The Exeter Bulletin, summer 2015

The Exeter Bulletin SUMMER 2015

Exeter’s Next Principal W E LC O M E L I S A M AC FA R L A N E

ALSO: • Commencement 2015 • New kinds of Harkness classes • Table Talk with Kenji Yoshino ’87

YOU’RE PART OF EVERY EXETER MOMENT.

More than 10,000 alumni, parents and friends gave to The Exeter Fund this past school year. Every gift helps lay a foundation for the Exeter experience by providing opportunities for learning and achievement in the classroom and beyond.

THANK YOU. WATCH STUDENTS SHARE HOW YOUR SUPPORT MADE A DIFFERENCE IN THEIR LIVES AT WWW.EXETER.EDU/THANKYOU.

The Exeter Bulletin Principal Thomas E. Hassan ’56, ’66, ’70, ’06 (Hon.); P’11 Director of C ­ ommunications Robin Giampa Editor Karen Ingraham

SUMMER

Associate Editor Genny Moriarty Staff Writers Mike Catano Nicole Pellaton Class Notes Editor Janice M. Reiter Contributing Editors Edouard L. Desrochers­­ Karen Stewart Creative Director/Design David Nelson, Nelson Design Editorial Assistant Susan Goraczkowski 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 Eunice Johnson Panetta ’84 Vice President Marc C. de La Bruyère ’77 Mitchell J. Bradbury ’78, Wole C. Coaxum ’88, Flobelle Burden Davis ’87, Walter C. Donovan ’81, John A. Downer ’75, Mark A. Edwards ’78, Jonathan W. Galassi ’67, David E. Goel ’89, Thomas E. Hassan, Jennifer P. Holleran ’86, Eiichiro Kuwana ’82, Sally J. Michaels ’82, Deidre O’Byrne ’84, William K. Rawson ’71, Kerry Landreth Reed ’91, Dr. Nina D. Russell ’82, J. Douglas Smith ’83, Morgan C. Sze ’83 and Remy White Trafelet ’88 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 2015 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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“THIS IS A WOMAN WHO IS GOING TO EXCITE THE SCHOOL...IN THE MOST THOUGHTFUL WAY.” —page 20

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IN THIS ISSUE

Volume CXX, Number 4

Features

20 Exeter’s Next Principal

Lisa MacFarlane brings empathy and experience to a role her colleagues describe as a ‘perfect match’

By Karen Ingraham

26 Commencement 2015

Photos and highlights of Graduation Day

Photography by Cheryl Senter

32 Harkness with a Twist

Teachers and students are moving beyond the traditional Harkness model to explore new subject matter and new ways of engaging with the content, and each other

By Nicole Pellaton

Departments 6

Around the Table: Introduction by new Trustee President Nicie Panetta ’84, students record their first album, Principal Hassan’s surprise flash mob, and more.

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Table Talk with Kenji Yoshino ’87

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Inside the Writing Life: A Conversation with Kirstin Valdez Quade ‘98

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Sports: Girls varsity basketball players find the winning formula. Plus, spring sports roundup.

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Connections: News and Notes from the Alumni Community

38 Profiles: Jeff Seabright ’73 and Peter Kalugin ’11 112

Finis Origine Pendet: Nuggets of Wisdom, by Sabrina Movitz ’15 —Cover photograph by Cheryl Senter

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D E PA RT M E N T

AROUND THE TABLE

What’s new and notable at the Academy

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By Trustee President Eunice “Nicie” Panetta ’84 “For at some point, each of us will be asked to embody what we feel and know.”

—Chang-rae Lee ’83, On Such a Full Sea

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BRIAN CROWLEY

xeter has been full of special energy this year. It’s been a time of sad and fond leave-taking for the Hassan family as they enter a new and exciting chapter, and a time of preparation to welcome our new principal, Lisa MacFarlane. In the spring issue of the Bulletin, my colleague, Trustee Tony Downer ’75; P’06, P’06, P’07, painted a vivid portrait of the search process that led to the selection of Dr. MacFarlane P’09, P’13. In Tom Hassan P’11 and in Lisa MacFarlane, we are so fortunate to be served by two wise and good leaders, both of whom have chosen with courage to act on what they feel and know is right for them.

Time and again during this period of transition and in so many great conversations with faculty, staff, alumni and students, I have been buoyed by the strong tide of shared commitment to our school community. We all aspire to an Academy at which each of the precious children in our care can flourish — not simply as students, but as complete and unique beings, with so much to offer our world.

Every day our faculty and staff work hard to support these students as they forge deep friendships and learn to balance the work of the mind with the joy of play and the solace of reflection. This is work that we as Trustees are honored to support. This is work that never ends.

As a leader in secondary education, Phillips Exeter Academy is often looked to by others to not only embody but also share what we know and believe about the education of young minds and hearts, the meaning of service…about a life well lived. Please know that as Trustees we are eager to work with our new principal and with each and every one of you to answer this call. E

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It’s a Wrap!

EXETER SCARF OFFERS LESSON IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

By Nicole Pellaton

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ALEX ZHANG ’16

hat would you draw to represent your Exeter experience? That’s the question Christina Jessica Wang ’05 asked students last fall as they started work on a collaborative project to design an Exeter-themed scarf. Wang’s vision was to teach Exonians about entrepreneurship and business with a real-life product, leveraging her experience as a professional designer. Directed by Wang and learning at each step, the team of 13 artists, spanning prep to senior year, enjoyed the freedom to explore, experiment, fail and succeed.

After months of work outside of class, and without course credit, the students and Wang produced a limited-edition lightweight wool scarf marketed under the name cjw x EXETER ART 2015. Look closely and you’ll see images of all sorts of objects, from the sublime — the doors of Phillips Church, the school seal, a Harkness table, an Exeter acceptance letter — to the mundane (and often delicious) — ice cream cones, cookies, panini (a d-hall favorite), an L.L. Bean boot, a laundry Ally Grounds ’17 card and a red sweatshirt. models the new Jane Li ’18, who contributed a drawing of glove-covered hands Exeter scarf. holding a heart-shaped piece of snow that says non sibi, “loved the entire experience.” Her drawing, made during Exeter’s record-breaking snowy winter, reflects her direct experience of braving the cold and her feeling that Exonians, whatever the challenge, focus on others.

“Exonians continue throughout their whole lives walking on the path of selflessness. We love giving to the community,” she says.

“Seeing a business run from the inside was an amazing experience,” observes Alison Dowski ’17, who enjoyed learning about everything from design to manufacture and marketing, from a pro. “I liked how Christina explained the steps of creating the scarf, and getting it to her shop — it provided insight on how a business runs, which is something I’ve never learned or experienced before. I loved [hearing about] her experience after Exeter, which opened my eyes to the sheer amount of opportunity we have to do what we love in the outside world.”

For Ally Grounds ’17, the best moment was Wang’s unveiling of the finished scarf, which she calls “amazing.” She’s grateful for the “little taste of how the industry works — the challenges and successes Christina has experienced — with advice for us as developing artists.”

The scarf is signed by all the contributors: Hillary Aristotle ’17, Aiyana Brough ’18, Carissa Chen ’17, Dowski, Millie Dunstan ’15, Athena Gerasoulis ’17, Grounds, Soo Hyun (Alma) Hong ’17, Grace Huang ’18, Maya Kim ’18, Li, Wendi Yan ’18 and Wang. It went on sale in mid-May through Wang’s online store. She will donate a portion of the proceeds to the PEA Art Department for special projects. E

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Marriage Equality’s Moment TA B L E TA L K W I T H K E N J I Y O S H I N O ’ 8 7

By Daneet Steffens ’82

Editor’s Note: The Exeter Bulletin went to press before the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision on Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that could decide samesex marriage is legal in all 50 states.

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hen the Supreme Court decision on

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marriage equality is handed down in June, legal scholar Kenji Yoshino ’87 will be listening with high and well-considered hopes: “Regardless of how the Supreme Court decides the case,” he says, “we are moving toward the endgame in the United States with regard to marriage equality. It does feel like the ‘speak now’ moment for marriage equality, which replicates the moment in marriage ceremonies where final objections must be made before we drive to a conclusion. I saw that theme during oral arguments at the Court on April 28. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli concluded: ‘Gay and lesbian people are equal. They deserve the equal protection of the laws, and they deserve it now.’ In the end, it was — and is — as simple as that.”

Whatever the decision turns out to be, Yoshino retains a clear-eyed, realistic and forward-looking vision. “If the Supreme Court rules that marriage equality is constitutionally required, then marriage will be available to same-sex couples in all 50 states. The focus of litigation and legislation will move to the question of whether religious objectors can opt out of performing services — issuing licenses, catering weddings, providing venues — for same-sex couples who seek to exercise their right to marry.

“If the Supreme Court rules that marriage equality is not constitutionally required, the result will be a legal crazy quilt — one of the reasons I think the Supreme Court will avoid this result. Under that scenario, the pro-gay approach would return to the inch-by-inch strategy of getting the courts to secure marriage equality under state constitutions, which can offer protections even when the federal constitution does not, or getting state legislatures to enact laws assuring marriage equality.”

What remains critical, Yoshino notes, is to not lose sight of the issue’s global

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scale: In most places outside of America, the fight for marriage equality is just beginning. “Only about 10 percent of nations guarantee marriage equality,” he says. “The frontier will shift to the over-200 countries that still do not have marriage equality, over 70 of which still criminalize same-sex sexual conduct.”

Yoshino’s clarity of expression belies a deeply emotional connection to this topic. For this scholar, civil rights advocate, family man and gay Japanese American, the personal is refreshingly political. His professional observations are often deeply embedded in his own experiences, making his written work and on-air discussions highly accessible to a wider audience. The Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University’s School of Law, Yoshino is the go-to person for everyone from Rachel Maddow to Anderson Cooper to Charlie Rose, his points of view appearing as often in mainstream media as they do in academic journals. Two of his books, 2006’s award-winning Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights and this year’s Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial, are shot through with rich seams of memoir, while 2011’s A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare’s Plays Teach Us About Justice, draws from his work in law and literature.

“It’s important for me to articulate my subject position for at least two reasons,” Yoshino affirms. “First, I am a big believer in the feminist axiom that the personal is the political.

To understand what it means to possess or to lack legal equality, I think we need to be candid about how each condition is experienced. Second, I think it’s more honest, and fairer to the other side, to acknowledge the life experiences that undergird my view.”

Yoshino proffers a robust faith in the law as a powerful tool for people’s benefit (“Law is an extremely blunt instrument, well suited for obvious forms of exclusion, like the categorical exclusion of gays from the institution of marriage”). But he also has a canny ability to acknowledge — and even advocate for — its limitations (“Other forms of social injustice, which are both infinite and infinitesimal, require responses that are correspondingly granular”), and believes that dialogue is at the heart of change. “To even enter into a dialogue requires certain preconditions: respect for your partner in conversation, humility about one’s potential to be wrong and faith that we can reason together toward justice. Of course, dialogue not only reflects those civic virtues, but reinforces them as well. As all of the foregoing would imply, the hardest step to take is the first one, because it requires both confidence and vulnerability — a sense that one both has the power to persuade and the openness to be persuaded.”

While he continues to fight for marriage equality — “I am increasingly interested in advancing the debate in Asia, where the opposition to marriage equality is still strong” — he recognizes that progress can also slip.

“When I was a student at Exeter, gay rights was an enormously controversial topic, while issues pertaining to the eradication of the subordination of women or racial/ethnic minorities were sacred cows. I am struck by how the landscape has flipped: Gay rights is firmly established, while reproductive rights, voting rights and affirmative action are now being rolled back. A colleague of mine once said that while many civil rights struggles begin, none ever ends.” E

“TO EVEN ENTER

INTO A DIALOGUE

REQUIRES CERTAIN PRECONDITIONS: RESPECT FOR

YOUR PARTNER IN CONVERSATION,

HUMILITY ABOUT

ONE’S POTENTIAL

TO BE WRONG AND

FAITH THAT WE CAN REASON TOGETHER TOWARD JUSTICE.”

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Three Quarter Moon Releases Album A S E N I O R P R O J E C T C R E AT E S O P P O R T U N I T Y F O R A YO U N G B L U E G R A S S B A N D

By Sarah Zobel

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t noon on most Wednesdays last year, Sol

Chase ’15, Hannah Merrill ’15 and Erica McCormick ’16 would grab their instruments — a mandolin, a banjo and a guitar — and head for the basement of Phillips Church, where they would join banjo player and English Instructor Todd Hearon.

The informal ensemble, who called themselves Banjo’clock, would jam for an hour or so before the three students continued on their own to rehearse covers and original songs for their bluegrass and folk band, Three Quarter Moon, which had a standing gig at the Exeter Inn from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. those evenings.

Chase, who plays the mandolin, says that ultimately Three Quarter Moon’s music “flowed over into every free period, lunch and just kind of all of our free time.” It was, adds guitarist McCormick, “just nonstop playing in different locations.”

After 25 hours in a Portsmouth recording studio as part of Chase’s senior project, advised by Hearon, the trio has released an album, Southbound. It includes 10 original songs and was celebrated at a crowded release party in Phillips Church in early June. This summer, the band will be touring the Colorado music festival circuit to promote the new album.

During one of their last days on campus together, the band answered a few questions.

Q: How was the band formed?

Erica McCormick: Sol and I have been playing

together since upper spring, and I gave Hannah a banjo I had — she was playing harp. When we came back this year, we decided to be a band. We came up with our name over Christmas break.

Sol Chase: After throwing out 4,000 others.

EM: I was sitting at my farm — I live on a horse farm in Texas. We were all on the phone constantly because we had a new gig at the Exeter Inn that we needed to have a band name for, so we had a really big time crunch. I was looking at the moon, and I thought, How would I measure how far away the moon appears to be from the trees? And for

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some reason my brain jumped to distances measured in quarters — as in the currency — and I thought, It’s about two quarters away. I said that to them, and they said, “What about three?”

Q: Who are your musical influences?

EM: We kind of got obsessed with the Punch Brothers

— especially Sol, who’s always been a huge fan of theirs — and Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, from whom we took numerous harmonies to fit in the spaces of our album. Also there’s a new Punch Brothers album called The Phosphorescent Blues, which is really odd. It’s got kind of a new type of bluegrass on it and it’s a very experimental sound. We didn’t want to do something that was just another folk album, or just another bluegrass album, but something different that might not even have a genre yet.

Q: What were the recording sessions like?

Hannah Merrill: It was a really interesting experience.

For me, it was almost as if that was the first time I had heard our songs, and I was processing them differently, I think. I liked them a lot better after that too!

EM: We can play covers from the Rolling Stones and hate them after we play them five or six times, so you completely expect to hate your own songs when you play them repeatedly. But I think we really connected more than ever with our music and with each other during our studio time.

SC: We did it at a local studio in Portsmouth called Mill Pond Music Studio. The founder’s named is James Prendergast. He was a musician in Nashville for 20 or 30 years, so he really had the knowledge to make the best quality product we could hope for anywhere outside of Nashville or Austin.

EM: We made all the money we’ve used on this entire project ourselves at the Exeter Inn. We’re completely selffunded — and funded from music.

Q: Sol and Erica, you’ve been playing your instruments for many years, but Hannah, you’re pretty new to banjo.

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to completion, past the This is OK I guess stage. Sol and I wrote some songs last year too, before we even thought of the senior project idea, but the senior project is a way to do that more efficiently.

SC: I did an extra format on day three and Erica and Hannah contributed out of their really busy schedules.

It was officially just my senior project, but they did just as much work. Usually Erica and I would write a song, and then we’d bring it to Hannah. A couple of them — they’re noted on the album — Hannah wrote with us, so we would just pass around a notebook and write down lyrics. And we wrote all the music and lyrics and solos and everything ourselves. It took a significant amount of time — that was probably where most of our time this term was spent: writing.

HM: I’ve been playing since last March. Erica convinced me to play, and I took banjo lessons with Adjunct Music Instructor Ryan Thompson. He plays claw hammer style, and I do a little bit of that and finger picking — those are the two main styles. Most of my practice comes from Banjo’clock and band practice.

EM: I think Hannah could play pretty much any instrument.

SC: It’s kind of scary, actually. She’ll pick up a mandolin or guitar and be better than us at a certain song in a couple of hours.

Q: But you don’t sing?

HM: No. I don’t enjoy it very much, and I love hearing

Sol and Erica sing and don’t want to interfere with that.

SC: Aw!

Q: Did it get in the way of academics?

EM: It’s a priority for us.

SC: I’m going to UT-Austin next year, and Erica and

Q: Was this the first time writing music and lyrics for

all of you?

EM: Sol and I both have notebooks full of songs we’ve written, and some of those we play together. But this was the first time we’d done it seriously and compiled a number of songs that we all enjoyed. I think usually when you write songs, you end up liking them or not liking them, but I feel like I rarely ever finish them to a point that I would want to present them to a manufacturer.

That was one of the hardest parts — getting our songs

I are planning to go into music as a business together, so I kind of thought of it as getting a head start on a career.

That’s probably just as important as that math test.

HM: I’m going to Cornell to study agriculture. My main goal is to take over my family’s dairy farm that we’ve had for four generations in Stratham, but I’d love to try music at least for a little bit after college. E

May 14, 2015 was a momentous day as the PEA community gathered to break ground at the site of the new addition to the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center.

The 12,000-square-foot expansion, which has a target opening of fall 2016, will include a 250-seat recital and rehearsal hall and a media and technology center.

A music studio, Harkness classroom, rehearsal hall and practice rooms are also planned.

The morning’s speakers included trustees, faculty and students, who laid out a vision for the performing arts at Exeter and spoke of the impact the addition would have on the Music Department’s ability to meet the needs of its rapidly expanding program. Audrey Hood ’17 spoke eloquently of Forrestal-Bowld as her “home on campus,” a place in which “unlimited learning” occurs and “one of the biggest and most passionate communities on campus” thrives. She expressed appreciation for the new center, which will, in her words, “further our musical interests, enhancing and strengthening our community even more.”

Expressing gratitude for the generosity of the donors who made the addition possible, Principal Tom Hassan SU M M E R

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CHERYL SENTER

BREAKING NEW GROUND FOR THE MUSIC DEPARTMENT

Clint Gilbert ’47, Dudley Rauch ’59, William Bowld ’43, Principal Tom Hassan, Ann Goldstein W’53, R.C. McShane ’17, Jeff Wood ’59, Gro Wood and Jerry Sullivan.

called the performing arts an essential part of the Exeter experience, stating, “Music has the power to change a mood, lift our spirits and inspire the imagination.”

PEA’s Chamber Orchestra and Concert Choir, performing works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and John Philip Sousa, provided “tangible examples,” in Hassan’s words, “of the incredible impact the expansion will have on these students, and on the thousands of other student musicians who will practice, perform — and discover — within the walls of the new addition.” E T H E

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A FLASH MOB SEND-OFF FOR PRINCIPAL HASSAN On Friday, May 29, the entire school community took part in a surprise flash mob dance performance to commemorate Principal Tom Hassan’s retirement. During assembly on the last day of classes, students, staff and faculty spread out on the lawn in front of Assembly Hall. The group greeted Hassan with a choreographed dance — which many had practiced in advance — to a medley of poignant songs as he exited the building and joined his wife, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, who was waiting nearby. This warm send-off was the community’s way of showing appreciation for Hassan’s 26 years of service to the Academy. To memorialize the occasion, the Student Council gave out special T-shirts, designed by Kevin Zhen ’16.

Hassan praised the thoughtfulness and hard work that went into orchestrating such a large-scale event, stating, “This is the power and essence of a strong community like ours, one that I will always cherish.” E

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To catch a glimpse of the flash mob, visit www.exeter.edu/bulletinextras.

Top: Students, faculty and staff all learned a choreographed dance in secret to surprise Principal Hassan with a flash mob. Bottom: Khymaya Perkins ’16 was one of several PEA Dance Company members to lead the crowd through the number.

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Inside the Writing Life A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H K I R S T I N VA L D E Z Q U A D E ’ 9 8

By Daneet Steffens ’82

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aneet Steffens ’82 interviewed Kirstin Valdez Quade ’98, whose first

short-story collection, Night at the Fiestas, was published this spring.

Some of these stories found early homes in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories and Guernica, and last year Valdez Quade was chosen as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 by none other than Andre Dubus III. Her stories are potently steeped in their physical landscapes: Whether it’s the author’s ancestral home of northern New Mexico, a fictional trailer park drawn from Pahrump, Nevada, or fancy California blueberry fields, the sense of place jostles fiercely for space with pitch-perfect characters, while Valdez Quade’s incisive turns of phrase thrum with both darkness and humor.

Q: These stories contain many damaged souls: lost mothers, abandoned daughters, isolated cousins, lonely half-siblings, deadbeat dads. But, messed up as they are, you portray them all with an incredible level of empathy. How do you make that particular magic happen?

Quade: Empathy’s presence is what I most hope for when I’m working on a story. Fiction is an empathetic practice. In both reading and writing fiction, it’s all about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, and the trick is getting it right. It takes many, many drafts to get it right. I often start with a character that I find on the surface to be dismissible; some of my characters are not great people — I think they’re trying to be better, but they’re extremely flawed. So that’s my starting point: I’ll think, “What’s going on with this character? Why do I want to see this person as a person?” Then my job is writing the story and then, after years of revision, to actually get to a place where I’m not judging. Because sometimes when I start off, I am judging my characters, and that’s problematic. As a writer you cannot judge your characters; you have to try to be your characters, to understand what it would be like to be that person with that particular set of limitations and flaws and virtues, and then walk with them through their story.

Q: What was it like to have Dubus champion your work?

Quade: It was incredible and stunning. I was in my pajamas on a Sunday morning working at

my desk when I got the call. For weeks it was a wonderful shock. I remember reading House of Sand and Fog when it came out: Dubus creates this situation where you empathize with everybody in the story and yet it’s an impossible situation. They’re fighting over this finite resource, this house; there’s no way that everyone can have it and the reader doesn’t even know what to root for.

I remember thinking, “That is what a story needs to do. It needs to make us feel for everybody in the situation — and to feel deeply for them.”

Q: You’re currently teaching creative writing in the MFA program at the University of Michigan.

What do you enjoy about working with other — and younger — writers?

Quade: I love teaching. I find it really invigorating to talk with others about literature and writing. Writing is such an isolated activity — you’re alone in your office and it’s just you and your

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computer and your own brain — so I find it really refreshing to leave that space and interact with my students. Also, I think that so much of writing is about problem solving; when I am engaged with my students and with other people over their manuscripts, I’m looking for solutions, ways the story could improve, and all of that is practice for when I turn to my own manuscripts.

Q: What kind of walls do you hit as a writer yourself, or find you have to work through with your students?

Quade: When I look at a manuscript, either a student’s manuscript or a manuscript by one of my peers — because I do share work with friends — or one of my own manuscripts, often it’s flawed in some way: There’s some way in which the story isn’t working. Is the character not entirely embodied on the page? Are the motivations fuzzy? What exactly is not working? Then comes the problem-solving part, which is figuring out the specific things that the writer — or that I — can do to make that next draft work.

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Q: You’ve talked previously about equating faith and fiction. Can you describe that thinking in more detail?

Quade: Some of my favorite classes at Exeter were religion classes and I still remember the thrill of grappling with the questions we discussed: The learning approach was all about questioning; the act of questioning seemed to be paramount in those classes and that just really struck a chord with me.

And I think fiction is about questioning, too. I don’t write a story because I know what it’s going to be about and I know what I want it to say or what ideas I want to come through. I write a story because I have questions and am trying to follow those questions until some truth emerges, somehow.

I WRITE A STORY BECAUSE I HAVE QUESTIONS AND AM TRYING TO FOLLOW THOSE QUESTIONS UNTIL SOME TRUTH EMERGES, SOMEHOW.

Q: You’ve got an acknowledgements page packed with friends, fellow writers and fellowships. Writing is considered a solitary experience, but what about the community experience have you benefited from?

Quade: Thank God I’m not a solitary writer in a garret! I feel so lucky to have been surrounded by really good writers and readers. My very first writing workshops in college at Stanford were really supportive places. We brought in work to entertain and move each other and that was my first audience, fellow students sitting around the table. In grad school at the University of Oregon I found a similarly supportive community. And when I returned to Stanford as a Stegner Fellow, I was again just so lucky, being with writers whose work I read for pleasure joyfully. To be around that was incredible: I felt

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invested in making their stories better, and I felt that they were invested in my stories, too.

Q: Was there anything else about Exeter that continues to make an impression on you?

Quade: What I learned about close reading at the Harkness table was such a revelation, that the text could keep opening and opening and opening, deeper and deeper and deeper. I carry that with me all the time, every time I read, every time I teach. Those discussions are what I want to replicate in the classroom; that thrill I felt as a student learning how to read is what I want to impart to my students.

And, as a writer, that’s the reading experience I want to inspire in others.

Q: You mentioned years of revisions. When did you first start working on this collection?

Quade: I was out of college and living in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in 2005 when I started “Nemecia.” Several of the stories I wrote in graduate school, several during the Stegner program. If I had known that it was going to take 10 years, I don’t know that I could have maintained that commitment. But if you only see one sentence into the future, then you can keep the faith. E

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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 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 Bulletin Editor, Phillips Exeter Academy, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833.

1977—Suzy (Spring) Welch and Jack Welch. The Real-Life MBA: Your No-BS Guide to Winning the Game, Building a Team, and Growing Your Career. (HarperBusiness, 2015)

ALUMNI 1944—Kenneth W. Ford.

Building the H Bomb: A Personal History. (World Scientific, 2015) 1948—Donald Francis Whiston and others. Winning Silver: A Memoir. (The Beauty of Books, 2015) 1950—Whitman Richards.

Anigrafs: Experiments in Cooperative Cognitive Architecture. (The MIT Press, 2015)

1981—Jonathan M. Kiger. In Their Own Words: Remembering the Passengers on the Final Crossing of the RMS Lusitania [CD]. (www. rmslusitania.info, 2015) 1967—Jonathan Galassi.

Muse: A Novel. (Knopf, 2015) 1971—Roland Merullo. Dinner with Buddha: A Novel. (Algonquin Books, 2015) — and John Recco, illustrator.

The Ten Commandments of Golf Etiquette: How to Make the Game More Enjoyable for Yourself and for Everyone Else on the Course. (PFP, 2015)

1955—Elias Kulukundis.

First Passage: Navigating the Straits Between Greece and America [memoir]. (G.C. Eleftheroudakis, 2015) 1957—Norman J. Vig and Michael E. Kraft. Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty-First Century [ninth edition]. (CQ Press, 2015)

1973—Linda (Kleinhans) Beeman. On Angel’s Wings: A Collection of Creative Writing and Visual Art. (Malayaka House, 2015)

1987—Lisa Krissoff Boehm and Steven Hunt Corey. America’s Urban History. (Routledge, 2014) 1987—Kenji Yoshino. Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial [The Story of Hollingsworth v. Perry]. (Crown, 2015) 1991—Noel Sloboda. Risk Management Studies [Hic Sunt Leones]. (Kattywompus Press, 2015) FAC U LT Y

—“Symbols” [poem]. IN Southwest Review. (vol. 100, no. 1) —“This Tune Goes Manly” [microfiction]. IN River Styx.

(Issue 94, June 2015) B R I E F LY N OT E D 1971—Joyce Maynard and others. “My father’s bible” [essay]. IN Every Father’s Daughter: Twenty-Four Women Writers Remember Their Fathers [“Lost & found”].

(McPherson & Co., 2015) 1981—Claudia Putnam [former Bennett Fellow].

“Ain’t Got No,” “This Isn’t Really Happening” and “Sync” [poems]. IN The Writing Disorder [“Poetry”]. (spring 2015) — “Lynx,” “Fawn” and “Before It’s Gone (Rocky Mountain National Park, June)” [poems].

IN SageGreenJournal.org [“Earlier Still”]. (www.sagegreenjournal.org/ claudia-putnam.html)

1977—Andrew E. Lewin and Susan Meiselas, forewords.

Eve Arnold: Magnum Legacy,

by Janine di Giovanni.

(Prestel, 2015)

— “Fledges” and “Mistakes I Made” [poems]. IN Literary Mama [“Poetry”]. (March 2015)

1960—Duncan S. Martin.

Song for Sandy [CD]. (Dunn Mar Music Productions, 2014) 1960—Jacob Watson. Essence: The Emotional Path to Spirit. (John Hunt Publishing, 2015)

Matt Miller. “Ordeal by Water” [poem]. IN Iron Horse Literary Review [Trifecta Poetry Winner]. (vol. 3, June 2015)

Todd Hearon. No Other Gods.

(Salmon Poetry, 2015) Erica Plouffe Lazure. Dry Dock. (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2015) —Heard Around Town. (Arcadia Magazine Press, 2015)

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S P O RTS

Building Bonds, Breaking Records G I R L S VA R S I T Y B A S K E T B A L L P L AY E R S F I N D T H E W I N N I N G F O R M U L A

By Craig Morgan ’84

T

o understand how the Exeter varsity girls basketball team transformed, in the span of

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RACHEL LUO ’17

Erika Steeves ’15

four years, from a four-win squad to a two-time Eight School Association champion with three career 1,000-point scorers, you would have had to get up early … very early.

While most of the Academy’s students were still suffering separation anxiety from their beds or waiting in shower lines, the girls were hard at work in the gym in what was billed as an optional 6:15 a.m. workout before classes.

“It was awesome,” forward Erika Steeves ’15 says. “We would do agility drills and more cardio and then we’d scrimmage. It was amazing to see the amount of girls that were passionate and dedicated to basketball.”

Arriving at that happy place was a process, however. When guard Courtney Henrich ’15 enrolled at Exeter for her prep year in 2011, the basketball program had a radically different feel.

“There was such a wide range of skills and goals on the team,” Henrich says. “We had girls who wanted to play Division I and we had girls who had absolutely no aspirations of playing any sport in college.”

Henrich had played Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) ball, so she was familiar with the best prep school programs. She figured she’d end up at New Hampton or Tabor, reasoning that Exeter and Andover were too big of a stretch academically.

“My mom said, ‘Why not try?’ ” Henrich says. “When I got in, it was just too big an opportunity to pass up.”

Henrich was a watershed player for the Academy, but others soon followed and Henrich figured it was an easy sell getting them to come.

“We’re the best school in the country,” she says. “That’s an awesome resource and a way to get people interested in playing at Exeter. The doors it opens, the people it helps you meet and the opportunities it creates are amazing.”

The program took a noticeable uptick the following year with the additions of guard Nicole Heavirland ’14, whom Henrich calls “probably the best athlete I’ve ever played with”; wing Yvonne Dean-Bailey ’14; and wing Peace Kabari ’16, who left Manchester (New Hampshire) Memorial High School to enroll at Exeter after being named the top freshman in the state.

“Getting more recruits who were serious about the game really helped change the culture,” Kabari says. “We had a pretty good starting five that really wanted to play, really loved to play.”

Committed players and a good work ethic were two vital ingredients in the turnaround, but the third was more esoteric and could be understood only by being with the team during its off-court gatherings.

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MIKE CATANO ( 2)

Steeves recalls how players would arrive at the dining halls at separate times, yet invariably end up sitting together, bonding over basketball and commiserating over the culinary options.

Kabari remembers wild team dinners at coach Johnny Griffith’s house.

“He made really good chili. I mean, he’s from Texas,” Kabari says. “We would play [the card game] spoons and we’re all very competitive so it would get a little crazy. In those moments when everyone was together it was a great bonding time.”

This season, with a number of key players having graduated, the team expected to be in rebuilding mode. A 73-52 loss at Loomis Chaffee and a tough, 70-30 defeat at Tabor only served to reinforce that notion before the team prepared for the Hotchkiss tournament over Christmas break.

“We had a lot of people who didn’t think we could be as good as last year,” says Steeves, who had played at Hotchkiss before doing a postgraduate year at Exeter. “We were trying to integrate a bunch of different people, so that road trip to the tournament at Hotchkiss where we all stayed together in a hotel and got to know each other was a real turning point.”

Exeter defeated Hotchkiss and Chase in its first two games before facing a Peddie team loaded with Division I prospects.

“We played out of our minds,” Henrich says of a 62-58 loss. “That was when people found their roles. That was the moment we realized we could do this. We lost, but it was an awesome game and it proved to everyone that we liked each other and we had good chemistry and we could hang with the best.”

From that point, Exeter went on a roll, winning seven of its next eight games and 12 of its final 16. Henrich became the first girl in PEA history to score 1,000 points (all at the Academy) when she drained a three-pointer in a 67-49 win over Deerfield on Jan. 17.

“I pretty much only shoot threes so it was going to be a three or nothing,” she says, laughing.

Kabari topped 1,000 points for her career (including one year at Manchester Memorial) with a steal and a layup in an 89-85 overtime win over Cushing on Feb. 21.

Steeves, who will attend Brown in the fall, reached the milestone (combined with her Hotchkiss years) in the same game when she hit a three-pointer while setting career game highs in points (41) and rebounds (20), with her parents in attendance.

Exeter passed a stiff test in the season-ending Eight Schools Basketball Championships when it defeated Northfield Mount Hermon in the semifinals, 56-54. It repeated as champion with a 51-39 win over Taft in the title game, setting off a raucous celebration of photos, cheers and tears.

“I’m honestly not going to miss all those late nights doing homework at Exeter but I will miss all those late talks about life with the girls in Amen and I’m definitely going to miss my teammates,” says Henrich, who will attend Wesleyan in the fall. “It’s been a great ride for four years. I’m glad it ended on a good note.” E

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Peace Kabari ’16 (left) and Courtney Henrich ’15 (below)

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SPRING SPORTS SOFTBALL RECORD: 10-10 2ND IN THE BIG EAST TOURNAMENT

Head Coach: Nancy Thompson Assistant Coach: Liz Hurley Captains: Courtney Gibeley ’16, Carly Perreault ’15 MVP: Courtney Gibeley

BOYS LACROSSE RECORD: 13-5

Head Coach: Bill Glennon Assistant Coach: David Huoppi Captains: Will Edwards ’15, Tucker Lemos ’15, Winston Smith ’15, Thomas Stockham ’15 MVP: Thomas Stockham

BASEBALL RECORD: 7-12

BOYS A TENNIS RECORD: 9-2 NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONS

Head Coach: Dana Barbin Assistant Coaches: Nat Hawkins, Tim Mitropoulos ’10 Captain: Frank Gregoire ’15 MVP: Frank Gregoire

Head Coach: Fred Brussel Captains: Nick Diao ’15, Moises Escobar ’15 MVP: Moises Escobar

BOYS AND GIRLS GOLF RECORD: 13-0 3RD IN THE KINGSWOOD OXFORD TOURNAMENT

Head Coach: Bob Bailey Assistant Coaches: Josh Civiello, Tracey Marshall Captain: Paul Lei ’15 MVP: Daulet Tuleubayev ’18

GIRLS LACROSSE RECORD: 7-7-2

Head Coach: Christina Breen Assistant Coach: Porter Hayes Captains: Elsa Chinburg ’15, Clara Hobbie ’15, Marley Jenkins ’15 MVP: Marley Jenkins

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BOYS AND GIRLS CYCLING RECORD: 1-0 IN DUAL RACES 2ND IN THE NERC CHAMPIONSHIP

Head Coach: Don Mills Assistant Coaches: Vicki Baggia, Patty Burke Hickey, Steve Wilson Captains: Erick Friis ’15, Cornelia Smith ’15 MVP: Erick Friis

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BOYS TRACK RECORD: 7-0 NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONS

Head Coach: Hilary Coder Assistant Coaches: Mustafa AbdulRahim, Toyin Augustus-Ikwuakor, Hobart Hardej, Mark Hiza, Brandon Newbould, Kurt Prescott Captain: Holden Hammontree ’15 MVP: Marcus Polk ’15

GIRLS TRACK RECORD: 3-3 3RD AT INTERSCHOLS

Head Coach: Hilary Coder Assistant Coaches: Mustafa Abdul-Rahim, Toyin AugustusIkwuakor, Hobart Hardej, Mark Hiza, Brandon Newbould, Kurt Prescott Captains: Joey Bolden ’15, Katie Huffman ’15, Michaela Morris ’15 MVP: Grace Pratt ’17

GIRLS A TENNIS RECORD: 4-5

Head Coach: Jean Chase Farnum Captains: Caroline Lu ’15, Dana Tung ’15 MVP: Dana Tung

GIRLS CREW RECORD: 3-7

BOYS VOLLEYBALL RECORD: 9-1 NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONS

Head Coach: Bruce Shang Assistant Coach: Suzie Griffith Captain: Andrew Poggione ’15 MVPs: Mitchell Kirsch ’17, Hugh O’Neil ’15

Head Coach: Sally Morris Assistant Coach: Becky Moore Captains: Jeanne Olivier ’15, Zoë Sudduth ’15 MVP: Abby Scheetz ’15

BOYS CREW RECORD: 4-8

Head Coach: Tyler Caldwell Assistant Coach: Greg Spanier Captains: Peter Bitman ’15, Benj Cohen ’15 MVP: Conrad Diao ’15

BOYS BASKETBALL

qualified for the NEPSAC Class A quarterfinals, which was incorrectly recorded in the spring issue’s Winter Sports section.

GIRLS WATER POLO RECORD: 8-6 4TH AT THE FINAL FOUR TOURNAMENT

Head Coaches: Andrew McTammany ’04, Melissa Pacific Captains: Janet Chen ’15, Michelle Ysrael ’15 MVP: Janet Chen

ALL PHOTOS BY MIKE CATANO EXCEPT CYCLING, TRACK AND VOLLEYBALL BY RACHEL LUO ’17 AND GOLF BY BOB BAILEY

EXETER’S NEXT PRINCIPAL

L I S A M A C F A R L A N E B R I N G S E M P AT H Y A N D E X P E R I E N C E T O A R O L E H E R C O L L E A G U E S D E S C R I B E A S A ‘ P E R F E C T M AT C H ’

BY KAREN INGRAHAM

W

hen Jack Herney describes something as “the best Harkness discussion I’ve ever

been in,” that’s saying a lot. The emeritus history instructor, who has taught at Exeter for more than 40 years and whose long string of honorary class years and 2010 Founder’s Day Award reflect a significant impact on the Academy, doesn’t mince words when referencing the conversation that he and other members of PEA’s Principal Search Committee had in January with then-finalist Lisa MacFarlane, who becomes Exeter’s 15th principal on Sept. 1.

“Twenty minutes into it I’m thinking, ‘This is fabulous; this is a great discussion,’” Herney says.

“Everybody in the room forgot that we were talking with potentially the new principal. We were talking about the future of Exeter…it was thrilling.”

PEA science instructor and class of 1992 alumna Anne Rankin agrees. She describes the discussion — an assignment given to each finalist for the 15th principalship geared toward exploring strategic topics relevant to the Academy — as “an incredibly revealing exercise into people’s styles and their ability to nurture a conversation.” MacFarlane, Rankin adds, “hit the nail on the head. She threw out fantastic ideas and was very comfortable in letting those ideas build, which looked a bit different than when she had walked into the room. That’s what you’re looking for in a leader: a bit of inspiration and then allowing things to build organically.”

Herney’s enthusiasm is untempered by the fact that he has known MacFarlane for more than 12 years, having first met her when they were board members of the New Hampshire Humanities Council. They were seated at a different table back then, but Herney says that MacFarlane’s keen

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Lisa MacFarlane, former provost and vice president of academic affairs at UNH, begins at Exeter on Sept. 1.

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“WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE OF EXETER...IT WAS THRILLING.”

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Principal-elect Lisa MacFarlane spoke with newly-admitted students during the annual Experience Exeter week.

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knack for synthesizing ideas and inspiring people was readily apparent. “Lisa did it again” came to be a good-natured catchphrase as board meetings concluded. “Some comment that she made would so electrify the room or stimulate conversation that it was memorable,” Herney says. “I remember thinking that this is a woman who knows exactly how to work with a group of people.”

MacFarlane’s charisma may have roots in her wayfaring childhood.

Born in Honolulu, MacFarlane spent most of her developmental years outside of the United States, living where her father was assigned for work, including Holland, Italy, Spain, England, the Philippines and Aruba.

“I was what we now call a ‘third culture kid,’” MacFarlane says, referring to the term coined to describe children who move among different countries or regions and who may not be immersed in their own country’s cultural norms or traditions. MacFarlane classifies such an upbringing as an “incredible gift,” one that has helped her view things through the perspectives of different people.

“My brother and I loved that every place we lived, people’s traditions and ways of life were different,” she says, “But everywhere we lived, people had more in common than not. I think our childhood made us more curious, more flexible, and more resilient than we might otherwise have been.” She adds, “It’s a small planet and we’re very crowded.

Being able to empathize with [people] as fellow human beings, to recognize why they’ve come to the positions that they’ve come to, allows us to find joy in our common humanity, and is the first step toward being able to figure out solutions to global challenges.”

University of New Hampshire President Mark Huddleston cites a “high degree of emotional intelligence” when he characterizes

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15ON15

THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT LISA MACFARLANE

1. Lisa’s first experience at Exeter was as a teaching fellow during the 1979-80 school year, when she lived in Woodbridge House. Her most recent experience was as the parent of two Exonians: Emma Watt ’09 and Lydia Watt ’13.

2. The last book she read was Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, and this summer she is reading Javier Marias, Andrea Barrett and Patti Smith’s Just Kids.

3. She has nurtured curricular initiatives at UNH around sustainability, and today UNH is one of the leading green campuses in the United States.

4. Some of Lisa’s favorite UNH places are the Shoals Marine Laboratory on Appledore Island, off the New Hampshire coast; College Woods, in Durham, New Hampshire; and the Milne Special Collections reading room at Dimond Library.

5. She has written and edited three books: • Trading Gazes: Euro-American Women Photographers and Native North Americans, 1880-1940 • A Mighty Baptism: Race, Gender, and the Creation of American Protestantism • This World is Not Conclusion: Faith in Nineteenth-Century New England Fiction 6. She wore blue when she started at Andover as an upper in 1973, but her new favorite color is, of course, red.

7. As co-chair of the eUNH Advisory Committee, she led UNH’s development of online learning to make its offerings more flexible, convenient and accessible.

8. The daughter of a petroleum industry executive, Lisa moved 20 times as a child, and between 1963 and 1974 lived in The Hague, Milan, Barcelona, London, Bataan and Aruba — and ended up in Houston, Texas.

9. Her most memorable jobs: 1) At the library at Princeton, where she used Wite-Out and a typewriter to replace the name “Cassius Clay” with “Muhammad Ali” in the entire card catalog. 2) Pouring cement in a stockyard on a ranch in Montana. She blew the $100 she earned at the Calgary Stampede.

10. She held the Fulbright Commission’s Walt Whitman Chair at Utrecht University in The Netherlands, taught courses in the Program of American Studies, and developed a long-standing exchange program with UNH. 11. Lisa was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, when her father was in the Navy.

12. At the University of Michigan, she coached rowing, founded the Michigan Rowing Association and helped build the school’s first boathouse — a pole barn on the banks of the Huron River.

13. Lisa served as president of the New England American Studies Association, which created an award in her honor for the best undergraduate student paper.

14. She believes the arts are central to human ingenuity, empathy and well being.

15. At Andover, she played Mrs. Doolittle in My Fair Lady; at Princeton, she performed in A Delicate Balance.

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Lisa MacFarlane toured campus and spoke with students during a visit soon after the announcement of her appointment.

MacFarlane and her successful role as the university’s provost and vice president for academic affairs, where she served as the chief academic officer for the 14,500-student public institution, overseeing the academic mission of a university with more than 100 degree programs, close to 1,000 instructional staff and overall revenues of $590 million. Prior to that appointment, MacFarlane, an English professor at the university since 1987, was senior vice provost for academic affairs and director of the Honors Program and the American Studies Program.

Huddleston began working directly with MacFarlane about six years ago as the university’s strategic planning process was ramping up. He says MacFarlane quickly became his “go-to person” because she is “really at her best in bringing people together and engendering a sense of trust among people of different constituencies.” Huddleston points to several examples, including the university’s focus on internationalization: a commitment to broadening the global education curriculum and study-abroad opportunities for UNH students, as well as increasing the enrollment of international students and expanding cultural diversity on campus.

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“Before we launched that strategic planning effort, UNH was a pretty homogeneous place,” Huddleston says.

“But in the last few years, and in no small part because of Lisa’s diplomacy and intervention with various constituencies, [we have] materially changed the face of UNH. It is a much more cosmopolitan institution.”

Citing UNH’s student body makeup of 50 percent in-state and 30 percent first-generation college students, MacFarlane says, “We wanted our students to be in a community that was as diverse as possible — even when it was uncomfortable — [one] that opened them to all that we learn from living with peers who are different from ourselves. We also knew that would catalyze their interest in studying abroad, and having the experience of immersing themselves in a different culture.”

She adds, “Even in New Hampshire, there are now 67 languages spoken in the Manchester school system. So, students in the next generation — even those who may never leave a northern New England home state — are going to live in much, much more diverse communities than their parents did. And that’s an incredible opportunity, and exciting. It also makes it imperative for schools

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to figure out how to address cultural difference in ways that are really thoughtful.”

MacFarlane is credited with leading the development of UNH’s Navitas program, which welcomed its first class in the fall of 2011. Navitas recruits international students to participate in a one-year residency on campus, where they enroll in the English as a Second Language program and work to meet other core-curriculum requirements before matriculating into bachelor’s degree programs. Since its inception, Navitas has graduated 215 students with 212 moving to UNH, and expects a total population of 400 students in the fall.

PEA parent and UNH Senior Vice Provost of Academic

SHE IS “REALLY AT HER BEST IN BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER AND ENGENDERING A SENSE OF TRUST....”

Affairs P.T. Vasudevan P’04 has a friendly bias when he categorizes MacFarlane as “more of an Exeter person now than an Andover graduate, so that’s good.” Like Vasudevan, MacFarlane is a PEA parent: Her daughter Emma graduated in 2009 and her daughter Lydia in 2013. Their mom started as an upper at Andover in 1973, during the school’s first year of coeducation. In summarizing her experience there, MacFarlane says, “Everybody was incredibly passionate about something, and they were willing to work really hard at, and be disciplined about, what they were passionate about.” She adds, “People cared about ideas and that was inspiring. It is, I know, what Exonians love about Exeter.”

She knows this to be true for her daughters. Emma was in eighth grade when she and a friend visited Exeter.

MacFarlane recalls watching her daughter during an evening program with theologian Karen Armstrong, who spoke in Assembly Hall before opening up a Q&A to the public. Emma, MacFarlane says, changed her focus from the speaker to the interaction and dialogue among the students, captivated by the kinds of questions they would ask as well as the supportive and encouraging nature of the classmates around them. “I could just see her think, ‘this is how it could be,’” MacFarlane says. “That’s how I felt at Andover, and I know that’s how my kids felt here.”

MacFarlane’s initial connection to the Academy

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originates farther back, with the beginning of her career.

She graduated from Princeton in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in English. That fall, she began a yearlong English teaching fellowship with the Academy.

“It’s where I fell in love with teaching,” MacFarlane says. When she finished the academic year, she thought to herself, “Oh, I would love to come back to Exeter.”

Graduate school at the University of Michigan, where she earned both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in American Culture, and a professorship in UNH’s English Department begun in 1987 preempted that thought from taking immediate form. In the 35 years since, MacFarlane’s scholarship and teaching have distinguished her as much as her role as an administrator and thought leader in higher education — all of which the Principal Search Committee believes will serve Exeter very well.

Her curriculum vitae is punctuated by examples of her impact and achievement. In addition to chairing PEA’s history review several years ago, MacFarlane is a past president of the New England American Studies Association, which established in her honor the Lisa MacFarlane Award for the best undergraduate student paper.

She also held the Fulbright Commission’s Walt Whitman Chair in American Studies in the Netherlands from 1999 to 2000, and is a recipient of a UNH College of Liberal Arts Teaching Excellence Award. (See the sidebar “15 on 15” for more on MacFarlane’s accomplishments.)

The author and editor of three books, MacFarlane’s research interests are wide and varied, including American studies, mid-19th- to mid-20th-century culture, and photography.

“I became interested in American studies as a citizen of the United States who had never really lived here,” she says. “I wanted to understand my own country better; and it was an advantage to see the U.S. as both an insider and an outsider.” She has taught courses at UNH ranging from American and children’s literature to modernism and the history of photography.

Teri Hatch, a 2010 graduate of the University Honors Program, references MacFarlane’s mentorship in a profile —continued on page 107

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Exeter COMMENCEMENT

2015

Watch Principal Hassan’s address and the entire graduation ceremony at www.exeter.edu/bulletinextras.

Photographs by Cheryl Senter

On June 7, on the Academy lawn, 299 seniors received their diplomas, each earned through exceptional hard work.

Congratulations to our newest alumni — the great class of Principal Tom Hassan delivered his final commencement address as Exeter’s 14th principal.

Exeter’s 14th Principal Tom Hassan, who retires this summer after 26 years at the Academy, delivered his sixth and final Graduation Day speech on June 7. He spoke to Exonians about community — how the definition of it has changed as our online connectedness with others has grown. Graduates, Hassan offered, have an incredible opportunity to merge their Harkness skills with their innate digital engagement in order to become empathetic and influential members of the many traditional and online communities they may choose to join. Highlights from his speech follow. The entirety can be read at www.exeter.edu/ bulletinextras.

2015!

Kimberly Dawes beneath a crown of roses.

D

uring your time here, I have spoken often about community ... and empathy. There is a reason for that.

How we communicate and engage with others has always been the greatest strength, and weakness, of any generation or culture. How we employ it fuels wars ... or brings down walls.

I started at the Academy in 1989. That November, the

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Jay Lee and Nghia Lee embrace and celebrate alongside their classmates.

Luis Verdi and his family pause for photo opps.

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Quincy Tichenor (middle) and fellow classicists Christina Savvides (left) and Amanda Zhou.

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A jubilant Taylor Branch in the post-ceremony crowd.

Principal Hassan presents The Ruth and Paul Sadler ’23 Cup to Marley Jenkins.

GRADUATION PRIZES The Yale Cup, awarded each year by the Aurelian Honor Society of Yale University to the member of the senior class who best combines the highest standards of character and leadership with excellence in his studies and in athletics: Benjamin Shepard Cohen, Allentown, Pennsylvania The Ruth and Paul Sadler ’23 Cup, awarded each year to that member of the senior class who best combines the highest standards of character and leadership with excellence in her studies and in athletics: Marley Jacqueline Jenkins, North Hampton, New Hampshire The Perry Cup, established by the class of 1945 in honor of Dr. Lewis Perry, eighth principal of the Academy, and given annually to a senior who has shown outstanding qualities of leadership and school spirit: Sabrina Rose Movitz, Exeter, New Hampshire

Morgan McKiernan ’15 (center) with sister Sydney ’17 and their family.

RETIREES: Counterclockwise from left, Mathematics Instructor Phillip Mallinson, Associate Director of College Counseling Karen Clagett, Library Archivist Ed Desrochers

The Williams Cup, established in memory of George Lynde Richardson Jr. ’37, and given annually to a student who, having been in the Academy four years, has, by personal qualities, brought distinction to Phillips Exeter: Erick Y. Friis, Arlington, Massachusetts The Eskie Clark Award, given annually to that scholarship student in the graduating class who, through hard work and perseverance, has excelled in both athletics and scholarship in a manner exemplified by Eskie Clark of the class of 1919: Jordan “Joey” Ray Bolden, Washington, D.C. The Thomas H. Cornell Award, based on a vote by the senior class, is awarded annually at graduation to that member of the graduating class who best exemplifies the Exeter spirit: Jordan “Joey” Ray Bolden, Washington, D.C. The Cox Medals, given by Oscar S. Cox Esq., in memory of his father, Jacob Cox, are awarded each year to the five members of the graduating class who, having been two or more years in the Academy, have attained the highest scholastic rank: Nicole Don, Miami, Florida Jing Cheng “Paul” Lei, Middleton, Massachusetts Madeline Shary Logan, Portland, Maine Ruby Francesca Malusa, Deer Park, New York Kelly Elizabeth McCarthy, Amesbury, Massachusetts The Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence, given to that member of the graduating class who, having been two or more years in the Academy, is recognized on the basis of scholarship as holding the first rank: Ruby Francesca Malusa, Deer Park, New York

“In the end, it is the words we shared with each other which allowed us to learn the most about who we are, what we believe, and what we think.”

—Class President Class President Stephanie Chen welcomes family members and guests.

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Stephanie Chen

Sacharja Cunningham ‘15 enjoys a congratulatory hug.

Berlin Wall fell. Nearly 2 million people from East Germany reportedly visited West Germany that weekend, as individuals and machines systematically reduced the wall to rubble. It was a historic moment not just for Germany but for the world — an example of human reconnection on the grandest physical scale. Coincidentally that same year, Tim BernersLee is credited with inventing the World Wide Web. A British scientist, Berners-Lee was working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and hosted the world’s first website on his computer. CERN put that software into the public domain in 1993, and it became the foundation for the Internet that you now use. The web has since broken down countless walls and created infinite ways for us to connect, and reconnect, with each other, as you — better than any other generation — well know.

I offer one more example from that same year. In February of 1989, the United States launched its first Block II satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It would soon be joined in space by 23 other satellites, which, by 1994, collectively formed the constellation for our modern Global Positioning System.

It is hard to overstate the impact that GPS and the web — the very organs of your mobile devices — have had and will continue to have on how we engage and communicate with each other. “Community” has ceased to be defined solely by geographic location or singular affinity group, and the number of possible communities in which to participate is practically exponential as traditional values and customs are adopted or challenged, and new ones evolve through new and changing avenues of engagement.

What does all of this mean? In a Washington Post article earlier this year, Claire Diaz-Ortiz, author of Twitter for Good: Change the World One Tweet at a Time, shared the following: “The best thing we can do is likely to realize that living in an online world means that we have larger social networks, and thus larger social obligations, than our forefathers. We need to realize the greater obligation to share our empathy since we are more informed about others’ struggles.”

You leave here, class of 2015, well poised to not only contribute to your communities in a positive manner but to lead those groups in actions of goodness and justice, and to do so on multiple fronts, online and in-person. You are, of course, already doing this. Your senior class gift — the establishment of a fund so that students who need it can receive financial support to attend prom — is one example.

On a personal note, Maggie and I won’t ever forget what happened on this Academy lawn just over a week ago. I was moved beyond words to come through those doors right behind me and find you and hundreds of your peers, faculty and staff waiting for me. The flash mob was such a surprise, and I loved every minute of it. You all pulled that off without my having any hint of what was in store. A truly impressive accomplishment!

What was so inspirational for me about the event was in knowing how much coordination it took to produce something like that on such a large scale, all in secret: how many emails and phone calls; how many meetings; how many people willing to put aside their own interests and come together for that special moment. This is the power and essence of a strong community like ours, one that I will always cherish. E

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Jeanne Olivier, Stephanie Chen, Saisha Talwar and Monica Acosta with diplomas on display.

Graduates Samuel Oakley, Brooks Saltonstall, Peter Magnuson, David Liu, Cecil Williams and Harry Tibbetts.

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Lazaro Cesar Jr. captures a moment with Warren Charleston.

“Of all the schools we ever attend, before and after Exeter, this Academy is likely to be our true alma mater. The one school we feel closest to.”

—Class President Stephanie Chen Catherine O’Donnell gives a fond farewell to Principal Hassan.

Duncan Nyland Aliabdullah Saroya proudly walks off the stage.

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Students taking Literature and the Land spend two out of every three classes outside.

Here they learn about beekeeping at a local farm.

HARKNESS I

DATE WITH A PHILOSOPHER

n a classroom in the basement of Phillips Hall, senior

WITH A

Alex Shook is the first to volunteer to read her narrative out loud. “I’m nervous about my date with a dead philosopher,” she reads, deadpan, launching into a humorous description of Starbucks, her selected location for a fictional blind date with the medieval Andalusian savant Averroës. “I feel a sharp tap on my shoulder.

Must be him, I think. I look over and instead of a wizened old Spanish man, I see a young girl with pigtails and a blue dress.”

So starts Shook’s imaginative conversation with Averroësturned-8-year-old-girl (the result of an assignment to write a personal dialogue with a philosopher) and one of the sessions of Epistemology, a class that debuted last winter.

Designed and co-taught by three veteran Academy faculty — Religion Instructor Kathy Brownback P’08, Theater and Dance Department Chair Sarah Ream ’75; P’09, P’11 and Science Instructor Tanya Waterman — Epistemology explores the nature of knowledge: how the perception of knowledge has evolved over centuries; the different forms of knowing

TWIST

Teachers and students are moving beyond the traditional Harkness model to explore new subject matter and new ways of engaging with the content, and each other

By Nicole Pellaton

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(sensory, scientific, conceptual); the role of the individual Time to Innovate and the group in knowing; and what all this means to us in Teaching two brand-new courses during spring term — Water and the 21st century.

Humanity, a pioneering distance learning course co-taught with faculty Leveraging the interdisciplinary richness of relifrom eight schools, and Art and the State — Molly MacKean found hergion, philosophy, science, theater, literature and the arts, self trying new things every day.

Epistemology starts with Plato and continues to the mod“You need to think on your feet and try all kinds of new ideas,” ern day, alighting on Aristotle, St. Augustine, Galileo, MacKean says. “And then let some of them fail, and move away from Descartes, Kant, the Declaration of Independence, them. That’s not always comfortable. But it’s been really healthy for me.

Dostoyevsky, Virginia Woolf, Ralph Ellison and Seamus That kind of experimentation has helped the classes figure out what’s Heaney, plus readings on economics, meditation and best for them. It’s not me bringing the answers. It’s the class itself mindfulness. deciding what works.”

“The course starts as a philosophy and religion class,” MacKean cites the “beautiful relationship” between her traditional Brownback explains. “Then it moves into the scientific Harkness teaching and new classes that spur creativity: “I’m thinkrevolution and on to more sensual, direct experience with ing more fluidly and creatively about what I’m asking of my students artists and contemplative knowledge.”

— what kinds of work I can think about assessing from them — and Connecting students with modes of knowing they how I can use technology.” For Art and the State she simplified writing might not otherwise experience at PEA is one of the assignments to allow students to focus on developing new skills, such course’s objectives, and one Ream feels they achieved. as how to analyze a work of art, and relied heavily on the iPad because “We did a project where [students] shared an object it lets students reference — and easily show classmates — works of art that was important to them in a completely nonanalytthey feel are relevant, even as the conversation takes directions not ical way,” she explains. Senior Christina Savvides rose foreseen by the teacher. to this challenge by presenting her findings from Biology “The biggest gift that I was given in this process, and the only thing Research, a collaborative class with Stanford University that made it possible, was that I had time to do it,” MacKean observes. focused on genetics, as an art project of color and light “I think I’m a better teacher for having gotten that.” under the microscope. It was accompanied by an ode to Karen Geary, dean of academic affairs, concurs: “There’s value in fruit flies, her research subjects. “We took them off-piste giving people time to be creative and try new things, even if it’s not a bit and gave them direction they were less comfortable entirely successful. What we do know is that if we don’t provide the with,” adds Ream. “I was impressed by their degree of time and the mechanisms for giving people that space to explore, it courage. It was like they suddenly embraced downhill skiisn’t going to happen on its own.” ing without their poles.”

“New teaching initiatives are really a win-win for everyone,” “We wanted to dispel the stereotype of scientific inquiry stresses Laura Marshall, director of studies. “We have teachers who are as the only certain and objective way to gain knowledge,” eager to try new things and learn along with students. That’s a big part adds Waterman, who valued the interdisciplinary collabof the reason people love to teach here: the freedom to explore.” oration as a way to “bring the arts and humanities into the For her part, MacKean is already thinking about an interdisciplinconceptual tent of the students, because many of them ary course co-taught with PEA faculty: “We have plenty of talented and think that art and science are not related, at least as we traimpassioned teachers right here with whom I’m not working closely ditionally teach these disciplines here.” enough.”

Along the way, Epistemology challenged several Harkness “rules.” There were 20 students and three teachers, who were present for all sessions. They struggled to find a location that worked — because Harkness tables are designed for 12 — and jumped from Harkness classrooms (they tried theater, science and religion) to a large conference room (where they felt they were too far away from one another) and the fireplace area in the Academy Library (where they sat on couches in a U-shaped format).

What Epistemology reaffirmed was the essence of Harkness dialogue: intensive focus on listening, taking turns in discussion, open-mindedness, and an eagerness to discover and share their work, which in this class included essay and narrative writing, journals, artwork, and even original musical compositions.

The students were seniors and a few uppers — “some of the most high-powered thinkers I’ve had classes with,” said one participant. A hallmark of the class was the tremendous creativity in approaching assignments. For the dialogue-with-a-philosopher paper, one student, playing psychiatrist, gave Descartes a virtual-reality visor and placed him on the psychoanalyst’s couch. Another put Aristotle and Plato head-to-head in medieval Sicily.

Brownback expects to see more creative thinking next fall, when she will co-teach Epistemology with John Blackwell, Science Department chair and director of Grainger Observatory.

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I

WATER AND HUMANITY: ONLINE COLLABORATION

Students discover new modes of learning in PEA’s Epistemology class.

n Academy Building room 130, on a mid-May day, seniors Rowan McDonald and Hannah Fuller are discussing with History Instructor Molly MacKean the logistics for a short video they will soon shoot and produce on the topic of water in Exeter. Whom will they interview? Where should they film?

This meeting is one of their regular sit-down sessions — they meet at least once weekly. The majority of their class time, however, is spent on the Internet collaborating with 14 other students spread out across the Northeast seaboard at the institutions that make up the Eight Schools Association: Andover, Choate, Deerfield, Exeter, Hotchkiss, Lawrenceville, Northfield Mount Hermon and Saint Paul’s. Fuller and McDonald connect electronically with their ESA classmates, typically in small groups using Skype or a video chat program, to work on projects that have included “Megacities,” “How can we better conserve water at our schools?” and “Is there life on Mars?”

Students use a blog to share work and ideas and to publish their projects. The entire group of 24 participants — two students and one teacher from each school — sync up electronically every other week for an hour.

Preparation for Water and Humanity, which PEA approached as a way to explore how distance learning could integrate into the Harkness method, was an immense collaborative effort that started a year and a half before the class debuted, with a team of eight teachers focused on pedagogic innovation and a project-based curriculum. When the original eight realized there was too little academic diversity on the team, the schools went back to the well to select a more broadly interdisciplinary group. Ultimately, the course launched with three science teachers, two history teachers and one each from religion, classics and art. “Water seemed really productive as a subject, but it also became overwhelming — it’s a big topic,” MacKean explains. “How to limit and frame it was the most challenging thing from the start.”

As the teachers met electronically every other week for an hour, MacKean took the lead in identifying themes with interdisciplinary connections: water’s biological significance, importance in the development of civilization, role in art and literature, importance in religious ceremony, and more. The syllabus took shape around three units: Why have human settlements developed where they are? What technologies are we using to manage water? How do we move forward given the challenges and the fragility of our water supply?

“In some ways these are much more realistic, real-world challenges,” MacKean says. “We’re providing the students with challenges and resources, but the way they approach and work through those challenges is really up to them. We expect creativity and innovation from them. They do great work in those circumstances.”

Although Fuller and McDonald express some frustration with their online collaboration experiences, which “cannot compare to the multiple stages of thinking that can occur around a Harkness table in 50 minutes,” Fuller says, they enjoyed the interdisciplinary approach and subject of the class, particularly the work they did together on the Exeter water video. “Water was a perfect topic for one of the first classes that truly inspires multidisciplinary thinking,” says Fuller, who’d like to see teachers “pulling in more multidisciplinary aspects, while maintaining the depth. Students want to touch and feel and experience the material that they’re learning about, and I believe that Exeter has the resources to make it happen and incredible faculty to support it.”

O

HARKNESS AFIELD: OPENING NEW VISTAS

ver in the Academy Woods, a 300-acre set of parcels located near Phelps Stadium, 11

students work at observation stations along the Exeter River. It’s late May and they’ve been coming to these stations since the start of spring term, when 1.5 feet of snow still carpeted the ground. Enrolled in Literature and the Land, they’re documenting their nature observations in notebooks, using words and drawings.

Launched in 1991 by English Instructor Peter Greer ’58, Literature and the Land has been

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And There’s More …

refashioned by English Instructor Jason BreMiller. A National Outdoor Leadership School field instructor, mountaineer and PEA’s new sustainInventive courses are flourishing at PEA, driven by both ability education coordinator, BreMiller brings to the course a strong student and faculty interest. Here are a few that have reliance on outdoor activities while keeping to its original spirit as one of recently, or will soon, debut: earliest environmental literature courses to be taught at the secondary school level.

Introduction to Scientific Modeling Through Physics and “The primary text of the course is the outdoors,” says BreMiller, an Computer Science ties the abstractions of computer energetic presence in the classroom who uses the term “opportunistic science to the tangibles of physics and is co-taught by Harkness learners” to describe his students’ ability to move beyond what faculty from the two disciplines. they already know of Harkness. “Most of these kids have experienced education in compartmentalized silos. Getting outside allows them to Senior Research Seminar is co-taught by two History have organic, natural conversations where those silos are disintegrated.

Department faculty who support seniors writing The interdisciplinary conversations are incredible. They’ve flourished advanced, publishable research papers on diverse outside. It’s amazing to see their sense of wonder.” topics of the students’ choice.

Students spend two out of every three classes outdoors. They carry Harkness with them, using portable field chairs to fashion an oval. They 3-D Design: Tech + Form + Fashion + 3-D Design discuss their visitors — who have included Clare Walker Leslie, a natupromotes makerlab-style project-based work using ralist and artist, and Mark Long, professor of American Studies at Keene traditional and nontraditional materials.

State College — and source materials (poetry, essays, art, and writings on climate science and food). And they enjoy traditional Harkness colCalculus: A Lab Approach integrates weekly labs laboration wherever they find themselves, which may be at the nearby into the Harkness calculus program, with a focus on farm of Science Instructor Brad Robinson; at Apple Annie (an orchard graphical investigations. run by Wayne and Laurie Loosigian); at Pawtuckaway State Park; in the Academy Woods; and at overnights in tents on the PEA campus or on the bus on the way to a location.

“The more time I spend in the field, the more it makes me see what the outdoor world and the table have in common and how they speak to each other,” BreMiller observes. “I love traditional Harkness and I run my classes that way, but when I’m in the field with students I try to get them to see the reciprocity.”

This connection is not lost on students. “How we talk about a piece of literature or an idea is really shaped by the natural environment in which our conversation is taking place — whether it’s a hemlock grove, a local CSA farm or on the top of a mountain,” senior Ailis Dooner says. “In any given class, we may mention ideas learned in ecology, mysticism or Buddhism, for example. It makes for exciting discussions, and allows us to make connections between seemingly distant subjects. It’s wonderful. I always feel energized after our conversations.”

“We’ve certainly had moments in class where people were reaching out of their comfort zone,” senior Hannah Sessler adds. “It’s something much more fundamental than what happens in standard Harkness classes. When your whole body is being used, your whole body reacts, and being able to experience this with classmates is a very intimate and mind-opening thing.”

“Jason has made this class his own,” says Lundy Smith, English Department chair, who views BreMiller’s environmental focus and off-campus trips with students — a 2014 spring off-trail hiking trip in Utah and a kayaking trip planned for Thanksgiving break this fall — as extremely successful ways to expand students’ appreciation of the world around them. “The more we teach about nature, the more we’ll see the outdoors becoming a classroom,” Smith says. “If kids plant the flowers, they’re not going to be the ones to trample the flowers.”

For Sessler, Literature and the Land caps a four-year Harkness experience that has convinced her of several truths: “You need to take risks and to not let others think for you.

Really, if you can think for yourself and do so in earlier unimaginable ways, then you’ll always grow in character and knowledge, hopefully, and you’ll always be genuine.” E See student writings from Literature and the Land at the class blog: https://litandtheland.wordpress.com/

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C O N N ECT I O N S

P R O F I L E

JEFF SEABRIGHT ’73

Corporate Climate Activism

By Debbie Kane

J

eff Seabright ’73 wants to elevate the international

conversation about sustainability. Now. Seabright, chief sustainability officer for global consumer goods giant Unilever, is spreading a message of urgency, as well as opportunity. “If the world continues on a ‘business as usual’ trajectory, then we lock in climate change we can’t adapt to,” he says. “So the question is: Are we smart enough to get on top of this?”

Seabright says “yes.” Unilever, whose 400 brands include Lifebuoy soap, Lipton tea and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, recently pledged to reduce its environmental impact while increasing long-term profits. In 2010, the company launched its Sustainable Living Plan, committing to zero deforestation in its supply chain. A large part of Seabright’s job is convincing other corporate and government leaders to join Unilever’s effort.

In 2010, while at Coca-Cola, he helped garner a pledge from members of the Consumer Goods Forum, an industry trade group, to eliminate deforestation associated with commodities such as palm oil, soy, paper/pulp and beef by 2020. As the single largest buyer of palm oil in the world, Unilever can help drive systemic change in the industry. At January’s World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Seabright and Unilever CEO Paul Polman noted that over 90 percent of globally-traded palm oil is committed to being sustainably sourced, which Seabright believes is a “significant down payment” on climate control.

“Virtually every company has an energy efficiency program but that’s not sufficient,” he says. “Businesses have a unique opportunity to change the way people use energy and be forces for positive change.”

Before joining Unilever in 2014, Seabright championed water stewardship and energy management as vice president of environment and water resources at CocaCola in Atlanta, establishing environmental initiatives with organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and CARE. He also played a role in developing Coke’s PlantBottle, a fully recyclable PET bottle that’s partially made of plant materials.

Sustainability wasn’t Seabright’s original passion. Early in his career, he worked for the U.S. government, focusing on

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issues related to the Cold War. (“I wanted to end the nuclear arms race,” he jokes.) Seabright enjoys seeking answers to big questions. The West Virginia native sought a high level of educational engagement when he arrived as a prep at Exeter.

His love of writing and analytical thinking (which he credits to the Harkness method) inspired him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Oberlin College in Ohio and later a master’s degree in international relations from The London School of Economics.

A burgeoning interest in politics led to an internship with the Foreign Affairs Division of the Congressional Service, in Washington, D.C., researching the SALT treaty for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He continued his government work in the State Department as a foreign service officer in Brussels with NATO and later was a legislative assistant to Senator John D. Rockefeller IV ’54 of West Virginia, then Senator Timothy Wirth ’57 of Colorado. “It was at the end of the Cold War, and Senator Wirth spoke about redefining U.S. national security to include human progress, women’s empowerment and climate change,” Seabright says. “That inspired me to become involved in the environmental sector.”

Seabright served as director of the Office of Energy, Environment and Technology at USAID; was later appointed executive director of the Climate Change Task Force by President Bill Clinton; and participated in negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement among participating countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Seabright transitioned into the corporate sector as an executive for Texaco, then became an environmental consultant to corporations and to the United Nations. “I could make more of an impact on climate change from the business side than the government side,” he says.

His next opportunity is mobilizing businesses and consumers to be “game changers” for climate change, especially during the United Nations Climate Change Conference this November in Paris. “We can use our ingenuity to get to a low-carbon future,” he says. “We need more political will and leadership to make it happen.

That’s why it’s important for business leaders to drive real change and create space for greater political ambition.” E

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P R O F I L E

PETER KALUGIN ’11

A Rhodes Scholar’s 10-year Plan

T

By Jennifer Kaleba he next 10 years of Peter Kalugin’s life are

mapped out: off to study oncology at Oxford as a 2015 Rhodes Scholar, then straight into eight years of graduate work at Harvard Medical School for an aggressive educational mash-up of application and research, all working toward the goal of specializing in pediatric cancer by the ripe, young age of 32.

But even Kalugin ’11, who hails from a family of scientists — “mainly physicists” — and professes with a gentle, self-deprecating laugh to be “interested in everything,” might recognize that there’s room in a decade for plans to shift. After all, it was unpredictability that first drew him to study oncology.

“Everybody has a personal story related to [cancer], but from a standpoint of science, to me what’s most exciting about [oncology] is how diverse and how varied it is,” Kalugin says, not long after his graduation from Johns Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts & Sciences with a degree in molecular and cellular biology and mathematics and a minor in physics.

“Under this umbrella of ‘cancer,’ it’s a thousand different diseases that look similar but behave differently,” he says. “It’s a cell that has lost control, and it can lose control in so many ways. … How does one cell know how to become a whole human body? It’s a complex process that can go wrong at any point.”

Originally from Russia, Kalugin’s family settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where his father teaches physics. There, the son’s passion for the orderly, rule-abiding world of mathematics grew beyond the opportunities of his academic community. Enter Exeter.

Kalugin applied to the one-year program and was one of two seniors admitted in 2010.

He lived in Williams House with the postgrads and two-year seniors, not quite within “the Exeter bubble,” but certainly immersed in the philosophy of communal learning and educational exploration, right down to his roommate.

“My roommate, Zachary Hodges ’11, had a huge influence on me,” Kalugin says. “He just signed with the [NFL’s Indianapolis] Colts coming from Harvard football, and he had a very different reason and background for

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coming to Exeter. Coming from different social, religious, and geographic settings, we bonded over how committed we each were to our own ideals. It was surprising that we even got along because I feel like the odds were against us, but we bonded over this general love of arguing. I feel like we both learned a lot from that.”

The role of community — being both within and without — is a prominent theme in Kalugin’s life. Before New Mexico, his family lived in Germany and Switzerland.

“It was not always pleasant to be a Russian in Western Europe,” he recalls. “But looking back, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It was an important experience to go through... how to meet other cultures and assimilate but still retain some individuality in the process. And once I started realizing that it was actually valuable, I began really enjoying that experience.”

He loosened the reins on his scientific interests as well. He found his initial love of the orderly, aesthetic patterns of math, physics and music morphing from “things that fit together very well to things that fit together, but not perfectly.”

“Even though there are all these logical rules governing [biology],” Kalugin notes with enthusiasm, “nature has this ability to mess with some of these rules and come up with very different results using the same rules. In biology, anything can happen.”

Which brings us back to Kalugin’s 10-year-plan. “It’s going to be a matter of just learning how to have ideas, which has been the most daunting thing, really,” he admits. “Reading books isn’t that difficult, but having new ideas about things that haven’t been done before is kind of scary. We’ll see how that goes.”

A fair bet is that it will go in exciting and unpredictable ways. E

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MacFarlane

—continued from page 25

on the program’s website. She says MacFarlane was one of two “extremely influential” professors during her studies at UNH. Hatch took an honors inquiry seminar with MacFarlane, which focused on photographic documentation of early 20th-century American history. “Besides the striking photographs from the Dust Bowl and other images of the Great Depression, what I remember most about that class is how attentive Professor MacFarlane was to making sure that each of us was getting the most out of the class,” Hatch explains. “It was my first experience with a professor who scheduled conference times to review papers and made our active participation in education a priority.

For that reason, I learned a lot more from that class than the syllabus would have suggested. Professor MacFarlane has since continued to be a mentor to me, even after my days at UNH.” MacFarlane was director of the UNH Honors Program from 2004 to 2008. It’s a job she classifies as her “favorite” at UNH because “closest to my heart have always been the students.” The program, she believes, is not unlike Exeter: “There are a thousand really bright, creative, energetic young people…and you want to figure out the best way to help each of them become who they were meant to be.”

MacFarlane’s colleague Vasudevan says, “I think Exeter is indeed fortunate to have Lisa. …She works so well with students. The transformation is absolutely phenomenal when she engages with [them].”

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It’s something MacFarlane is eager to do, in her day-today role as Academy principal and around the Harkness table through her appointment to Exeter’s English Department. She will, of course, give herself a year or two to focus exclusively on the principalship and the immediate needs of the Academy, but she is excited to return to a table in Phillips Hall and once again immerse herself in what she believes is a unique learning environment within secondary schools and in higher education.

“What is most impressive to me about the way Harkness is used at Exeter is that it is the foundation for community. It’s a signature pedagogy across every discipline, of course. It’s also a set of principles and practices that govern the way we treat one another.

And, it embodies a productive epistemology for how we approach the world: it trains us to recognize what we don’t know, with some humility about the underpinnings of knowledge, [and] helps us to dislodge a little bit the way in which we tend to naturalize that which is cultural. Lots of places have student-centered classrooms and use Harkness pedagogy, but I don’t know of too many that use it across all of those domains and in all those senses.”

MacFarlane, only the second female principal at Exeter and the 15th principal in 234 years, joins the Academy community on Sept. 1. Jack Herney says, “This is a woman who is going to excite the school in the most gentle way…in the most thoughtful way.”

Welcome, Principal-elect MacFarlane. The Exeter community is eager to get to know you better. E

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John Charles Warren I N S T R U C T O R I N M AT H E M AT I C S , E M E R I T U S ( 1 9 2 5 – 2 0 1 2 )

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t may be said that no faculty member made a greater contribution to teaching at Exeter as quietly as John Charles Warren ’62 (Hon.); P’73, P’81, emeritus instructor in math.

John was born on Feb. 25, 1925, in Orange, Massachusetts; served his country as a Navy pilot in World War II; and went on to develop an eclectic and prescient array of interests. At Williams College, John majored in art history and competed as a varsity swimmer before pursuing graduate study at Columbia University and the University of New Hampshire in the teaching of mathematics.

He began teaching math in 1950 at St. Johnsbury Academy before moving to New Hampshire with his wife, Nancy ’62 (Hon.); P’73, P’81, to begin a 30-year teaching career at Phillips Exeter [from 1955–85]. John was described as a patient and gentle teacher, who exemplified those traits in the math classroom, in the dormitory, and in the coaching of crew. Unlike most crew coaches, who observed from a motor launch, John preferred to row a single scull alongside the rowers so that he could demonstrate the proper technique with his own oar.

With similar devotion, John’s former colleagues recall, he was always in his classroom when he was not coaching so that he could be accessible to other teachers and to students who needed extra help. John must have had an omnipresent quality because he also served as a school photographer, scratching an artistic itch, and in the process, contributing many of the photos that were used in The Exeter Bulletin, The Exonian and the PEAN. After eight years of teaching at Exeter, and sensing the potential of the intersection of math and computing, John took a sabbatical in 1963 to study computer science at Dartmouth College. It’s difficult to exaggerate John’s vision and imagination. In the 1960s, the potential of computing was not well known. Its applicability to teaching was even more mysterious. And the idea of using computing in the teaching of math at Exeter had been nonexistent. When he returned from his sabbatical, John established a computer time-share between Exeter and Dartmouth, arguably making Exeter the first

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high school program on computers in the country. Emeritus Math Instructor Dick Brown ’66, ’79 (Hon.); P’82, P’85, P’93 commented on the various ways that John had mentored him and led the way in technological innovation in the Math Department. Dick wrote, “John looked after me in my early years, when I was a brand-new teacher. He also taught me squash. As for his role in the Math Department, he was way, way ahead of everyone else in getting technology into our hands, our hearts and our minds. It was John who was instrumental in getting our first computer hookup as a time-share with Dartmouth. We had Teletypes, [which] would print out punch cards on rolls of thin, yellow paper. The department at the time was very senior, and not very eager to try this newfangled machine, or even see how it might enhance our teaching or the students’ learning. John fought a lonely battle to encourage our use of computers. Eventually, we became more at home with the BASIC language; and those embracing the computer reached a critical mass.”

Demonstrating the practical connection between computing and math, John published a book devoted to trigonometric functions entitled The Circular Functions with Computer Applications, available for $1.98. Most of the book was devoted to a clear explanation of cosines, with the final visionary portion devoted to the conversion of solutions to a computer program. John wrote a set of list-and-run instructions and then questions for students to consider, such as, “How many iterations are performed in the first pass through the program?” “Having run the program with T=2, why would it be ridiculous to run the program with T=-2?” and “What bug might appear in the running of the program?” The instructions and questions were then followed by a self-critique that he described vividly as “time pollution”: He complained that “The program is not very efficient,” and wondered, “Is all this pollution of computer time really necessary?” In offering an explanation, he cautioned, humbly, that “We will abate the pollution problem, but with no boast that our abatement plan is the best.” He closed with a “challenge to anyone to adapt the iteration routine to serve specified purposes in the most efficient and elegant manner possible.” In this brief book, one sees the intersection of John’s various passions — his love of math, the desire for precise technique from crew, and the concern of the photographer and the art history student for an aesthetic solution.

Even as he encouraged different and perhaps unsettling new ways to teach, he was well-liked and respected by everyone in the Math Department who might have felt unease with his creative efforts had it not been for his gentle and collegial manner. When he decided to exercise an early retirement option in 1985, Exeter said farewell to a good friend. A lover of skiing, John went on to teach at Burke Mountain Academy, where he could teach math in the morning and then ski every afternoon — confirming again that he had things figured out before most people. When he finally retired from teaching, he and Nancy continued to live in Vermont, joining The Nature Conservancy and working to preserve loons in northern Vermont’s lakes. When John and Nancy moved to RiverWoods in 2003, he continued to teach — this time, offering a seminar on the poetry of Robert Frost to his retired peers.

John gave to Phillips Exeter Academy and the Math Department a role model of innovation, humility and excellence. And as Dick reminds us, “With so many schools looking to Exeter as a leader in technology, and with so many alumni of the Anja S. Greer Conference [on Mathematics, Science and Technology] and of the summer conferences in urban schools, John’s name is never mentioned, but he was there from the start; and it can be argued that we at Exeter might not have our position of leadership were it not for his considerable uphill efforts, and ultimately time proved him right.”

John passed away at RiverWoods on June 24, 2012, unassuming and generous to the end, holding no memorial services and asking that donations go to the Spencer Scholarship Fund for the training of nurses at RiverWoods or to a charity of one’s choice, with the characteristic insistence that the donation be made anonymously. E This Memorial Minute was written by Eric Bergofsky ’79, ’83 (Hon.); P’98, P’02, chairperson; Dave Arnold ’83 (Hon.); Bill Campbell ’79 (Hon.); P’80, P’82, P’89; and Frank Gutmann ’52; ’65 (Hon.); P’85, P’87, and was presented at faculty meeting on April 6, 2015.

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M E M O R I A L

M I N U T E S

Charles Laymen Terry III LEWIS PERRY PROFE SSOR IN THE HUMANITIE S AND CHAIR O F T H E D E PA RT M E N T O F E N G L I S H , E M E R I T U S ( 1 9 3 1 – 2 0 1 4 )

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n celebrating Charlie Terry ’28 (Hon.); P’80, P’81 having accomplished 25 years as an Exeter schoolman in 1992, Dean of Faculty Andrew Hertig ’57; ’31, ’69 (Hon.); P’83, P’86, P’88 wrote, “Although all of us take seriously John Phillips’ admonition to concern ourselves with both the moral and intellectual development of our students, few seem to have divided their careers so evenly between both endeavors. . . .” A few years later, in naming Charlie the Lewis Perry Professor in the Humanities, Principal Kendra Stearns O’Donnell ’31, ’47, ’63, ’89, ’91, ’97 (Hon.); P’00 said, “You are acknowledged to be one of the best-read and most intellectually curious members of this faculty,” but also took note of the “distinctive combination” of qualities and concerns by which “Your life here has been shaped by your patient, skillful, principled advocacy for the pursuit of moral excellence.” For Charlie, however, in the long run, intellectual acuity and moral perception were not two achievements, but one; a continuum rather than a dichotomy. In a self-deprecatory moment he once said of himself, “I know I sound as if I’ve gone around the bend when I talk about Shakespeare’s ‘juxtapositional technique’ as if it were capable of inducing a religious experience.” But for him, in a real and urgent sense, it was.

Born in Dover, Delaware, in 1931 into a family of some prominence, Charles Laymen Terry III came to the Exeter faculty in 1967 by way of education at the Loomis Chaffee School (a time he later referred to as “four absolutely happy years”) and Princeton University (Phi Beta Kappa); two years’ service as a corporal in the U.S. Army; the acquisition of a Ph.D. in English from the University of Michigan; and several years of teaching at Dartmouth College. Along the way and from various sources he had acquired noticeable good looks; impeccable, albeit easy, social graces; and what looked to some to be a touch of patrician self-assurance. He enjoyed telling a story about himself — about a meeting in which he had prefaced some remarks with an apology for perhaps sounding too certain of himself, and being told by a much senior colleague in the group, Irving Forbes P’67, P’68, P’87 of the Music Department, “That’s all right, we’re used to it; don’t worry about it.”

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So, in his early days at Exeter, at a time when the faculty’s sense of collegial humor was perhaps a bit sharper than it might be now, he was twitted as the quintessential WASP (and not because he served as senior warden of his church), and habitually addressed by one acerbic English Department mate as “Lord Charles.” But, as another dean of faculty [and] former chair of the English Department later opined in a career review summary, “Charlie is still sensitive to those epithets applied by envious colleagues years ago. After all, he can’t help it if he was the son of Delaware’s governor, went to Loomis and Princeton, married a “Smithie,” taught English at Dartmouth, and landed a job at Exeter.” The Smithie, by the way, was Elizabeth (Hays) Terry, and together they raised a daughter, Elizabeth ’80, and a son, Charles ’81.

In the same career review, asked what he considered his greatest strength to be, Charlie said, “My greatest strength is our strength in love together.”

Charlie’s performance of that job he landed at Exeter was a more than adequate response to any of that early eyebrow raising, and brought him, among other recognitions, a George S. Heyer Jr. ’48 Teaching Award and an endowed teaching fund in his honor, established by Douglas White ’71. Charlie did conscientiously — and well — all the things an Exeter teacher is expected to do, but he made some extraordinary and lasting special contributions as well. For one thing, he co-edited an anthology of these Memorial Minutes of faculty. He chaired the committee whose deliberations ultimately brought us our health curriculum for preps and new lowers. He served as coordinator of the Academy’s 10-year evaluation in 1989. He conceived and hosted a symposium on “Poetry in the Secondary School” — three days of workshops and panels and explorations, mentored by the editors of The Norton Anthology of Poetry — for some 60 English teachers-in-residence from other schools. When he was named chair of the English Department in 1987, he set an innovative precedent by spending his first summer in office conducting extensive conversations with every member about their hopes and visions of the work in hand and of themselves as teachers and of him as their leader, culminating in a start-of-school departmental retreat.

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ART DURITY

But perhaps the labor closest to his heart was his directorship of the Exeter Bicentennial Summer Institute on Moral Education in 1978, and his supervision of the ensuing published anthology of readings, Knowledge Without Goodness Is Dangerous: Moral Education in Boarding Schools (1981). It was a topic about which he was passionate. Of all the courses he taught, his favorites were probably two senior spring electives: one combining literary and religious readings and topics, which he co-taught with his dear friend, the Rev. Christopher Brookfield ’72 (Hon.) of the Religion Department, and another called, The Nature of New England, which he conducted on his own. Of the latter course he wrote, “I have tried to make the students aware of the conjunction of intellectual and religious orientations in the traditions of New England; and I have tried to make them understand that what happened in Concord in the 19th century, for all its differences from Puritanism, reflected the Puritan ideal of developing one’s intellectual endowments in order to make one’s self accessible to what is religious in human experience.” For Charlie, intellect and soul, mind and spirit, were not dichotomous; they were parallel universes. And he believed that, at least for him and, if he

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could bring it about, perhaps for his students, the most effective mode of passage to-and-fro was the study of literature. “A writer like Faulkner,” he said, “really gives us a language, a unique style for dealing with our feelings about ourselves and other people. We work so hard at comprehending the voice in Faulkner . . . but we earn so much in the struggle, and acquire a new language for understanding our feelings about life.”

Charlie loved many things — his family, a good party, Sanibel Island, his dogs, a randy story, playing and coaching tennis — but high on his list of loves were his books for their inherent pleasures and for what, with hard work and attention, they made possible: “Our fulfillment, I hope,” he said, “comes from living the life of the mind so that we can live in the spirit.”

Somewhere along the way, one of his longtime colleagues summed up Charlie’s lasting contribution to Exeter and possible legacy to us, writing, “He is a special intellectual, social and moral force at this school.” E

This Memorial Minute was written by John J. Kane P’85, P’87, and was presented at faculty meeting on May 4, 2015.

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Nuggets of Wisdom

By Sabrina Movitz ’15

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n true Exonian fashion, I wrote this speech last night.

Not because I was procrastinating for procrastination’s sake, but because there is no fathomable way, in my mind, to write a two-page speech summing up the four years I have had here — or to do it in a way that is accessible and applies to everyone in this room. People have written and will write more eloquently on this subject than me, about that there is no doubt. But I do know that this kind of speech is given to us at least seven times a year, so with the intent of keeping you from falling asleep and Snapchatting your drool to fellow assembly-goers, I will instead read you a list that I wrote of the lessons I’ve learned here. These little nuggets of wisdom are by no means profound but are by no means false.

1. For the best milkshake of your life, fill a d-hall cup halfway with chocolate soft serve, pour in a dash of soymilk, add a spoonful of honey-roasted peanut butter and coconut shavings, and stir.

2. Go to meditation as much as possible. EP [Evening Prayer], too.

3. You never really have to pull an all-nighter. Plan ahead.

4. That being said, if you do resign yourself to one, make an event of it: Get some 5-hour Energies from Grill, put on music, take ample snack breaks, and figure out who in your dorm is also pulling one and keep each other awake, because that’s just common courtesy.

5. When rope swinging, make sure the rope cannot wrap around you in any way. Or else you will get rope burn, and it will be excruciating.

6. To assume really does make an ass out of you and me.

Mostly me.

7. Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed to be corrected around the Harkness table. Chances are, someone was also thinking the same thing and you just happened to be the one who said it.

8. Boarders: Be sure to make day-student friends so you can exploit them once they have cars and can bring you food.

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9. Things like die-ins and controversial forums are more important than solving your last math problem or finishing your English reading. We are here for an Exeter education, not just for Exeter academics.

FRED CARLSON

Editor’s Note: Sabrina was one of four students (one from each class) selected to write a reflection about the school year — or in her case, her school career — at Exeter. She read the following speech at the closing assembly this year.

10. Get to know the staff here by name, because they are awesome and generally love to talk to students. Trish in Grill, Mr. Turner in the music building and Rose in Wetherell Dining Hall are all good people to start with.

11. There are a lot of firsts here and also a lot of lasts.

Don’t put those times on a pedestal and give them [impossible] expectations to live up to. Just let them happen and enjoy the people you experience them with.

12. Sitting back and listening is neither weak nor feeble.

There is power in understanding others.

13. That being said, when it is your moment to be understood, take the stage. With your voice, your body language and your presence, let yourself be known.

14. There is a difference between being a friend and being a parent. You can warn someone of a risk before they take it, try to prevent them from getting hurt, but they are by no means obliged to listen to you, and often will not. Do not judge them: Simply comfort them when everything goes to hell.

The people in your grade are your fellow soldiers, and should be treated as such. They have fought through this place tooth-and-nail, just like you. They have had feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, too. As Herman Melville says in Moby Dick, “All men live enveloped by whale lines.” The most precious thing we can walk away with from this place is the knowledge that those things tugging at us, suffocating us, those whale lines, exist for our comrades, as well as for ourselves, and that there is so much empathy to be had for one another. Class of 2015, I am honored to be walking out of the trenches with you.

Thank you. E

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PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY 20 Main Street Exeter, NH 03833-2460 Parents of Alumni: If this magazine is addressed to a son of daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please email us (records@exeter.edu) with his or her new address. Thank you.

“EXETER DOES NOT DEFINE YOU. BUT AS YOU ENTER THE NEXT PHASE OF YOUR LIFE... YOU WILL DISCOVER HOW MUCH EXETER WILL ALWAYS BE A PART OF YOU.” David Jung 1990

To the class of 2015, Exonians everywhere welcome you to the alumni family.