahead of that renewal, we offer a quick E/A history lesson:
EXETER STARTS ON TOP
The 1878 football game wasn’t the first athletic contest between the schools. That came the previous spring, when the two met on an Exeter baseball diamond. The result: A 12-1 Exeter victory on May 22, 1878. PEA second
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baseman E.H. Brown rapped out three hits, and Big Red took advantage of 13 Andover errors.
BIG RED IS BORN
That first baseball game against Andover set the style. From The Exonian: “The uniform of the school nine consists of the following: knee-breeches, sweat-shirt, square cut blouse, of white flannel trimmed with cardinal red, cardinal red stockings and a white flannel cap.” The PEA football team also wore red that fall, with The Exonian noting, “This bright color and the color of the (blue) Andover suits will make a very pretty contrast.” Big Red was born.
REVERSAL OF FORTUNES
Exeter lost the initial football game, but the wait for revenge was brief. The following November, Andover stepped off the train amid a tempest and was figuratively if not literally blown away by Big Red. The 18-0 victory was the first of 54 for Exeter in the long-running series.
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Bud Palmer ’40 leading to a breakthrough BITTERSWEET VICTORY Exeter’s annual sporting rivalry with Andover 1-0 victory in 1939. Andover rode an eight-year winning began in 1878 and has streak into the 1913 football game. PEA endured through war, Principal Harlan Page Amen beseeched A WHOLE NEW BALLGAME depression, pandemic the entire student body to pray for victory, The Exeter-Andover rivalry began a new and more. The fall 2019 claiming that Exonians needed a win era on Nov. 7, 1973, when girls teams first edition of the rivalry to regain their faith and hope. Exeter represented their respective schools in the convenes Nov. 9 with responded with a stunning 59-0 romp feud. It was a less-than-grand opening for clashes in football, at home in front of a reported crowd of Big Red; Andover swept matchups in field boys and girls soccer, 8,000 people — only to learn the next hockey and girls soccer. field hockey and girls morning that Amen had suffered a stroke volleyball. and passed away. “Rarely have the joy SWEEP SUCCESS and sorrow of life more strangely confronted each other The losses in the debut of girls sports were part of an than in the events of the past two days at Phillips Exeter Andover sweep of all the varsity competitions in the fall Academy,” the Boston Transcript reported. “Few of of 1973. A year later, Exeter turned the tables. Highlighted the thousands who witnessed the phenomenal footby a first-place finish in boys cross-country in Interschols ball victory of its students over the sister institution of (Andover was second) and a 4-2 boys soccer win to complete Andover knew that the head of this famous school was an unbeaten season, Exeter enjoyed a clean sweep of its dying at his home.” own, with victories in football, girls soccer and field hockey.
A KICK IN THE GRASS
Exeter’s first interscholastic soccer match fittingly came against Andover. On Nov. 7, 1928, a veteran Andover side, which had lost just once in four years, arrived for an exhibition match. Beyond all expectations, Exeter reportedly dominated play but lost, 1-0. It would be 11 years before PEA finally tasted victory in the series, with a goal from
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FIT TO BE TIED
The 2002 football game ended tied 14-14, the 10th and most recent tie in the long rivalry. Tradition dictates that the teams do not play overtime. In that 2002 game, Big Blue was driving for the winning score, but Exeter’s Austin Blackmon ’03 intercepted a pass in the end zone on the game’s final play. E
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SPACE COWBOYS STUDENTS LEAD
GA L ACT I C E F FO RTS ON CAMPUS AND B E YO N D By Jennifer Wagner
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he rooftop of Love Gymnasium is vast, flat and really high up. Just ask seniors Avery Clowes ’20 and Billy Menken ’20. They’ve been there. The pair scaled four flights of stairs (including a super-steep set by the old squash courts), unlocked two secured doors, and stepped out onto the building’s roof on a sunny Sunday afternoon last October. It was not a prank. It was part of a fully sanctioned scientific expedition. The boys’ goal was to get in touch with space — literally, to hold pieces of it. To do that, they needed to find a giant “bowl” where micrometeorites, or granule-sized space rocks that have traveled through our planet’s atmosphere without completely vaporizing, might land. “About 60 tons fall to earth every day in a constant shower we never notice,” Menken says. “They’re 0.2 to 0.5 millimeters in diameter — barely visible to the naked eye.” With its substantial perimeter ledges and surface area, Love Gym’s roof seemed just the spot. Their hypothesis proved correct. Clowes and Menken found a mother lode of
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micrometeorites in piles of dirt surrounding the building’s gutters, pushed there by the prior day’s rain. Using ordinary magnets and Ziploc bags they collected space debris to analyze. “Micrometeorites are just sitting on the ground waiting to be discovered,” Clowes says. “When you look at one through a microscope, it’s like this alien foreign object. It looks like a polished metal sphere. You can see crystals that have formed because of the heat from entering through the atmosphere. You can see the melted surface.” Beyond the cool factor, Clowes says, “[This project] was a way to engage in the space community and get a feel for what it means to do real science.” Inspired, the boys planned another on-Earth space project for the spring. This time, they built a cloud chamber to detect cosmic rays. “You’d be surprised at how easy it is,” Menken says, listing a few required materials, including a glass rectangular prism (or a fish tank), sponges, isopropyl alcohol and a few blocks of dry ice. “It’s beautiful that you don’t need a thousand dollars and a massive battery and some complex wiring to make some project to do with space,” Clowes says. Their findings, and the thrill of discovery, were too good not to share. “You can watch as many space documentaries as you want,” Menken says, “but seeing something from space, seeing a cosmic ray zip through a cloud chamber that you built, is completely Top: a microscope’s view of different.” a micrometeorite. Above: This year, the duo launched a website to publish Avery Clowes ’20 and Billy what they’ve learned and engage a space-enthusiast Menken ’20 (pictured left on community far beyond the Academy. The site feaLove Gymnasium roof) wrote tures science-project video tutorials (including how this digital guide, downloadto re-create their micrometeorite mining session and able at eops.club, for aspiring cloud chamber on the cheap), testimonials from fellow space scientists. students about why space is relevant right now, and advice from college professors on how to prepare for careers in space. Clowes and Menken also co-wrote The High Schooler’s Guide to the Galaxy, an in-depth resource book for kids interested in space, which they posted online for free download. “Not everyone has access to an insane science museum, science competitions, internships or scholarships that help them get to the next level of achievement,” Clowes says of the 60-page primer. “The Guide is like lowering the barrier for entry to science, science education and science achievement.” All of these efforts are part of a larger mission, they say, to “prepare young minds for the Space Age.” “We’re creating this more progressive mindset that we’re in this together, because this is really about humanity,” Menken says. “This is about developing a future that we want to live in. A future that’s exciting and full of curiosity and exploration. We want everybody to be a part of that together.”
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MEETING OF THE MINDS
Billy Menken ’20 and Avery Clowes ’20 present their magnetoplasma– dynamic thruster project at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in 2018.
Clowes and Menken met their prep year during winter track season when they competed in the same events, the 200 meters, 400 meters and high jump. “In high jump, you spend a lot of time waiting for other people to jump,” Menken says. “We had lots of good conversations.” During that on-deck downtime, Menken learned that Clowes developed an ion thruster for rockets while he was in middle school — an achievement that led him to the White House where he met President Barack Obama. As the season wore on, they grew closer and hatched a plan to meet up over the summer to create something together. In July, Menken flew from his home state of Minnesota to Clowes’ house in Massachusetts. “We would work a good eight hours a day at least,” Menken remembers. “Then we’d go swimming or eat popovers.” His plan was to stay two weeks. Surely that was enough time to build a magnetoplasmadynamic thruster (MPD), or a rocket engine that runs on electricity. “We barely created our first prototype in that time,” he says. For an entire month, they tapped all the resources at hand, including the sculpture studio of Clowes’ grandfather, Jon Clowes ’68. “The lathe allowed us to take the copper stock that we ordered from a particle-supply company and create the anode for the thruster, which basically looked like a copper cylinder,” Clowes says. “A copper doughnut,” Menken translates. They also searched online resources and coldemailed nearly 100 people — including professors at MIT, Georgia Tech and the University of Minnesota — asking for advice on how to build their MPD. One response came from a professor who put them in touch with a former graduate student who works at the aerospace company Lockheed Martin. They never met, but Skyped once a month for the next six months to review questions and refine their ideas. The MPD project bled into the beginning of their lower year, where they found support in Academy science instructors like David Gulick and Scott Saltman. “They were there to make sure we didn’t get zapped,” Clowes says. With 650 joules coursing through a wire in a few tenths of a second, that was in the realm of possibility. By February, they completed their much-improved thruster and submitted it to the New Hampshire Science and Engineering Expo, where they took first place in the physics and electronics category and third overall. Next up was the International Science and Engineering Fair, where the project was judged against those made by students from 80 countries. Their thruster didn’t win, but they learned a lot about rocketry and each other. “Billy keeps me going,” Clowes says. “He’s extremely smart, amazing at math and just a really hard worker. It sounds very cliché, but we make a good team.”
ON-CAMPUS OUTREACH
It’s a team the boys want to continue to grow on campus, and there’s no better spot for doing that, once again, than Love Gymnasium. On Saturday nights it’s often loud inside the gym. But in September it wasn’t fans cheering for the basketball squad, it was rowdy club heads vying for attention at Exeter’s annual club sign-up night. Among the tables adorned with bowls of candy, basil plants and multicolored trophies stand Clowes and Menken, heads of the Exeter OffPlanet Society (EOPS), a club they formed their lower year. “If you like rockets, business, space or Elon Musk,” their literature reads, “you will love the Exeter Off-Planet Society.” As a varsity soccer captain, Menken is comfortable rallying fellow students. It’s an essential leadership trait on this night especially, as EOPS is just one of the more than 150 student-run clubs on offer. The Midwesterner remains undaunted. “At Exeter, I learned how to start new things and pursue ideas even if they seemed a little crazy at first,” Menken says.
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“[EOPS] was kind of a risk. I learned that when you step up and take initiative, there will be people there to support you. … [Exeter] helped me get out of my comfort zone.” Clowes and Menken have lots in store for EOPS this year. They plan to visit the Grainger Observatory, make model rockets, and meet up with local children from town for science projects. They know from experience how impactful early exposure to science can be. “My parents were the catalysts for my initial learning about science,” Clowes says, recalling many formative trips to the Museum of Science in Boston with his mom. “There are these huge Van de Graaff voltage generators there with sparks and electricity. … Those ideas transitioned into my first ion thruster projects and then the much more advanced MPD I made with Billy. It’s just been that sort of journey.” Menken’s journey is driven by what he calls his “utter disdain for the unknown.” Which could explain why after acing a fifth-year Spanish course as a first-term prep, he immediately began studying German. “I love progress and the idea of being out there on the next frontier,” he says, noting his dream job just might be starship captain leading a team of experts on a journey of exploration. But before that rocket launches, the seniors have set their sights on college, where they hope to continue studying engineering. “Humanity is on the cusp of one of the greatest leaps in history, engaging the off-Earth realm,” Menken says. “And we intend to be part of it.” E
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Eyes on the Sky E X E T E R ’ S N E X T - G E N E R AT I O N T E L E S C O P E By Jennifer Wagner
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his fall, the astronomy program at Exeter makes a giant leap forward with the addition of its most powerful telescope yet — one capable of capturing the faint glow of objects billions of light years away. “This is a big telescope,” says Science Instructor and Grainger Observatory Director John Blackwell. “I’ve installed several hundred telescopes and while some of them have been really big, this is the first one that requires a crane.” Weighing in at 1,500 pounds, the fully automatic scope, housed under a 16-foot dome, features an interior mirror measuring 0.7 meter in diameter and more than 2 meters in length. “The technology brings to use some interesting capacities,” Blackwell says. “We’ll be able to see finer detail in small objects that we haven’t been able to see before. “Most people are familiar with telescopes that have an eyepiece that you look through and you say, ‘Whoa, look at that! Saturn!’” Blackwell adds. This one Line drawing of the is different. Instead of an eyepiece, Blackwell new telescope and explains, the telescope sports two ports. One dome, due to be port will go to a camera outfitted with various completed and fully filters to capture images of stars, nebulosity operational by 2020. and galaxies. The other port will go to a 10-meter-long fiber optic cable connected to a little black box, a digital spectrograph. The spectrograph takes a pinpoint of light and stretches it out into different colors. “That’s the game changer,” Blackwell says. “[Spectroscopy] enables us to see the chemical composition of the object, how fast the object is spinning, what the temperature of the object is, the strength of its magnetic field,” Blackwell says. Turns out, to get that level of detail you need a really large telescope that collects a lot of light. “The larger the telescope, the bigger the light bucket,” Blackwell says. The new telescope, made possible by the generous support of The Grainger Foundation, will be “driven” by computer automation — a development introduced during Blackwell’s 15-year tenure. “We use the computer now to tell the telescope to ‘Go to [the star] Capella,’ and it does it automatically,” Blackwell says. This means students can focus on the computer data in the classroom and analyze it in very close to real time. “We’re giving the students a flavor for what being an astronomer is really like nowadays,” Blackwell says.
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A Brief History of Astronomy at Exeter By Jennifer Wagner
COURTESY OF PEA ARCHIVES
Exonians peer at the cosmos in this undated archival photo.
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umans have looked to the stars for answers about their place and purpose in the world for hundreds of years. From the earliest days of Nicolaus Copernicus — a Renaissance-era mathematician who observed the heavens with nothing more than his naked eye — astronomers have offered explanations of how our planet was formed, how objects move in space and time, even how the force of gravity keeps our feet on the ground. Preparing the next generation to actively engage with and add to this legacy of discovery is a driving force behind the evolving astronomy coursework at Exeter. Where students of the 1930s pored over sky charts in a basement classroom, today’s scholars control computers and digitized instrumentation that can collect and analyze gigabytes of data to feed their ever-curious minds.
THE EARLY YEARS
Astronomical observation and study began formally at Exeter in the fall of 1936, during Principal Lewis Perry’s tenure. The first combined astronomy and geology course was designed for juniors (now known as preps) and lower middlers (lowers) and made use of portable three-inch telescopes perched on the rooftop of the former Thompson Science Building (now the Elizabeth Phillips Academy Center). This elementary class promised teachings in constellation identification, Earth as an astronomical body, the constitution and motion of stars, erosion, astronomical instrumentation and observational work. With paper, pencil and a stack of black-and-white photographs, students referenced Robert Baker’s Introduction to Astronomy textbook and reproduced Kepler’s famous derivation of the orbit and distance of Mars. The course was expanded the following year as a standalone class and the Academy bolstered its other science offerings, adding sections devoted to biology and geography in addition to physics and chemistry. Student-run organizations like the Scientific Society and Astronomy Club thrived. And while sky glow from campus lights, sea haze and mandatory dormitory check-in hours made scheduling outdoor class sessions at night impractical, instructors noted at the time, these adventures occurred. Science Instructor Richard Brinkerhoff described one such event in a Bulletin article from November 1976: “The lunar eclipse at 2 a.m. one night a year ago last May had a dozen students up half the night manning our 6-inch reflecting telescope and our new 8-inch Cassegrainian telescope, cameras and various measuring equipment.” Brinkerhoff’s goals for his astronomy course, he wrote, were “to give a solid theoretical background, to provoke imagination, to stimulate personal participation and to encourage self-confidence.”
EXPANDING THE PROGRAM
Through the 1980s, the bulk of work in astronomy class involved geometric problem-solving based on still photographs. Students would calculate the height of the mountains that were casting the shadows on the moon, for example, simply by knowing the date and time the picture was taken. Chemistry and Astronomy Instructor Chris Harper sought to expand the program with a permanent on-campus observatory. In an interview with The Exonian he said that the observatory would be “a voyage of discovery and a window on the cosmos and the unknown. … [a way to] bring Exeter into the twenty-first century.”
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COURTESY OF PEA ARCHIVES
Harper’s ideas were received well. Principal Kendra Stearns O’Donnell ’31, ’47, ’63, ’89, ’91, ’97 (Hon.); P’00 wrote in support of the new facility: “Astronomy provides training in the basics of good science — accurate measurement and the analysis of data. It also involves a creative process. Through the investigation of the universe, we hope to engender in our students the thrill of discovery and exploration.” With the full backing of faculty and students, and generous donations from The Grainger Foundation, the Grainger Observatory opened in October 1989. “When the observatory was built,” Blackwell says, “it brought in a whole different realm of seriousness to the science.” The original facility, now celebrating its 30th anniversary, included two domed observatories outfitted with large telescopes and an adjacent Chart House with a classroom, library and a darkroom to develop images from film.
GOING DIGITAL
ART DURITY
In 2002, a third dome with a robotic telescope was erected to capture data over longer periods of time and, in 2006, the Chart House darkroom was converted into a fully digital Harkness classroom. “Students began looking at variable stars and collecting data on stars that change — noting how some stars pulsate, others spin and some have spots that cause them to change their brightness,” says Blackwell, who was appointed director of the Grainger Observatory in 2004. “Digital data gives us a better sense of what’s happening up there in terms of the seasons, our sun’s variability, the fact that there are eclipses and things like this, which can be numerically predicated using a lot of math.” As computers evolved in the early ’90s, numerical data was able to be collected more quickly. By 2010, the data sets were gigabyte-sized. “No one blinks an eye at a gigabyte now — your cell phone has 250 gigabytes of storage on it,” Blackwell says, “but they’re actually building telescopes now that are going to collect on the order of four or five petabytes per night. That’s big data.” The present observatory collects five or six gigabytes in a one-hour class. “Every clear night, we’re gathering data that is parsed and processed here in the classroom using our computers,” Blackwell says. The observatory shares its data with other schools and universities as well as with amateurs and professionals in groups like the American Association of Variable Star Observers. “We’ve had people use the telescope as far away as New Zealand,” Blackwell says. “They were collecting data for a star that’s only visible to the northern hemisphere. … They can control our telescope remotely, collect the data and download it.” And this data exchange works both ways. Senior classes in astronomy have access to NASA data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and infinite quantities of sky surveys through telescopes around the world. The Grainger Observatory’s 2019 upgrade, made possible thanks to generous support from The Grainger Foundation, comes at an exciting time in modern astronomy. Just this year, scientists discovered gravitational waves, produced the first coagulated image of the event horizon of a black hole, and designed a probe to look for life on Jupiter’s moon. “There’s always something new coming out in astronomy,” Blackwell says. “That’s the constant awareness that drives student interest. What could we find by looking up there?” E
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Above: Astronomy Instructor Chris Harper with students at the Grainger Observatory. Below: An astronomy class around the Harkness table with Instructor John Blackwell in the Phelps Science Center.
Not by the Numbers E X E T E R ’ S C U S T O M - M A D E M AT H C U R R I C U L U M F O S T E R S U N D E R S TA N D I N G T H R O U G H P R O B L E M - S O LV I N G By Patrick Garrity
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t’s nearly noon on a damp September day as uppers and seniors spill into Panama Geer’s second-floor classroom in the Academy Building. The students park backpacks beside their chairs and immediately head to the whiteboards sandwiching the century-old room. In pairs, they talk through solutions to the advanced math problems assigned for the day. The hieroglyphics that take shape in dry-erase marker would be ciphers to many observers, but the students in Math 400-B are comfortable with this code. “OK, guys, we have to start talking about the problems pretty soon,” Geer announces as progress slows on a few outstanding problems. “I see three hard problems still out there — well, there are more than three hard problems — but … let’s get going.” The problems the class tackles on this day and every day are Exeter’s own. They are a handful of the more than 3,700 problems the Math Department has developed through the years to spiral concepts throughout the curriculum and build problem-solving skills that emphasize not the answer but rather the winding path to get there. “I think there’s a general feeling in the way that we do math-
“Being wrong is part of the process here — and a good part of the process.” —Panama Geer ematics that being wrong is part of the process here — and a good part of the process, actually,” says Geer, in her eighth year as a math instructor at PEA after years teaching internationally and at the college level. “And, that wrong answers are often more informative than correct ones.” Recurring themes — symmetry, optimization, vectors, graphing, rates of change — are woven throughout the sets, so a student will encounter them repeatedly, from term to term, year to year. “If you open up an algebra book, the problems at the end of each section expect the students to basically only use the algebra techniques of that chapter to solve any of the problems,” says Gwyn Coogan ’83, Math Department chair. “You’ll never have to recall ideas from geometry and you’ll never have to draw a picture. Same thing with your geometry class. Your geometry book doesn’t expect you to be able to do any algebra.” If silos stifle understanding, so, too, does stagnancy. That’s why every summer, the math faculty gathers to make sure their custom curriculum is ship-shape. For a week in late June, instructors converge on a classroom for an exercise in mathematics democracy. They debate alternative approaches to solving the problems — tapping into their PHOTOS BY CHRISTIAN HARRISON
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own experiences with the curriculum and feedback from their students — and try to ensure that the content is current and relevant. “The body of knowledge of math is getting bigger and bigger,” Coogan says, quoting her Math Department colleague Xitai Chen. “We want to make sure that what we show our students is as good as it can be.”
Students in Panama Geer’s Math 400-B class get down to business.
THE NEW MATH
Exonians have been studying math since John and Elizabeth Phillips signed the Deed of Gift. Longtime teachers like Don Dunbar, Bill Campbell and Frank Gutmann steered generations of Exeter math classes with aplomb. Many studied math texts written by PEA instructors such as Dick Brown and Mary Spruill Kilgore. When Rick Parris joined the Math Department in 1978, a new idea took shape. Parris began developing supplementary math problems to the approved texts for his classes. As he wrote in 1984 in a summary of grant work: “My interest in such problems is in part due to the pleasure I get from working them myself, but it also stems from my belief that the only students who really learn mathematics well are the ones who develop the staying power and imagination to be problem-solvers.” By the early 1990s, Parris was teaching his classes almost exclusively using his problem-based materials, and newly arrived colleagues Jerzy Kaminski and Tom Seidenberg wanted in. Kaminski says Parris, who died after a short illness in 2012, chafed against the routine of teaching material from a book in class, then assigning homework on that topic. All three teachers wanted to offer materials that fostered more agency and what Kaminski called “intellectual courage.” The trio, with the support of Math Department Chair Anja Greer, began writing a custom curriculum for 200-level courses. The three teachers would convene at Parris’ house in the evening, writing problems for the following day and generally making them
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How’s your math? A selection of problems from Exeter’s math sets
up on the fly. Over time, problems for the higher levels were added to the catalog. All emphasized discovery over destination. Rather than handing someone a hammer and nails and saying, “Build me a house,” the idea was to simply point them toward the toolshed. “Let’s contrast two situations,” Kaminski says. “One, you came to class and the teacher says, ‘Today we are going to learn about vectors.’ So, we all know that the class would be about vectors, and no matter what happens, you better use vectors, one way or another. Or at least say something intelligent about vectors, one way or another. “The second approach, we want to solve some problems and I am not saying we are going to use vectors or if we are going to use derivatives or something else. You decide what is the best way to do it, based, obviously, on your previous knowledge.” Without the contextual clues, students must call on all the math they’ve learned through the years, not just from that day’s lesson and not just to heed a teacher’s prompt. Kaminski calls the approach “Pascal’s Method.” The 17th-century French philosopher argued that “people are generally better perLook for the solutions online at exeter.edu/news/math suaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.” Facing page, clockwise The Harkness table has proved to be the perfect arena for this approach. Students dig from top left: Gabriel into the material before class, then sort through their work together, bouncing ideas off Wong ’20 writes out a one another and often winding up in a very different place from where they began. solution; Bona Hong ’21 “When I do math now, I do it without any prejudice,” says Jack Liu ’20, who is early takes notes during class; into a two-term sequence of Math 610: Multivariable Calculus. “I don’t really think about Asha Alla ’20 (left), Sarah whether this is a hard problem or an easy problem. I think about attacking it holistically, Barrett ’20 and Cheikh trying not to make any presumptions, trying not to jump to the answer. To really feel out Fiteni ’21 work through a the math, and be creative with it.” problem. That, Kaminski says, is precisely the point. Math is like an art form. “You want an environment in which students’ creativity is fostered. You don’t just go by rules you impose; you want students to figure out the rules on their own and apply their own rules and be aware that this is what they are doing.”
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WORK IN PROGRESS
The problem sets have become Exeter vernacular. Every student studies them. By the end of prep year, students are as familiar with the recurring character “Alex the geologist” as they are with their roommates. But the sets are not dogma. The work Parris, Kaminski and Seidenberg spearheaded nearly three decades ago was the foundation, but the house is never finished. Problems evolve as new paths to an outcome are discovered. Problem No. 155 in the Math 2 sets is a good example. Through the years, students from the classes of 2005, 2016 and 2019 have come up with viable solutions, as has a math teacher in Cleveland and a student in Chicago (the sets are published online). Each of these approaches was vetted by the math faculty at the conclusion of the school year and, once it passed muster, was added to the “commentary,” or teachers’ notes. Last summer, several members of the math faculty gathered in Room 108 — Geer’s classroom — in the Academy Building to vet the recommendations and make the updates. Visitors to Room 108 are greeted by a cartoon from The New Yorker on the classroom door. In it, a group of lab-coated academics cower from a colleague gone mad above the caption, “Give him whatever he wants! He’s threatening to divide by zero!” It is an early giveaway that math happens there. Geer guides the annual debate — which is limited to one week — in a process she calls collegial if not always smooth. “There are a lot of different types of
PATRICK GARRIT Y
Students in Greg Spanier’s Math 22T class talk through a solution.
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“I don’t really think about whether this is a hard problem or an easy problem. I think about attacking it holistically.” —Jack Liu ’20
mathematicians, and we all bring different strengths to the department, but it’s one of the few times when we, with all of our varied strengths, come together and really talk math,” she says. “It’s not necessarily about classroom techniques. … We’re really diving into the layers of mathematics. And because we are writing it ourselves, there’s a freedom associated with that. We’re uncovering the ideas, or trying to lead students to uncover ideas in ways that we think are the most fulfilling for them mathematically.” That the discoveries often come from students makes the work even more rewarding, Geer says. “We might have viewed a problem as, ‘OK, this is a kind of problem students really need to do algebra for. Or they might need to do a lot of pencil calculations for.’ And then there’ll be a student who does it completely differently. Like they’ll just completely tackle it from some obscure picture, or make a connection to something that they did in a science class and they’ll say, ‘Well, if you think about it this way instead…’ That’ll peel the layers off the onion and suddenly open up a new way of visualizing, a new way of allowing the students to uncover the ideas. “Once that seed has come up in a classroom, a colleague will say, ‘Hey, my students did this. Isn’t that cool?’” Technology has forced the problem sets to evolve, too. When Parris began writing problems, Bill Gates had yet to launch Windows and the internet was years away from popular embrace. The tools available to students have changed, and asking them to do
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certain things they were asked to do 25 years ago is akin to a mandatory course in cursive writing. “If the curriculum that most kids are learning before they get to our school has changed, certainly we want to change to reflect that, to move them from wherever they are to wherever they think they should go,” Coogan says. “You have to move kids closer to the edge of mathematics.”
BACK TO CLASS
The seniors and uppers in Geer’s Math 400-B class get stuck on No. 714, a three-part problem about how lottery commissioners should invest their revenue. Bona Hong ’21 rattles off her work for parts A and B to consensus, but Part C remains elusive. “I guess I’m not really understanding the question,” someone says. “It’s a geometric series,” Cheikh Fiteni ’21 submits. “Let’s write it out, so we can all see what you’re suggesting,” Geer says. As Fiteni scrawls an equation on the whiteboard, his classmates start to plug in the numbers to find the solution. “The initial investment must be $363,344.40,” announces Jackson Carlberg ’21. The other students agree. No. 714 is solved. Next problem. “That was a pretty good collaborative endeavor, everyone,” Fiteni declares. “Teamwork!” The class works through more problems, with the discussion punctuated with words of encouragement from Geer: “Perfect!” and “You guys are gooood.” B block concludes with Problems Nos. 722 and 723 left unresolved. They’ll be first up the next time the class meets. As the seniors file out, Geer congratulates them on their effort. “Super productive today, guys,” the teacher says. “Thank you, Ms. Geer,” shout back several of the students. “See you tomorrow.” E
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The evolution of a solution Exeter’s math problem sets are never complete. Each year, the math faculty reviews the 3,700-plus problems and makes modifications as needed. We asked Math Instructor Panama Geer to walk us through how a problem evolved over time: In a series of problems, students discover the formula for the volume of a sphere. In the original sequence, students considered an inverted cone whose radius and height are equal and calculated the area of circular slices of the cone (see the right side of Figure 1). Next, they considered a hemispherical dome inscribed in a cylinder (with the same radius) and again calculated the area of slices of this shape, but this time slicing the shape formed by the space outside the dome but within the cylinder. These new slices form rings (see the left side of Figure 1) which, when sliced at the same height, have the same area as the slices of the cone. Putting this together, they realized that the volume of the negative space outside the hemisphere but inside the cylinder was exactly the same as the volume of the cone. Because they already knew how to find the volume of a cylinder and the volume of a cone, they were Figure 1: Original Diagram able to deduce that the volume of a hemisphere was the difference between the cylinder volume and the cone volume, and consequently derive a general formula for the volume of a sphere. The problem had been set up this way for many years. During the 2012-13 Figure 2: Updated Diagram academic year, puzzled students in one of Greg Spanier’s classes were asking questions and wrestling with visualizing the shapes involved. Inspired by their questions, Greg wondered if student understanding might be improved by adjusting the setup of the problem. Greg suggested the diagram in Figure 2. Here students compare the area of slices of a hemisphere to the area of rings around a cone inside a cylinder. The result is the same; each area, measured at the same height, is equal (assuming all the radii and heights are equivalent), thus showing the volume inside the hemispherical bowl is the same as the difference in volume between the cylinder and cone. Student questions inspired Greg, and in turn our editing group, to think of the sequence of problems from a different perspective, thus enhancing the understanding for both faculty and students alike.
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ENCORE! ENCORE! T H E G O E L C E N T E R’S F I RST Y E A R I N P I CT U R E S
Compiled by Karen Ingraham
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n a Monday afternoon in late September, Curtis Thomas ’09 led Exeter students through a series of movements as they warmed up in the dance performance studio. A professional dancer and experienced educator, Thomas had returned to Exeter to teach master classes for the dance program in a space he could have scarcely imagined 10 years earlier when he was a student. The school’s ability to host Thomas and experts like him in modern performance spaces has been greatly expanded and is one benefit among many that students and faculty are enjoying in the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance. As the school marks the building’s oneyear anniversary, we take a look at some examples of how the theater and dance programs have grown under its roof since it opened last fall.
Watch video of the Goel Center’s impact in its first year: exeter.edu/goelvideo.
In the previous performance venue, Fisher Theater, small musical ensembles were seated to the side of the mainstage. In the Goel Center, a movable orchestra pit expands opportunities for Exeter’s music, theater and dance programs to work more collaboratively on productions.
Within its first permanent home, the dance program also has its first Harkness classroom. Last spring, Dance Director Allison Duke wasted no time to connect the spaces with her new course, Dance in Society. The class married reflective writing and movement exercises along with the options for students to choreograph a dance project, create a media project or write an analytical paper. 4 0 •
The Actor’s Lab has preserved one of Fisher Theater’s most important qualities: The ability for actors to connect with their audiences in an intimate setting. Kate Denny ’19 performs in last spring’s production of “Let Me Down Easy.”
During winter term last year, the Theater and Dance Department debuted Dance 280, the Academy’s first accredited hiphop class. Open to students in all class levels, the course culminated in another milestone: The dance program’s first performance in its 46-year history on campus in a space designed specifically for that art form.
A new video-editing suite has not only enhanced the curriculum for students enrolled in filmmaking and screenwriting courses, but also provided relevant space to host guest speakers, like acclaimed film and music video director Philip Andelman ’95 (front).
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Right: February’s mainstage production of “The Wizard of Oz” (tickets to which sold out within 24 hours) was Exeter’s first production to offer a full-length understudy performance in its run. The number of students who auditioned for the musical was double the number who typically try out for a mainstage show.
Below: Whether waiting for an audition, doing homework or meeting friends on the south side of campus, students have found the Goel Center a comfortable, new home to work in.
Additional performance venues have inspired more interdepartmental collaborations. In May, the Theater and Dance Department partnered with the Office of Multicultural Affairs to present a reading of playwright Richard Greenberg’s “Take Me Out,” a drama set in a professional baseball team’s locker room that explores issues of sexual identity, race and masculinity. Students, faculty and staff members joined together on stage to perform the reading. 42 • T H E
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A Labor of Gratitude
Curtis Thomas ’09, an avid dancer and actor when he was a student, shares his professional training during a master class with PEA’s Dance Company.
During his 30th Exeter reunion in May, Bart Larrow Jr. ’89; P’22 found inspiration in the generosity of a classmate and the building that bears his name. “I learned that in addition to being donors,” Larrow shared, “Stacey and David Goel ’89 were actively involved in the planning and design” of the new theater and dance center. “Photos can capture moments, but having a scale model can transport you to the location. That’s what I wanted to create for them. A way to feel like they’re there.” So he turned to bricks — 8,000 architectural Lego bricks to be precise. It took Larrow more than a month to complete his intricately designed replica of the Goel Center, but he finished in time for the building’s one-year anniversary. “I built it as a thank-you to David and Stacey on behalf of the Exeter community … . Hopefully, they’ll enjoy their own [building], in miniature.”
The Goel Center’s costume shop has led to the creation of new courses like Costume Design and Construction, where students like Geena Richards ’19 can tap into their artistic vision and create original pieces that express their style.
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Life on the Trail A Q & A W I T H T WO E XO N I A N P R E S I D E N T I A L H O P E F U L S A crowded field of candidates for president of the United States has thinned as the race progresses toward 2020,
but two Exeter alums relatively new to politics are still in the running. We caught up with the two Exonians for a quick Q&A about life on the trail and how their Exeter experience has shaped their candidacies.
Describe your favorite campaign stop — or the stop that has been the most impactful for you — so far.
I’m giving $1,000 a month to several families around the country. Giving it to Kyle Christensen and his mom in Iowa Falls was very touching for me. Kyle’s mom is recovering from cancer. What’s the best question you’ve been asked by a voter on the trail and why did it resonate with you?
ANDREW YANG ’92
Age: 44 Hometown: Born in Schenectady, N.Y.; lives in Manhattan Career: Former technology executive; founded a
nonprofit to create jobs Signature issue: He wants to prepare for the future of an automated America by making universal basic income a reality. What’s the best part about running for president?
Meeting people from different walks of life all over the country. Makes you feel more human and American.
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A high school student in Iowa told me that his classmates were already addicted to fentanyl and had patches on their shoulders, and asked what we could do to help. It was rough to hear. I found other countries have gotten rates of abuse down by referring users to treatment instead of prison. What’s the oddest question you’ve been asked?
Can you sign my forehead? What’s something you’ve learned about America or the American people that you didn’t know when you started this campaign?
I might have known this, but many Americans are confused as to why they feel like D.C. doesn’t care about the people anymore. They do not feel confident about the future.
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How have the Exeter tenets of Harkness and non sibi served you as you have crisscrossed the country and met voters?
Learning at the Harkness table definitely prepared me to listen to other points of view at roundtables around the country. And Exeter classmates have helped me at every turn. I would never be running if it weren’t for my time at Exeter. What are some other Exeter lessons you find yourself leaning on when you’re campaigning?
If someone else is capable of doing something, you probably can do it, too.
bought the colorful, beaded belt from female artisans on a trip to Kenya to visit a school for girls supported by a friend. He has said he wears it as a reminder not to be so formal, and also as a symbol that the world is a better place when we educate women and girls.] What’s something you’ve learned about America or the American people that you didn’t know when you started this campaign?
How angry they are.
Describe the campaign process with a movie title.
Until the End of the World.
TOM STEYER ’75
Age: 62 Hometown: Born in New York; lives
in San Francisco Career: Started and managed a hedge fund for 25 years Signature issue: He says his top priorities are breaking the influence of corporations and addressing climate change. What’s the best part about running for president?
Meeting the people around the country. Describe your favorite campaign stop — or the stop that has been the most impactful for you — so far.
Denmark, South Carolina. I went down to see people who were being mistreated by the state government. They were upbeat and optimistic despite the deep hardship they’d been put through by being denied basic access to clean water. It reminded me of the resilience of the American people.
How have the Exeter tenets of Harkness and non sibi served you as you have crisscrossed the country and met voters?
What’s the best question you’ve been asked by a voter on the trail and why did it resonate with you?
What are some other Exeter lessons you find yourself leaning on when you’re campaigning?
The most important question I’m asked is “Why are you running?” It’s what everyone needs to answer, because it’s not about me. It’s about what I’m going to do in the job.
One of the big lessons from Exeter is that you take people for who they are so you take them genuinely without judgment.
What’s the oddest question you’ve been asked?
Describe the campaign process with a movie title.
Why are you wearing that belt? [Editor’s Note: Steyer
Field of Dreams.
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Harkness is about active listening, which is at the core of what I’m doing. As an organizer, the notion is that you aren’t doing it for yourself, but rather for the cause.
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CONNECTIONS
News and notes from the alumni community
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Coming Together By Mitch Bradbury ’78; P’09, P’20, former trustee
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s a clinical psychologist for over 30 years, I have dedicated my life to nurtur-
ing good relationships and eradicating the human condition of loneliness for those people who lack such connections. I am grateful and honored every moment of every day to have the opportunity and agency to foster connections with others, both personally and professionally. A friend asked me recently, as we were on campus for Exeter Leadership Weekend, “What is it about the 03833 that still draws on us all?” The question itself offered an opportunity for connection and it opened my heart: “It’s the connections to our spirit that come from going through something transformative that has made us all better human beings,” I replied. In a recent Facebook challenge to share covers of favorite books, another friend posted a newer translation of “The Odyssey” containing the following line: “All beggars and strangers are from Zeus and every act of kindness a blessing.” I came to Exeter short, chubby, swarthy, intellectually and socially outclassed. I was immediately homesick, lonely and fearful, but I was scrappy and confrontational, so the external armoring of these internal experiences was often mistakenly misperceived by others as aggression and arrogance. I felt alone. On my second night, the first night of homework estimated to take about six hours, I was in a state of terror and cried alone in my hot, tiny room on the fourth floor of Webster South. A knock on the door and the proctor came in, a senior. He quietly and compassionately asked me why I was crying, and I told him, “I don’t belong here.” He said, “Don’t be so sure,” and then he sat there with me and helped me complete six hours of homework in three, giving me my first lesson in Exeter efficiency. In this primary moment of connection, this generous young gentleman planted the seed of belonging; he lived non sibi and gave more than lip service to the core of finis origine pendet. This connection was an in vivo demonstration of nobility of character. His act of kindness, a blessing immemorial. In early September, I dropped off my son, a senior proctor in Peabody Hall, at Exeter. As we walked into the dorm, an apparently quiet and gentle first-year lower politely introduced himself and held the door. Given what I do for a living, it’s easy for me to “feel” people’s hearts, and I could feel this kid’s fear; it was familiar to me. I got my boy situated, showed him some love and headed down for that drive out of Exeter. Anyone who has ever left a kid at school knows what the first five minutes of that drive feels like. When I walked out of Peabody, I saw another kid pass by who seemed a bit lost. I caught up to him and asked if he had a few minutes to chat. As we sat outside the bookstore, I shared with him my own experiences of fear at Exeter and how the place had become spiritual for me over the years. I told him that he could expect others to show him the same kind of love here that I received. I gave him mine, and my son’s names and my contact info. “Don’t hesitate to connect, we’re here,” I said. This is what Exeter gave me: connection. Pass it forward. E
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Jameel Mohammed ’13 By Sandra Guzmán a digital platform celebrating Black culture and artisanship around the globe. We spoke with him in the Harlem home studio he shares with five roommates about his invigorated vision for his brand and artistic life. What was it like returning to live with your parents after all of the public success?
Honestly, I was dealing with so much unaddressed trauma and the head fake. Here I have [this magazine] and it has my face in it and it’s supposed to be the moment where your career transcends to the next level. And yet, I had no real stability in my world. I had to ask myself, “Is there actually a place for me in this industry?” The fact of the matter is that so many of these [fashion] businesses are rich-kid vanity projects that are oftentimes not profitable. I can get into Barneys and check the boxes if you map out the trajectory of a luxury fashion line. But no one tells you that they had a million dollars in the bank before they started. I thought, “I cannot play this game in the same way that they do.”
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How did you change? hen designer Jameel Mohammed ’13 was
featured in the September issue of Vogue in 2018, he rushed to buy a copy of the magazine at the newsstand. The fashion bible’s dazzling write-up about his luxury jewelry line, Khiry, was, by all accounts, an industry triumph and a signal that he had “made it.” Barneys New York department store was carrying his debut collection of gestural earrings, bold necklaces and sculptural rings — inspired by the ancient horned cattle of Central Africa — and A-list celebrities including Michelle Obama, Alicia Keys and Gabrielle Union were donning his pieces. Privately, however, there was dissonance. The 24-year-old often paced his crammed New York City apartment worrying about how to pay the rent. In fact, purchasing the $10 Vogue, he says, triggered an overdraft on his bank account. Mohammed’s parents sent him a Greyhound bus ticket and suggested he return home to Chicago. The move gave the artist, who began sketching his future fashion line in Abbot Hall during his upper year at Exeter, a restorative pause. Now, a year later, Mohammed is back in Gotham launching a second jewelry collection and Négritude,
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I began to reframe how I thought about luxury. Luxury is not a price point. It is about a perspective of depth, of craft, and building a community around those things. I am now experimenting with pricing and placement. I am also doing more custom-made pieces for private clients and expanding the pie of people who can participate. How are you allowing for more participation?
[Négritude] is a means to create a sustainable and scalable community so that I, and a bunch of others, can produce art without having to tailor it. It’s inspired by the literary movement of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s that celebrates Africa’s diaspora. … It features podcasts, interviews with artisans and also you can shop. It’s the Black luxury version of Goop’s business model — with Black themes, Black artisans and Black cultural producers. I want to explore how we balance cultural identity, Blackness, queerness, first-generation, third-culture kids, and African artistry around the world. It’s a way of creating actual commercial value around truth and truth-telling, and creating the infrastructure so that it can be happening 20 years from now. E
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Art History with Heart By Daneet Steffens ’82
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athleen James-Chakraborty ’78 remembers
entering Exeter’s Louis Kahn-designed library when she first visited the school as a teenager. “I loved that experience of walking up the staircase into an astonishing space,” she says. “I always told people that it was as if you had Chartres Cathedral as the church you went to on Sundays.” James-Chakraborty is now a leading expert on how certain buildings can imbue impactful experiences. A professor in architecture and art history at University College Dublin, she is the author or editor of seven books, primarily on modern German architecture but also including the scholarly global survey Architecture Since 1400. Last year, she received the Gold Medal in Humanities from the Royal Irish Academy in recognition of her work advancing the understanding of modern architecture, and for championing public art (and the public’s access to it) through her role on the boards of various museums and institutions. Her time at Exeter, especially in Instructor Stephen Smith’s Modern European History class, she says, helped inspire her to become a historian of modern architecture. “He was a superb teacher,” James-Chakraborty says. “His classes were some of my greatest academic experiences.” She went on to study art history at Yale and earned her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. A 1985 visit to the Bauhaus, a German art school, deepened her appreciation of architecture as a way to convey passion that goes far beyond structure. “The building had a scale of detail that I had never anticipated,” she says. “This was because in 1976 the East Germans decided it was their heritage and renovated the building. That building looked so good that I gave up writing my dissertation on Victorian public library buildings
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in New England and wrote about German architecture instead.” Today, in addition to teaching, speaking, and attending board-member engagements related to art history and architecture, James-Chakraborty sits on the Athena SWAN Ireland committee, part of a larger charter that recognizes educational institutions advancing gender equality. It is work that inspires reflection on her days at Exeter in the mid-1970s, soon after the school transitioned to coeducation. “We were part of a transformative experiment in terms of the opportunities it opened for me and my cohort,” James-Chakraborty says. “But now that I’m nearly 60, I also see all the opportunities that weren’t there, and how much of that goes back to sexual harassment and discrimination. I want my students to have equal opportunities based on their intelligence and their diligence, not on their privilege.” James-Chakraborty also believes in teaching students how to shape the environment around them. In her survey course, for example, she spends the final class discussing sustainability and active citizenship. “For the next generation, climate change and the shifts of people into a small group of global cities mean that architecture is at the cusp of the changes that affect every human being,” she explains. “Everybody deserves to have access to spaces that are [planned in such a way] that we can continue as a species in a humane and dignified manner.” Ultimately, in James-Chakraborty’s vision, architecture has the power to unite us. “When you saw that outpouring of grief over the Cathedral of Notre Dame,” she says, “a lot of that was that people all over the world — whether they’d been there or not — understood that it was special.” E
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Anesthesia Demystified By Debbie Kane
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f you’ve ever received general anesthesia for a
surgical procedure, you may have been told you were “going to sleep.” It’s a popular myth that Dr. Emery N. Brown ’74 is quick to dispel. “General anesthetics create a drug-induced, reversible coma — you’re unconscious, don’t feel pain, can’t move, and shouldn’t remember the procedure,” Brown says. “After the surgery, we reverse the coma.” As a statistician and one of the world’s foremost physician-scientists in anesthesiology, Brown is renowned for his research on anesthesia and its effects on the brain. “There used to be all these theories about how anesthesia worked, but no one could really explain why someone became unconscious after receiving one of these drugs,” Brown says. A practicing anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Brown determined that anesthesia creates brain oscillations, or waves. These waves impair the brain’s ability to communicate with the body, resulting in the unconsciousness we experience under general anesthesia. The responses of the brain circuits to anesthesia are affected by the type of drug used, as well as by a patient’s age, weight and health. “We can use these ideas to tailor anesthesia and cut down doses according to the patient type so there’s better control of the anesthesia and a faster wake-up,” Brown says. Brown’s findings are also helping scientists and doctors to better understand consciousness, leading to new treatments for depression and pain management. His body of work has earned him numerous science prizes and the honor of being one of only 21 people — and the first African American — elected to all three branches of the National Academies of Sciences. Despite earning top grades in science, Brown’s primary interest in high school was romance languages. At his mother’s suggestion, the Florida native attended Exeter’s summer program after his sophomore year of high school, then transferred to the Academy as an upper. Classes with French Instructor Aldo Baggia and Spanish Instructor Miguel Buisan further nurtured his lifelong love of languages. A trip to Barcelona during his senior year was revelatory. “It opened up the world to me,” Brown says. “Learning languages is a metaphor for learning about other cultures and other people.” At Harvard, Brown became intrigued with statistics,
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earning a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics, then a master’s degree and a doctorate in statistics along with his M.D. “Getting a Ph.D. in statistics along with my M.D. was very avant-garde at the time,” he says. “Statistics is about making inferences in uncertain circumstances. I knew that making inferences from data was going to be important scientifically.” Brown completed an anesthesiology residency at MGH and broadened his focus to include neuroscience. At the time, in the 1990s, anesthesiology and neuroscience were very separate disciplines. “I realized that anesthesiologists used pharmacology to study anesthetic levels in the blood and lungs, but they weren’t thinking about their actions in the brain.” Brown’s neuroscientific approach is opening up exciting possibilities. His team is studying the potential for Ritalin, a stimulant, to turn the brain on faster after surgery and reduce anesthetic side effects. Researchers are also investigating how ketamine, a general anesthetic, can be used at low doses to effectively treat severe depression. An intelligent anesthesia drug dosing system and site-specific medication may also be on the horizon. Brown is a frequent lecturer (sometimes presenting in Spanish or French), professor of medical engineering and computational neuroscience at MIT, professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and a practicing anesthesiologist. “Everything I’m doing is rewarding,” he says. “If I took away any aspect, I’d feel diminished.” E
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Painting in Motion By Genny Beckman Moriarty
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or visual artist Alexandra Carter ’04, the process
of painting veers toward performance art. Before she picks up her brushes, Carter often acts out an image or tries to embody a word or idea that interests her. A fly on the wall of her Los Angeles studio might observe the artist wrapping herself in fish netting and trying to break free or pretending to be an animal crawling on the floor. “I’ve always been interested in exploring the body,” says Carter, who earned her MFA in fine art from Goldsmiths, University of London, and has exhibited her work in major galleries across the globe. “My experience within [a body], one that is specifically female, how that body is used in images and as means for narrative, and where its physical and emotional boundaries [lie].” Her solo “acts” in the studio are heavily influenced by her research into expressionist dance forms such as butoh, and she sees theater and all of its trappings as a natural part of her work: “When I depict costumes, they become an extension of the body, a way to exaggerate or emphasize a certain aspect of physical form.” Referencing photographs of her body in motion — along with words and images she’s collected from other sources — Carter layers figures into her paintings to create a narrative that reveals itself only after she puts down her brushes. She credits Barbara Jenny, her art teacher at Exeter, for challenging her to uncover meaning in the images she was making. “It was the first time I started questioning my conceptual motivations and researching the content of my work,” she says. Carter’s choice in media — typically Mylar drafting film — adds to the drama of her work. The paint she uses, primarily acrylic and dye-based inks, tends to puddle and bead on its surface, while the translucent nature of the film allows her to paint on both sides. Because her images can appear to change from different angles, the viewer is involved in constructing a story line along with her. The idea of transformation is intriguing to Carter, as is her fascination with narratives of all kinds. “Abstract and minimal work never seemed to be an option for me,” she explains. “I needed more to hold onto. ... I think it’s
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necessary to investigate the stories we grew up with, and other stories that have been told throughout history, and how those have shaped us. That’s why imagery from mythology, folklore and fairy tale have had such a presence in my work.”
The artist’s own story is rooted in her childhood on a cranberry farm in New England — so rooted, in fact, that she has taken to painting with cranberry juice. By using the actual fruit as her material, Carter incorporates sense memory into her process, evoking “the buzzing of machine engines during harvest ... the pop of squishing berries under heavy rubber waders ... and the sharp taste of a wet waxy cranberry,” in her words. This cranberry-related imagery pays homage to Carter’s origins, but also expresses the tensions within. “The cranberry itself was a life force, the source of our financial stability, which, at the whim of crop turnouts, was volatile,” she says. “[But...] the fruit also brings along more visceral, feminine allusions to the body, with its redness and roundness.” Carter is currently building a body of work that springs from these early memories while exploring the full range and reach of her human experience. Her most recent solo exhibition, “Berries for Baubo,” was on view at Los Angeles’ Radiant Space gallery in September. E
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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 Please note, all photos are identified left to right unless otherwise indicated.
COAST TO COAST Summer offered many opportunities for the Exeter community to have fun and connect. Events included bird-watching, touring Chicago’s architecture, happy hours and a Sound of Music singalong.
BOSTON Young professionals met in July at Tia’s for a happy hour, including Shadi Ramadan ’12, Ruby Feng ’13, Shannon Lu ’12, Campbell Probert ’12 and Ryan Baker ’12.
MASSACHUSETTS Science instructors Rich Aaronian ’76, ’78, ’97 (Hon.); P’94, P’97 and Chris Matlack P’08, P’15 led a bird walk on Plum Island through the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.
Lily White ’09, Melissa Doo, David Walsh ’05, Alison Mehan ’07 and Rebecca Snelling ’08
PHILADELPHIA Exonians got together at Yards Brewing Company for a tour and happy hour hosted by the brewery’s CEO, Trevor Prichett ’93 (front row, center, yellow shirt).
2008 classmates: Alex Moran, Caroline Rouillard, Eric Bunker and Matt Rawson
WASHINGTON, D.C. Exeter alumni and guests enjoyed the Sound of Music singalong at Wolf Trap. Back row: Adam Browning; Michael Browning; Lida Verner; Montaign Gamino ’90, his son Carter, and wife, Anne; and Laura Browning ’87. Front row: Meagen Williams ’93 and Lori Lincoln ’86 with daughter Lauren Lincoln.
For a full listing of upcoming events, please go to exeter.edu/alumni. 52 • T H E
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2020 REUNION DATES If your graduation year ends in 0 or 5, mark your calendar for reunions in May 2020! Join your classmates back on campus to reconnect with old friends and discover new ones.
May 1-3 (Children’s Program) 40th | Class of 1980 35th | Class of 1985 30th | Class of 1990 25th | Class of 1995 20th | Class of 2000 15th | Class of 2005
NORTH CAROLINA A social gathering in Asheville gave Exonians an opportunity to meet and greet while enjoying the mountain view at the home of Sarah Oram ’77.
May 14-17 50th | Class of 1970 May 15-17 60th | Class of 1960 55th | Class of 1965 45th | Class of 1975 10th | Class of 2010 5th | Class of 2015
CHICAGO Alumni enjoyed a guided architecture tour of the city’s landmarks ending at Streeterville Social for continued conversation. Pictured: Katherine Aanensen ’12, Marie Leighton McCall ’18, Joe Duffy ’07, Robert Baldi ’03, Alex McLaughlin ’14, Danita Baldi P’03 and Peter Whallon ’16.
LA JOLLA Faculty from Exeter’s Humanities Institute hosted a reception for Exeter alumni in the area. Above: Ali De Leeuw ’10, Mark Perelis ’06, Briana Santirosa ’12 and Meg Foley, instructor in English.
LOS ANGELES Hosts Geoffrey Cheng ’12 (top row, right) and Dan Mavraides ’07 (not pictured) welcomed West Coast alumni to a happy hour at Ysabel.
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May 19-21 75th | Class of 1945 70th | Class of 1950 65th | Class of 1955
MINNEAPOLIS The Closmore sisters, Caroline ’03 and Susan ’05, welcomed Exonians to a happy hour at Surly Brewing Company.
SAN FRANCISCO Lucy Duan ’09 hosted a young alumni happy hour at Southern Pacific Brewing. Pictured here: Josiah Trui ’09, Chuck Ramsay P’17, P’21, P’23, Sophia Wronsky ’10 and Wit Nicholson ’07.
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NEW YORK The Exeter Association of Greater New York held a summer reception at the Apawamis Club in Rye, NY. Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 offered an Academy update.
Andy Craighead ’79; P’12, P’22 with his daughter Nicole ’22 and Karen (Adair) Miller ’79
James Moss, Kevin Zhen ’16, Hojung Kim ’14, Tarun Thummala ’16, Cory Edelman ’78 and Bill Fredericks ’79; P’16
Maria Velasquez P’19 with daughter Maria Cevallos and son Isaias Cevallos ’19
Bridgette Jean-Jacques P’16, P’19, P’21, Jacky Jean-Jacques ’21, Isaias Cevallos ’19, Chandler Jean-Jacques ’19, Mark Weisenborn ’98, Tarun Thummala ’16, Kevin Zhen ’16 and Hojung Kim ’14
Jeremy Bates ’86 with Mark Weisenborn ’98
Chris Sullivan ’01 and Robby Bergan ’02
Pilar Alonso and Bill Bauer ’80
Randy and Corky Frost ’52 with Ivy Fredericks P’16
See more event photos at www.exeter.edu/receptions. 54 • T H E
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NEW YORK CITY
PIER I CAFE Regional President Jeremy Bates ’86 and Regional Vice President Philip Kalikman ’04 (not pictured) hosted this event. Pictured are Mike Oneal ’74, Dan Oakley ’80; P’12, P’14, P’15, P’17, P’17 and Jeremy Bates ‘86.
David Wachsman ’02, Victor Lee ’01, Garrett McDonough ’01, Bevin (Gilhooly) Walsh ’02, Kwabena Safo-Agyekum ’02 and Rhoda Tamakloe ’01
The Big Apple was the location for a summer social at Pier i Cafe and an evening in the Hamptons at the home of Pilar Crespi Robert and Steve Robert ’58, which included remarks by Principal Bill Rawson.
Hannah O’Grady ’13 with her mother, Bethany O’Grady P’10, P’13, Brooke Goddard ’13 and Molly Mizusawa ’13
THE HAMPTONS Jocelyn Bohn ’11, hosts Steve Robert ’58 and his wife, Pilar Crespi Robert, Katherine Jin, Jason Kang ’12 and Tom Guthrie ’11
Maegan Paul ’21 with her mother, Kenya Paul P’21
Principal Bill Rawson and Vanessa Vincent ’06 Mark Weisenborn ’98 and his wife, Joyce, with Jamie and Bob Davis ’71
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LONDON Members of the Exeter family welcomed the Red Sox and the Yankees at London’s Olympic Stadium for two games and immersed themselves in the city’s theater district. Generations of alums enjoyed the famous rivalry, including Nico von Stackelberg ’08, Sandra and David Pfeiffer ’76, Rachel Morse ’16 and Sara Long ’03.
Sid Reddy ’13; Caroline Matule ’19; Ursula Sze ’19; Clara Schumacher with her father, Dick Schumacher ’83, outgoing U.K. regional association president; Zach Young ’13; and Bobbi Hernandez-Sze P’19, P’22 and her husband, Trustee Morgan Sze ’83; P’19, P’22
Exeter Expeditions offered a theater tour that included seeing seven plays in seven days. Theater and Dance Instructor Sarah Ream ’75; P’09, P’11 (fifth from left) led the program.
ASIA Special gatherings offered Exeter families an opportunity to recognize their recent graduates and to welcome incoming students.
SEOUL Alumni, parents and students enjoyed a summer reception.
TOKYO An Exeter reception for alumni, students and their guests
See more event photos at www.exeter.edu/receptions. 56 • T H E
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UPCOMING EVENTS Exonians enjoy reconnecting through numerous activities and events, including large receptions and small socials, sports competitions, cultural and educational opportunities and non sibi projects. You can view and register for events at www.exeter.edu/alumni, or call the Alumni and Parent Relations Office at 603-777-3454.
ON CAMPUS Parents had a chance to connect and relax at a reception after dropping off their students in September.
Nov. 4
Denver Reception
Nov. 4-5
Exeter Salutes
Nov. 7
Dallas Reception
Nov. 8
Houston Reception
Nov. 20
San Francisco Influential Women of Exeter
Dec. 10
San Francisco Holiday Party
Jan. 15
New York City Reception
New York City, Toronto, Atherton, CA, Philadelphia and Silver Springs, MD. Or tune in to the games at www.exeter.edu/win.
watch party
Join a watch party for Exeter/Andover November 9 – GO BIG RED!
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The Solidarity of Fat Girls By Courtney Sender It is your luck to be the brother of three fat girls.
She says, “I feel naked.”
They have insisted on the moniker. “We’re fat girls,” Elsie has told you. “If you don’t accept it, who will?”
You don’t understand. She says, pressing your head to her blanket-swaddled chest, “I’ve lost the layer between me and the world.”
“Don’t say that,” you’ve replied, hopelessly, “you’re beautiful.” And she has kissed your forehead wetly, like an aunt — 13 years your senior, she relishes that word “girls” — and said, “Exactly.” Elsie is the fattest of the three fat sisters. She once tried to be a plus-size model, but has since accepted a job writing copy for a crafts catalogue.
Your mother does not come back. Your sisters hold out for her return, whispering, “We won’t let her,” “She doesn’t deserve him,” “We’re doing well by him, aren’t we?” refusing in advance to surrender you.
You almost marry a fat girl who knows she is fat. She doesn’t assume that people’s brothers should love her. You couldn’t love someone who did.
Your sister Geraldine might defy categorization, a middle-sized girl with solid thighs. But she’s identified herself as a fat girl, so she asks people to pull in their chairs before squeezing past; she never just squeezes. Geraldine is the type of babysitter whom the parents love and the children hate until they’re much older. She takes you with her to her charges’ houses, where you meet their working mothers. Your mother has been gone for over a decade. She didn’t love you. This breaks your sisters’ hearts but disturbs you very little, because you feel so abundantly mothered. Your three sisters look the same to you, distinguished by the clarity of the hemispheres below their necks and by minute emphases: Elsie’s plucked eyebrows, Geraldine’s missing tooth, Karen’s sallow cheeks. Karen is a thin girl who used to be a fat girl, this by dint of extended illness. She misses her old body. “You’re beautiful, Karen,” you tell her, once the cancer has scooped out her insides.
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You don’t remember courting girls. You have the air of being cherished about you, so it’s easy to cherish you; you seem to demand it.
You recognize that there are two kinds of girls: fat girls and thin girls; and within those, there are two kinds of girls: those who know which they are and those who don’t.
You remember this: taking the sweater off your back, tugging it over Karen’s hollow chest. “No,” said Geraldine, pulling you from the casket. “She feels naked,” you said. The night before your wedding, you run away. Elsie says you’ll be at Karen’s grave. Your fiancée wants to stay home, crying, but Geraldine revs the pickup and says, Get in. Without you they drive carefully, imagining you watching. They do it first because it is their instinct and second because, if they’re careful enough, maybe you will come back to them. But you are not at the graveyard. You are not on the streets. Your sisters search all night, but their soft bodies grow tired and they don’t ever find you sitting just above them in the hollow of a tree, neck thrown back, arms stretched up, reaching for the belly of the moon. E Courtney Sender is the 52nd George Bennett Fellow writer-in-residence, working on her first full-length book. This piece was originally published online at American Short Fiction.
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LAMONT GALLERY FREDERICK R. MAYER ’45 ART CENTER
2019 & 2020 EXHIBITIONS
WAY OF THE WORLD B. LYNCH, MIRROR MIRROR, 2016, LINO CUT
B. Lynch, creates a rich imaginary universe that echoes our own society, reflecting wealth, power, work, abundance and exclusion.
AMERICAN MORTAL HIDDEN TREASURES 5
IMAGE FROM HIDDEN TREASURES 4 IN 2015
Sept. 3-Oct. 19, 2019 American Mortal features
Nov. 5-Dec. 14, 2019 Reception: Thursday, Nov. 7, 5-7 p.m.
artists Becky Alley and
An exhibition that showcases the creative
items to explore themes
side of Exeter, featuring works by Phillips Exeter Academy employees. During the exhibition, we will host GIFT!, the annual
Melissa Vandenberg, whose works use common domestic of patriotism, war and commemoration.
holiday art sale on Thursday, Dec. 12, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
ANNUAL STUDENT EXHIBITION This exhibition highlights creative works by current Exeter students enrolled in advanced art courses.
CUT UP / CUT OUT Jan. 14-March 7, 2020 Cut Up/Cut Out includes 2-D and 3-D works by national and international artists who explore methods of decorative piercing and cutting, using media ranging from paper and plastic to metal and rubber.
SPRING EXHIBITION — TO BE ANNOUNCED Please check the Lamont Gallery website for updates.
LAMONT GALLERY PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY 11 TAN LANE EXETER, NH 03833
603-777-3461 • gallery@exeter.edu Gallery hours: Monday by appointment, Tuesday-Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Free and open to the public. Call for accessibility information. For more on events, special programs and past exhibitions, visit www.exeter.edu/lamontgallery
JUSTIN LI ’20, LIKE THIS?, 2019, WATER-SOLUBLE OIL PAINT ON CANVAS IMAGE FROM ARTICULATE, THE 2019 STUDENT ART EXHIBITION
KAREN MARGOLIS, SALT LAKE CITY, 2009, 6 LAYERS OF MAPS, WATERCOLOR
TOM SEIDENBERG, STELLA PASTRY, SAN FRANCISCO, 2010, DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPH, NIKON D60.
Way of the World, a mixed media installation by artist
MELISSA VANDENBERG, MONUMENT, 2016, US FLAGS, POLYESTER, WOOD, NYLON, AND HARDWARE
June 25-August 2, 2019
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