Academics
Afield
Students pursue purpose-driven learning at home and abroad this summer By Sarah Pruitt ’95
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nergy and excitement filled Love Gymnasium on September 10, 2021, as the entire school community of students and faculty gathered for the first time in 18 months for Opening Assembly. In the front rows, members of the class of 2022 listened as Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 offered a reminder of Exeter’s mission “to unite goodness and knowledge and inspire youth from every quarter to lead purposeful lives.” But as all Exonians know, the pursuit of goodness and knowledge doesn’t begin after Opening Assembly, and it doesn’t end after that last class in late May. Summer may be for rest, relaxation, family and friends — but it also offers many students, including those featured here, the precious time and space to continue the pursuit of learning and to follow their sense of purpose into the wider world.
ZANDER GALLI ’22
Zander Galli ‘22 places satellite tracking tags on giraffes in Namibia.
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Guardian of biodiversity For as long as he can remember, Zander Galli ’22 has been interested in wildlife and nature. After his lower year, Galli planned a trip to Africa, where he initially thought he’d be working with cheetahs. In fact, he headed to the Munyawana Conservancy in southeastern South Africa for a conservation project involving pangolins, the rare insect-eating mammals that are covered in overlapping scales resembling the leaves of an artichoke. “They have this entrancing aura that’s hard to describe if you’re not right next to it,” Galli says. “It’s like stumbling on some otherworldly alien, they’re just so strange and beautiful.” While often compared to anteaters, pangolins are in fact more closely related to the Carnivora order, which includes cats, dogs and bears. Their unique scales are made of keratin, the same protein that forms human hair and fingernails. Despite having no proven medicinal value, the scales are highly sought after for use in traditional cures for ailments ranging from arthritis to cancer. Due to a robust poaching trade over the past 10 to 15 years, pangolins are now believed to be the most-trafficked mammal in the world. Though the COVID-19 pandemic scuttled all travel in the summer of 2020, Galli returned to the same conservancy this summer. His job was to help rehabilitate three young pangolins that had been rescued from the poaching trade and reintroduce them into the wild. Pangolins are normally solitary, nocturnal creatures, but these orphaned animals were completely dependent on Galli and his colleagues to dig up ant and termite nests for them to feed on. “At night, you bring them back and sleep right next to them, because you have to keep them warm and make sure they don’t get sick,” Galli says. “It’s very stressful for them.” In addition to the threat of poaching, “the climate crisis is really
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