The Exeter Bulletin, fall 2018

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Space that Performs

T H E D AV I D E . A N D S TA C E Y L . G O E L C E N T E R O P E N S

EXETER’S DAY OF GIVING

DECEMBER 4

Join the Exeter community for an exciting online giving challenge.

If we reach our participation goal within 24 hours, $1 million will be given to The Exeter Fund by a very generous group of alumni and parents. Just think of the impact your gift will have in supporting our students and faculty!

Together, we can meet this challenge and invest fully in today’s Exonians. On Dec. 4, let’s go Big Red!

The Exeter Bulletin

Interim Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 Editor Karen Ingraham Managing Editor Patrick Garrity Senior Editors Genny Beckman Moriarty Jennifer Wagner Class Notes Editor Cathy Webber Editorial Coordinator Maxine Weed Creative Director/Design David Nelson, Nelson Design Communications Advisory Committee Daniel G. Brown ’82, Robert C. Burtman ’74, Dorinda Elliott ’76, Alison Freeland ’72, Keith Johnson ’52, Yvonne M. Lopez ’93 Trustees President John A. Downer ’75 Vice President Wole C. Coaxum ’88 Suzi Kwon Cohen ’88, Ciatta Z. Baysah ’97, Marc C. de La Bruyere ’77, Walter C. Donovan ’81, Mark A. Edwards ’78, Claudine Gay ’88, Peter A. Georgescu ’57, Jennifer P. Holleran ’86, Sally J. Michaels ’82, Daniel C. Oakley ’80, Deidre O’Byrne ’84, Bill Rawson ’71, Dr. Nina D. Russell ’82, Peter M. Scocimara ’82, Serena Wille Sides ’89, J. Douglas Smith ’83, Morgan C. Sze ’83, Kristyn M. Van Ostern ’96 and Nancy H. Wilder ’75, E. Janney Wilson ’83 The Exeter Bulletin (ISSN No. 0195-0207) is published four times each year: fall, winter, spring and summer,

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

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

Copyright 2018 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

FALL

“THIS IS A WORLD THAT’S BALANCED BETWEEN THE HAND, THE MIND, THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE TECHNOLOGY.” —page 26

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IN THIS ISSUE

Volume CXXII, Issue no. 4

Features

26 Behind the Curtain

The form and function of the new David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance

By Jennifer Wagner

34 Always for Exeter

A conversation with Interim Principal Bill Rawson ’71

Compiled by Karen Ingraham

38 The Boy From Montana

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William Boyce Thompson’s time at Exeter was brief, but his legacy is everlasting

By Jack Herney

Departments 6

Around the Table: Meet These Exonians, Scene & Heard, Campus Life at a Glance and more

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Table Talk with Elaine Braithwaite ’03

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Inside the Writing Life: Laura Lee ’95

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Sports: Shaun Fishel brings a scientific approact to strength and conditioning

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Connections: News and Notes from the Alumni Community

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Profiles: Earl Silbert ’53, Frank Eld ’65 and Melody Nguyen ’16

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Finis Origine Pendet: Anne Brandes ’21, 2018 Lamont Younger Poet —Cover photo by Mary Schwalm

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Juliana Merullo ’19 (left) and Marymegan Wright ’21 celebrate Wright’s goal in a 3-2 win over Pingree School.

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AROUND THE TABLE

What’s new and notable at the Academy

History Revised THE ACADEMY CENTER IS RENAMED TO HONOR ELIZABETH PHILLIPS AS CO-FOUNDER OF THE SCHOOL

By Betty Luther-Hillman

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had not expected to be crying after Lutherthe Opening Assembly of the 2018Hillman 19 school year. But there I was, with tears running down my cheeks and my mouth hanging open, in shock.

Interim Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 had just announced, to the surprise of nearly everyone, that the Phelps Academy Center would be renamed the Elizabeth Phillips Academy Center, to honor the wife of John Phillips, who equally devoted her money and care to establishing Phillips Exeter Academy in 1781. As soon as the assembly concluded, I ran to my classroom to grab my phone for its camera and raced to the academic quad. I felt like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns hugging upon the news that the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote had finally been ratified; I was over the moon.

As a feminist and historian of women and gender, I have long been aware of the countless numbers of women whose contributions were deemed unimportant and whose stories have thus been erased from our telling of the past. Historians have restored some of the stories of women and other individuals whom our traditional historical narratives have marginalized. From Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Midwife’s Tale, showing how everyday women played leading roles in their communities during the American Revolution, to

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Catherine Allgor’s Parlor Politics, illustrating how the wives of early presidents of the United States participated in politics just as much as their husbands did, women’s historians have been rewriting history for decades.

Ironically, Elizabeth Phillips’ name had never been erased. It has been in plain sight on the Academy’s Deed of Gift for 238 years, and yet, unconsciously, we had chosen to omit her from the telling of the founding of our school. The amount of further detail on her life, according to Academy Archivist Peter Nelson, is small; the daughter of a “prominent citizen” of Portsmouth, she was first married to Eliphalet Hale, an Exeter physician, who died in 1765, leaving her with “a modest inheritance.” She married John Phillips in 1767, and jointly signed the Deed of Gift in 1781, which included a release of her inheritance: “Likewise Elizabeth, my wife, doth hereby freely and voluntarily relinquish all right of dower and power of thirds in the premises.” After her husband’s death, Phillips made other financial contributions to both Exeter and Phillips Academy Andover, the other school she supported in its early years. Additional archival documents suggest that she hosted several dinners and teas for the school in Exeter, and boarded two students at her home, before her death in 1797. An 1888 history of Phillips Exeter Academy wrote of her contributions:

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Exonians gather under a temporary banner announcing the renaming of the building to Elizabeth Phillips Academy Center.

“And here let the generosity of Elizabeth, the wife of John Phillips, be recorded. She relinquished [her own inheritance] in order to share with her husband in this pious and glorious undertaking … .

Truly the widow bestowed her mite, and therefore should receive due honor … .”

It seems, however, that the “due honor” she was to receive for her “self-sacrificing generosity” did not materialize until now, which is sadly not surprising.

Despite the work of historians to uncover marginalized and oppressed individuals of the past, high school history curriculums (which tend to control our broader societal historical narratives) still mostly focus on elite men who officially controlled political and economic life (no matter how much work their wives, such as Elizabeth Phillips, did behind the scenes). While I think the History Department at PEA has done admirable work in diversifying our curriculum — we offer classes on women’s and LGBTQ history, Native American peoples and cultures, and colonial and modern Asia, Africa and India — I still worry that we gravitate too much toward common topics within these classes. It’s simply easier to find sources focusing on Andrew Jackson than on the Cherokee Indians whom he vanquished from their lands.

We never fail to discuss Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, but we leave out his role in the hanging of 38 Dakota Sioux Indians in 1862, the largest mass execution in U.S. history. We assume that LGBTQ people did

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not “matter” in history prior to very recent times, when in fact a vibrant queer culture blossomed in major urban areas during the early 20th century.

Even when confronted with evidence to the contrary, it’s also hard to get students — ours are still in high school, after all — to recognize how our traditional narratives of history are incomplete. At the end of one U.S. history class, in which we discussed and debated the role of women in politics in the 19th century, I asked my students if they thought we should include more about women in our yearlong course. Although I’m sure the students recognized that I felt otherwise, they bravely said no. “They just weren’t that important,” one student said. After what I had thought had been a successful class on women’s “unrecognized” contributions, hearing that comment made me want to cry.

Perhaps those were some of the tears that trickled down my face that Friday; tears built up from years of trying to teach about the importance of individuals whose stories can’t be found because they were forbidden to learn how to write, or excluded from jobs that allowed them to write, or died of AIDS. We may never recover their names and significance, but Elizabeth Phillips can be a reminder of those forgotten, marginalized or untraceable people of the past. And with the permanent recovery of her name, to be chiseled forever on the Academy Center, the history of our school is a little bit closer to complete. E Betty Luther-Hillman is an instructor in history at Exeter.

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By Patrick Garrity Rock.

No, paper!

I MEAN SCISSORS! The class of 2021 is spread across the Academic Quad, each member trying to make the right split-second choice in a rock-paper-scissors throw-down for the ages. Two hundred seventy-six lowers are one-two-three shooting simultaneously and living and dying with their decisions.

No, Exeter has not lost its collective mind. But the hope is that some reticent Exonians might lose their inhibitions on this first weekend of the new school year.

The lowers’ shootout is one fun piece of a program designed by team-building facilitator Playfair. That programming, in turn, is an element of an Academy-wide initiative to foster community and collaboration at the beginning of fall term. As the lowers go through their paces, the senior class is combing Salisbury Beach, picking up a summer’s worth of refuse. Preps are participating in team-building exercises of their own on a ropes course run by the University of New Hampshire. And the uppers are gathered in Assembly Hall to hear a guest speaker discuss leadership and effective communication.

The orientation program was launched last year by the Dean of Students Office, thanks to the new Class of 2018 Exonians Connect and Explore Fund, established by an anonymous donor. A decision was made at the time to

MARY SCHWALM

zero in on class year. Much of the community at Exeter revolves around dorms, clubs or teams, but this daylong effort is about bonding as classmates.

For the class of 2021, that means Joey Tribbiani impressions (“How you doin’?). And roaring like tigers.

And reciting two-line poems. And making up signature dance moves. All in the name of breaking down barriers and building up community.

Many of these students began their Exeter experience a year ago on that ropes course in Durham. They spent three terms together, navigating prep year and making friends. But even outgoing Exonians can’t name every classmate, and there are 75 new arrivals in the class of ’21 — more than a quarter of its ranks.

A series of prompts sorts and re-sorts the participants by birth month and distance traveled to school and hours of sleep. Siblings or only children. Pet owners or pet-less.

Android or iPhone. The quad is a swirling sea of hoodies on this cool morning, and before anyone can get comfortable, a new prompt has the sea aswirl again.

The strategy is to pry apart buddies and connect strangers, for a few moments at least. As students bounce around the quad trying to recite two-lined poems and invent signature dance steps with old and new friends alike, the strategy seems to be working.

The morning culminates with the mother of all rock-paper-scissors tournaments. Each best-of-three showdown results in a winner and a loser — but the loser must instantly become his or her vanquisher’s biggest champion and find other winners to challenge.

The competition progresses rapidly, with the number of victors dwindling as their entourages grow exponentially.

Finally, just two combatants remain: Sarah Pasche, Winston-Salem’s finest, and Jeffrey Cui, pride of Hong Kong. They climb the steps of Phillips Hall and face off, their fellow lowers crowded around them, hanging on every throw. Jeffrey emerges victorious. His newfound entourage goes bananas.

The spoils to the champ? The honor of taking a selfie with all 275 of his classmates, the class of 2021. E Clockwise from left: Lowers square off in a rock-paperscissors showdown on the Academy Quad; uppers greet each other in Assembly Hall; preps race at a ropes course in Durham, New Hampshire; seniors prepare to clean up a beach in Salisbury, Massachusetts.

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Science in the Summertime E M I LY G A W ’ 2 0 A N D A L E X A N D E R K I S H ’ 2 0 SPENT THEIR BREAK IN THE LAB

By Debbie Kane

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instruments seldom available to them, under hat can a roundworm and a the mentorship of accomplished research water flea tell us about human scientists.” health and our environment?

Kish agrees. “It’s different from a classroom Emily Gaw ’20 and setting where you have a set curriculum,” the Alexander Kish ’20 hope to find out. The Haverhill, Massachusetts, native says. “The aspiring scientists were among a select group program is open to whatever research you want of middle- and high-school students who spent to do. You learn a lot because you’re doing a three weeks of their summer vacation at a science program hosted by the New Hampshire lot of preparation carrying out the experiment, then writing a formal scientific paper.”

Academy of Science (NHAS). Gaw studied the effects of insulin and glucose on C. elegans, a roundworm; SUGAR OVERDOSE Kish studied how water polluted Winner of a scholarship to the NHAS summer by leached plastics affects Daphnia program, Gaw, a resident of McLean, Virginia, magna, a species of water flea (both is fascinated by the health effects of our food organisms are frequently used to study choices. Her initial research on the topic genetics and developmental biology). uncovered some startling facts and drove her Mentored by scientists, the decision to study the connection between students researched, designed and glucose and insulin and autoimmune diseases. conducted original experiments at “Since 1700, human consumption of sugar NHAS’s state-of-the-art STEM lab in has increased from 20 pounds a year to over Lyme, New Hampshire. At the end 100 pounds,” she says. “That high exposure to of the session, they presented their glucose is linked to diabetes, cancer, obesity research to fellow students and a panel and other diseases. I wanted to find the tipping of STEM professionals. Both were point where too much sugar is consumed and subsequently invited to submit papers how that could increase incidents of autoimabout their research; if selected, they’ll mune disease.” join the American Junior Academy of Gaw’s experiment involved exposing roundSciences, a national high school honor worms to large amounts of sugar, then recordsociety and will present their findings ing the results. The worms were placed in at the annual American Association for petri dishes containing glucose solutions; Gaw the Advancement of Science meeting in 2019. moved them out of the dishes every two days, Established in 2016, the NHAS summer studying their growth under a microscope. A session is unique for its programs, wellgroup of “single-shock” worms was exposed equipped laboratory and faculty, which once to the glucose solution, then removed includes Ph.D. scientists and engineers. “It’s for study; a second group, the “double-shock” the only lab in New England dedicated to high worms, was exposed to the glucose soluschool students performing original scientific tion twice, with a two-day break in between research of their own design,” says Dr. Peter exposures. A control group was exposed to Faletra, executive director of NHASConnect and a glucose forat eight days. The longer the worms with Exeter www.exeter.edu/exchange. member of the faculty. “It gives students a were exposed to the sugary substance, the unique opportunity to use advanced scientific shorter their life spans were. To Gaw’s surprise,

“It was incredible to be able to craft my own experiment from start to finish based on my personal interests.”

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DIEGO MELENDEZ

Alexander Kish ’20 and Emily Gaw ’20

the double-shock worms lived longer than the single-shock worms. “I think that may be because the worms were exposed to glucose, then taken off, and the two-day break may have given the worms’ cells time to adapt to the glucose,” she says. She performed an identical experiment using insulin and the worm groups followed the same pattern.

Gaw hopes to continue studying her findings more in depth this year at Exeter. “I want to study the whole life span of C. elegans and get more concrete results of the patterns I was observing,” she says.

DON’T DRINK THE WATER

Kish is no stranger to the NHAS STEM lab: He attended Crossroads Academy, where the lab is located, in middle school, and Faletra was his science teacher. Combining an interest in engineering with biology, Kish has been the lab’s resident engineer for several years, trouble-shooting technical problems with its microscopy equipment. He returned to the lab this summer to explore scientific procedures.

Kish’s project took a real-world problem — the effects of high heat on plastic water bottles

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and baby-food containers left in a hot car — and the subsequent health effects of leached plastics in water on Daphnia magna, the water flea. Using a lab oven, Kish warmed different types of plastic and glass bottles filled with artesian well water (the type of water where Daphnia magna grows), then tested the amount of plastic leached into the water from each bottle. He set up a microscope to take slow-motion video of the fleas’ heart rates. “I found the leached waters were statistically different from the controls, which didn’t contain plastic,” Kish says. “All of the water from the plastic bottles made a difference on the Daphnia, usually slowing down their heart rate.”

Like Gaw, Kish hopes to continue his research. “Plastic is everywhere,” he says. “If it’s having a negative effect that poses an issue to our health, that affects the entire world population.”

Both students feel their time in the lab was well spent. “I enjoyed working through the scientific process the most,” Gaw says. “It was incredible to be able to craft my own experiment from start to finish based on my personal interests.” E

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The Hong Kong skyline. inset: Exonians show off their protype.

Learning by Doing E XO N I A N S G E T H A N D S - O N I N H O N G KO N G

Discover the breadth and depth of Exonians’ global learning experiences at www.exeter.edu/ global-engagement

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By Genny Beckman Moriarty small group of inventive Exonians set out to improve lives with technology this summer

— while receiving a crash course in the principles of entrepreneurship — during an intensive project-based learning program at MIT’s Innovation Academy in Hong Kong.

Under the guidance of experienced mentors, students worked in teams to design wired devices capable of solving real-world problems. Over the course of 14 jam-packed days, they immersed themselves in the design process: They brainstormed possible solutions, built working prototypes, conducted market research and practiced pitching their products to potential investors.

The budding designers and entrepreneurs rounded out their education with visits to venture capital firms, start-ups, innovation labs and established companies, and they met with Exeter alumni who have started their own firms. With their chaperones, Director of Service Learning Liz Reyes P'22 and Computer Science Instructor Colleen Brockmyre, the busy travelers also made time to tour Hong Kong and the neighboring city of Shenzen.

Participants came away with appreciation for another culture and the knowledge of just what it takes to launch a successful business venture. Reflecting on the experience, Joy Longchao ’20 wrote: “Shenzhen was my favorite part of the trip. Through the border check, the familiar abundance of hammers and sickles revealed an abrupt shift towards mainland culture. Since I lived here five years ago, Shenzhen has become unrecognizable. The sleepy seaside town has developed into the global center of innovation. A week here is a month anywhere else: We visit venture capital funds, innovation labs, startups, and the electronics market Hua Qiang Bei, witnessing the different phases of entrepreneurship all in one place. ...

“Civilization blooms around the manufacturing powerhouse. Cracked asphalt roads line workers’ residences, dotted with fruit vendors and merchants. We see the entire design-thinking process condensed, paralleling our own work, both inspirational and daunting.” E

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Exonians explore Russia last summer.

GLOBAL INITIATIVES HIGHLIGHTS

Director of Global Initiatives Eimer Page oversees 40 off-campus programs annually, including 17 term- and year-long curricular programs and a rich array of short experiential trips that take place during school vacations. Designed to complement the Academy’s broad curriculum, these off-campus programs allow Exonians to experience firsthand the languages, cultures and subjects they’re studying. Students return with new insights and a deeper understanding of subjects they care about — enriching the conversations around the Harkness table and beyond the doors of the classroom.

7,945 MILES

between Boston and Hong Kong, the farthest distance traveled in 2018.

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410 STUDENTS

participated in off-campus excursions in the 2017-18 school year.

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TWENTY VACATION TRAVEL PROGRAMS ranging in length from 4 days to 3 weeks.

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INTERNATIONAL DESTINATIONS From Cape Town to St. Petersburg, Grenoble to Beijing, Exonians were all over the map last year.

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$225,000+ IN FINANCIAL AID

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CONTINENTS traversed annually

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for experiential travel during school breaks

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300 ACRES of farmland worked by students at The Mountain School in Vershire, Vermont.

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2019

London, Havana, Delhi and Martinique are among the springbreak destinations planned for next March.

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hicago-born-and-raised Elaine Braithwaite ’03 vividly remembers car trips across the city, when her mom would drive her to piano lessons. As they drove from the South Side to the North Side and back, Elaine noticed the abrupt change in urban neighborhoods.

“I remember being just fascinated with the city as a living, breathing thing,” she says. “I was taken by the fact that you could go from Downtown Chicago to housing projects to Hyde Park. Just seeing how neighborhoods changed so rapidly … caught my eye. As I got older, I started thinking, ‘Why is this the case? Why do some neighborhoods have resources while others don’t?’

Growing up in a city fostered that curiosity.”

Brathwaite has channelled that childhood interest into an intentional career. Currently with New York-based L+M Development Partners, she was previously a policy adviser for three years in New York City’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development. There, one of her projects coalesced as a 10-year, five-borough plan to, among other objectives, develop vacant and underused lands, protect tenants in rent-regulated apartments, and create affordable housing for a range of inhabitants, from families on low incomes to middleclass households that are being priced out of the city.

“There’s an affordable-housing crisis across the city,” Braithwaite explains, “and part of this project is a twofold approach in terms of creating new units while protecting rent-regulated tenants. I think the concept of preservation is really important, especially since so much of the housing stock here is rent-stabilized; there are some underlying protections required in ensuring that people who live in those apartments know that they can stay without being worried that the

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unit might be deregulated or that somebody might try to throw them out.”

Just over a year ago, Braithwaite returned to L+M — she was with the company prior to working with the deputy mayor — and is now working on a hospital/ housing project with the Bronx’s St. Barnabas Hospital, a project that lies at the nexus of home, health and wellness. Once complete, it will outfit St. Barnabas with a new ambulatory care center, a gym, a teaching kitchen, ground-floor retail and a day care center for the community, and the hospital. Ideally, such a campus will improve people’s health outcomes and encourage healthy lifestyles, as well as provide affordable housing for community residents and for previously homeless families.

“This is the kind of project that I joined L+M to do,” Brathwaite says. “I am interested in how housing, retail and community facilities can impact neighborhoods, and I liked the way that L+M partnered with other organizations to do placemaking throughout New York. … I believe that high-quality housing — high-quality affordable housing — and having a place to live is a fundamental part of being able to succeed in other parts of your life. By partnering with a hospital, we’re able to think about what the challenges are that people face both at a chronic-illness level as well as in terms of simply being able to access a healthier lifestyle.”

Some of the outcomes of that thinking include a hospital-associated fitness center with extended hours so hospital staff can have a flexible exercise schedule; a hospital-based kitchen where staff can learn how to teach patients to make healthy, affordable meals; and a rooftop farm where people can learn about growing vegetables, fruits and herbs, and which will include tables for community dinners.

Another element of the project includes housing units for low-income families and for formally homeless households, who are also often high users of Medicaid and emergency services. “The hope is,” Brathwaite explains, “that by considering people who are in and out of the hospital frequently, we provide them not just with stable housing, but also with ways to access supportive services at their home. That would mean less need for emergency care, while maintaining more balanced health care at home. So it’s an interesting nexus of housing in the traditional sense, but also incorporates thinking about wider-ranging services that a community might need. It’s

really about how to integrate, how to make this a green and accessible project that’s actually impactful in a positive way for people’s day-to-day lives.”

Braithwaite’s time at Exeter helped her learn to examine situations more broadly, while introducing her to peers from other cities. “They’d had such different experiences with their own cities,” she says. “It was fascinating to hear other people’s outlooks and orientations toward their city. Also, Exeter is one of those places that just fosters real space to explore the things you’re thinking about; you could think through ideas and solutions to problems. Just being part of that Harkness table and hearing the opinions of people coming from such different backgrounds, that really did help you think about, ‘Why do I think the way I think?’”

Braithwaite attended the University of Pennsylvania using part of that time to intern with the Reinvestment Fund, a community-development financial institution.

“That was my first experience doing something in my field,” she says. “I learned about the ways this institute used capital to impact cities. They lend into projects that have some kind of community-development/economic-development concept. It made me realize this was an actual job that people have, that this was a way that people were using money to impact places for the good.”

Braithwaite then spent several years in Oakland, California, working for a policy group and then for the Oakland Redevelopment Authority. It was her first role in city administration and offered valuable insight into the role of cities in providing services to neighborhoods, creating an economic-development and affordable-housing agenda, and working with other public and private parties to fulfill that agenda.

Graduate study in city planning at MIT followed, including internships at both L+M and a second affordable-housing developer in New York City. “That’s when I knew,” Brathwaite says, “that affordable-housing development was a thing — and it was the thing that I was interested in.”

And this professional suddenly sounds just as excited as when she was describing her discovery of the various neighborhoods of her home city through the window of a car. “I never knew, as a kid, that something called urban planning existed,” she says, “but I always knew that cities were what I was interested in.” E

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CAMPUS LIFE AT A GLANCE

ACADEMY LIFE DAY: Merrill Hall gears up for a road trip to Amesbury, Massachusetts.

MOVING IN: Ingrid Bergill ’19 (left) is among 881 boarders this fall.

COMMUNITY TIME: Instructor in Science Albert Leger and his advisees gather on the Academy Quad.

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EXETER LEADERSHIP WEEKEND: Senior class President Janeva Dimen ’19 addresses the Alumni Leadership Dinner.

FIRST DAY OF CLASSES: Seniors begin the term in Mr. Sneeden’s short-fiction writing seminar.

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FALL SPORTS: Big Red tackles Andover on Nov. 10.

PREP SCAVENGER HUNT: Members of the class of 2022 tour campus to famliarize themselves MCLANE POST OFFICE: New students find their mailboxes.

PROCTOR GREETING: Abby Zhang ’19 welcomes new residents at Wheelwright Hall.

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INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS: Eighty-six students from 28 foreign countries are represented in this year’s student body.

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Guiding Lights MEET SOME OF THE PEOPLE EXETER STUDENTS CAN T U R N T O F O R S U P P O R T E A C H D AY.

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t Exeter, we believe students thrive best when they have a support

network to lean on. Here are a handful of the many employees who are working behind the scenes and on the front lines to assist students in their academic, social and emotional growth.

REV. HEIDI CARRINGTON HEATH Interim School Minister How she supports students: An

ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, Heath serves as the Academy’s interim school minister and provides spiritual guidance to students of all faith backgrounds.

What she loves about her job: “There’s so much to love! It’s a tie, I think, between doing dorm duty in Amen Hall (shout-out) and sitting with students and adults in our community to hear their stories one-to-one. It’s such a sacred gift of this job that listening to others’ stories is part of the work I get to do.”

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SARAH HERRICK Director of Student Information How she supports students: As

the Academy’s inaugural director of student information, Herrick works collaboratively with others to safeguard student data and records, improve tools and systems used by students and parents, and administer the course selection and registration process.

What she loves about her job:

“Scheduling the school is like assembling a 6,000-piece three-dimensional puzzle; it’s hard work but I love it!”

TYLER CALDWELL Ninth-Grade Program Coordinator and English Instructor How he supports students: Working

with the dean of students, Caldwell plans and implements programs and special events to support preps in their orientation to the Academy, including their adjustment to Harkness, general health and well-being and their socialization.

What he loves about his job: “The ninth grade possesses a pure energy, a certain vibrancy, that gives me such joy, and I am thrilled to work with that particular group. I look forward to the opportunity to develop structures and experiences that support them and allow all ninth-graders to thrive in all areas of Academy life.”

Herrick

DR. KATY LILLY Medical Director How she supports students: Lilly

Carrington Heath

is a board-certified physician with training in pediatrics and extensive interest and experience in adolescent medicine. As the new medical director for the Academy, she works with her colleagues at the Lamont Health and Wellness Center to ensure the physical and emotional well-being of Exeter students.

What she loves about her job: “I feel immensely fortunate to work in medicine; it is a gift to be able to work with patients to improve their health. I look

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DR. CHRIS THURBER Psychologist, Instructor and ASAP Coordinator How he supports students:

Lilly

forward to getting to know students on campus and working with them to develop individual wellness and campus-wide well-being.”

JENNIFER L. SMITH International Student Coordinator How she supports students:

A member of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Smith supports international students as they adjust to life at the Academy and in New Hampshire and works to facilitate cross-cultural understanding within the community.

Smith

What she loves about her job: “I love working in education, but it’s unique, because I’m not in the classroom. It’s fun to coordinate events, host conversations, programs, etcetera, and work with students. It is incredibly fulfilling to see. Working at Exeter, I learn something new every day from my colleagues and from students. I feel fed intellectually and professionally.”

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A longtime member of Counseling and Psychological Services, Thurber provides counseling to students and offers training and consultation to faculty around a variety of adolescent-related issues.

What he loves about his job: “I love learning

from other professional educators and then paying Thurber it forward by delivering professional development workshops that inspire thinking and GORDON COOLE compel action. I also love helping Dean of Student Health and Wellness our amazing students be their best How he supports students: Coole selves.” serves as a liaison between the Dean’s Office and the Lamont Health and Wellness Center, working closely with both teams to facilitate communication about personal or health issues with students’ teachers and to implement medical leave policies when needed.

What he loves about his job: “I love that I never really perceive of myself as ‘working.’ Everything I do as a dean in supporting students’ peak performances through wellness practices, and helping them when they are struggling, are the same things I do as a friend, husband and father. There is no disconnect between my personal and professional lives.” E

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Meet Our Trustees T H R E E A L U M VO L U N T E E R S J O I N E X E T E R ’S G OV E R N I N G B O DY

E

xeter is fortunate to have a dedicated body of alumni volunteers, with diverse and expert backgrounds, to serve as trustees and oversee the administration of the school and the management of its financial and physical resources.

Three new alumni were appointed to the 21-member body to begin terms during the 2018-19 academic year:

CIATTA Z. BAYSAH ’97

Baysah entered Exeter as a wide-eyed prep, and recalls Principal Kendra Stearns O’Donnell speaking about non sibi, “beasts in the bricks” and “knowledge without goodness is dangerous.” Little did she know how these phrases would forever influence her life. In her four years at Exeter, Baysah was active as a volunteer with ESSO and on committees, and she earned letters as a three-sport varsity athlete. She received her B.A. from Georgetown University and her J.D. from Seton Hall Law School.

Baysah committed herself to using the gift of an Exeter education to assist the less fortunate. Since graduation, she has created and worked with community-based organizations that serve under-resourced neighborhoods by providing legal-rights education and by developing leaders within their communities. She is the CEO and founder of Baysah Global Consulting, an international policy-consulting firm that focuses on rule-of-law work in developing nations.

Baysah currently is the president of Exeter’s General Alumni Association and has served as a Greater New York regional officer; vice president of the Exeter Association of Greater New York; admissions representative; reunion committee member; and planner of impromptu alumni gatherings. She resides in New York City.

DANIEL C. OAKLEY ’80

Oakley entered Exeter as a lower in 1977 from Worcester, Massachusetts, and lived in McConnell Hall. He received his B.S. in Engineering from Harvard College and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He recently retired from Ernst & Young as executive

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director. Oakley has served as class agent, correspondent, reunion committee member and class president. Currently, he is vice president of Exeter’s General Alumni Association. These roles have allowed him the opportunity to give back to the Academy, realizing that as he serves, he also receives. He and his wife, Eileen, live in Cutchogue, New York, and are the proud parents of six children, including five Exonians: Rae ’12, Cal ’14, Sam ’15, Aidan ’17 and Liam ’17. He is grateful they have had the opportunity to attend the Academy and finds it fascinating to compare his Exeter experience with theirs.

E. JANNEY WILSON ’83

Wilson found Exeter to be a transformative experience and an opportunity worthy of generations of Exonians to come. She credits the intellectual energy of the classes, dorm life with friends from around the globe and the opportunity to explore the rich array of extracurriculars for shaping her into the person she is today.

The skills learned at Exeter have served her well in developing well-formed opinions, articulating her views and defending them, and listening closely to different perspectives. She earned a B.A. from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard University.

Wilson has served as class president, helped organize multiple reunions, raised major gifts and currently is vice president of the General Alumni Association. Her varied career has spanned consulting to consumer goods and insurance, with the foundations of her success and her love of learning rooted at Exeter. She is currently executive dean at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She and her husband, Robert Glowacky, live in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, with their children, Alexandra and Will.

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Crafting a Child’s Tale A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H AU T H O R A N D I L L U S T R AT O R L AU R A L E E ’9 5

By Jennifer Wagner

S

ketching concepts for tech giants in Silicon Valley and rendering cardiovascular surgeries in three dimensions for hospitals isn’t how children’s book authors typically cut their teeth. But for Laura Lee ’95, every job was an exercise in storytelling.

Without fail, her deft hands distilled data-heavy product research and industrial design into visually compelling stories — replete with a protagonist and plot. It’s a unique worldview, forged while growing up in the mountains of West Virginia as a dyed-in-the-wool doodler.

Lee refined her skills at Brown University, where she minored in creative writing, and at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, studying the imaginative use of technology in communication. Intrigued by environmental design — and how humans interact with space — she got her master’s in architecture from Columbia University.

Lee combines all of these experiences and a quirky, line-drawn style in Cat Eyes, her first picture book, on shelves this October. We caught up with the 41-year-old to hear all about her journey in writing, illustrating and publishing.

Q: It’s a fanciful idea that a lot of people have, “Oh, I’ll write a children’s book!” But you did it. Why? Lee: My passion for writing books actually started while I was working at Nokia. I was doing a lot of sketching and drawing illustrations to show new product concepts. When I left Nokia and had my son, I just had a desire to do something for myself. I think for a lot of professional working women who had careers before motherhood, things can change in terms of, well,

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everything, after motherhood. Mostly, your identity as a professional changes, or it can shift. I was missing being part of something. Being part of something creative.

Doing this book was my way of taking back a little bit of that time.

Q: Speaking of time, how did you find free any time to be creative as a new mom?

Lee: During that two-hour nap time in the middle of the day! I would go to my studio and just start drawing.

Thinking back, maybe I should have been napping too.

Q: You have an actual “studio”?

Lee: I have a drafting table in my bedroom that’s pushed up against dressers. I do a lot of my pencil drawings there. Sometimes I draw on the dining room table. I do a lot of the painting and color work on the computer, so I can work at a coffee shop, which is a new thing I’m trying.

Q: Your book is about a little girl who sees cats wherever she goes. Are you a cat person?

Lee: My husband jokes that I have this ability to see cats when nobody else can see them. Like I have this superpower. So, I thought of a story about a girl who had that superpower, or this way of seeing the world where she saw cats everywhere, even if they weren’t really there. This lonely girl would see these animals playing and doing things that she couldn’t do herself, or she felt too shy to do herself. The whole story is about her view of the world and eventually being able to participate and not just be an observer of life.

Q: Is there some of you in this little girl?

Lee: I think so. I am really interested in that transition period, I think it’s around first grade, when children stop having imaginary friends. Developmentally, for the girl in the book, there’s this point where she starts to come into the world, to participate, be social, and not just see things in an imaginary sense. I’m fascinated with that moment in time.

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There’s an old chess shop, a falafel store, and a barbershop — just a bunch of curious little stores and storefronts. I put those all in the book.

Q: So, this book is a mash-up of your real life.

Lee: I think that once you have the scaffold of the story, you can hang anything you want on it. A lot of the time, as an illustrator, you add the things that resonate with you from your own life and hopefully they’ll mean something to somebody else. I try to put a lot of things in my stories that make me smile.

The people who know me, or know the environments that I’ve created, will recognize them too. I think that’s always fun.

Q: Did you have a favorite children’s book growing up?

Lee: I love the Grimm fairy tales, the kind of grotesque classics. I remember reading [Hans Christian Andersen’s] The Red Shoes. A girl gets her feet cut off because of her vanity. I remember thinking when I was a child, “Oh, that could happen.” A lot of those books we grew up with in our generation would never be written today.

Q: On Instagram you posted a picture of your mom doing watercolor.

Did you get your interest in the arts from her?

Lee: That was a really great memory. She had her own studio in Lee: I actually went back to work. I took a “YOU HAVE our house and was always painting when I was growing up, so I think a lot of it came job at IBM. Then two weeks after I started, I TO HAVE A from her. I also took inspiration from my heard from a publisher who was interested. dad. He was a surgeon; he did a lot of I was like, “OK, I have a full-time job, I’m a STORY THAT things with his hands. I was always intermom, and I’m going to work on this book.” ested in craft growing up.

There were editorial revisions with the writYOU WANT ing, but primarily the illustrations. I had to Q: Sounds like nature and nurture TO TELL, essentially redo half of the book. It was kind at play. of insane trying to do it all at once. I spent Lee: There is an element I think where AND AN a year with IBM and realized that it wasn’t you can learn everything you need to what I wanted. I really wanted to dedicate INSTINCT TO know to make a good story, but at the end myself full time to book writing and illustraof the day you have to pour yourself into SHARE THAT it and have a voice. You have to have a tion. So, I left that job this past year and have been working on multiple projects since then. story you want to tell, and an instinct to WITH THE share that with the world. I think that’s Q: The drawings in your book are something you might be born with. I think extremely detailed. Where did you get WORLD.” if you have that desire to make a connecyour ideas? tion to people through storytelling, you Lee: I definitely took inspiration from my have that drive. Otherwise it’s just all technique and no environment. There is one scene where the girl walks passion. Every story is an opportunity to make a human through a city that’s based on the exact street that I lived connection, and if you don’t do that, you’ve really missed on in New York in the West Village. I literally went onto the mark. E Google maps, looked at the street and I replicated it.

Q: How long did it take to write, illustrate and then get Cat Eyes published?

Lee: I worked on this book for a year and sent it out to agents. Then I did revisions for another year and sent that draft out to publishers. It was a long, drawn-out process because I only had so much time to myself. I was about to put it on the shelf like, “Oh, that was an interesting experience. I learned a lot. I’m going to go back to work now.”

Q: You thought about giving up?

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I N S I DEEX T OH N EI AWN RS I TI N I N RGE L V II FE EW

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 03833-2460.

1961—Robert Littman [co-author with James E. Bennett and Jay Silverstein]. The Terracotta Figurines from Tell Timai: 2009-2013. (BAR International Series, paperback, 2016)

ALUMNI 1939 (Hon.)—Rebecca B. Dunham [preface and editor-in-chief]. Brentwood, New Hampshire, Through the Years, 1742-2017.

(Brentwood Historical Society, 2017) 1953—Chris Crowley [with Jeremy James]. The Younger Next Year Back Book. (Workman Publishing Co., 2018) 1954—A. Denis Clift. The Bronze Frog. (Naval Institute Press, 2018)

1989—Jeff Eggers [with Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Jason Manone].

Leaders: Myth and Reality.

(Portfolio, 2018)

1962—William H. Hill. No Place for Russia: European Security Institutions Since 1989. (Columbia University Press, Woodrow Wilson Center Press Series, 2018) 1968—Neal Delmonico [translated with Lloyd W. Pflueger]. Isopanisad: The Secret Teaching on the Lord. (Blazing Sapphire Press, 2017) —[translated with Elizabeth Delmonico]. Poems from Rūpa Gosvāmin’s Blazing Sapphire. (Blazing Sapphire Press, 2018)

1955—Victor Wallis. RedGreen Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism. (Political Animal Press, 2018)

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2000—Meredith L. Potter.

“Inns & Taverns” [chapter] IN Brentwood, New Hampshire, Through the Years, 1742-2017. (Brentwood Historical Society, 2017) FAC U LT Y/ F O R M E R FAC U LT Y Erica Plouffe Lazure. “The Haunted Pillow” [story]. IN Entropy Magazine. (April 2018)

2008—Corey Padveen.

Marketing to Millennials for Dummies. (For Dummies, 2017) B R I E F LY N OT E D 1967—Demitri Papolos.

“Clinical experience using intranasal ketamine in the longitudinal treatment of juvenile bipolar disorder with fear of harm phenotype” IN Journal of Affective Disorders. (Jan. 1, 2018) 1999—Heidi R. Dunham.

“Stephen J. Arkell — Hometown Hero” [essay] IN Brentwood, New Hampshire, Through the Years, 1742-2017. (Brentwood Historical Society, 2017)

1977—Andrew E. Lewin [foreword and managing editor, with author Linda Gordon]. Inge Morath: An Illustrated Biography.

(Prestel and Magnum Foundation, 2018)

—“The Italic” [story]. IN Ripening: 2018 National Flash-Fiction Day Anthology. (National Flash-Fiction Day, in association with Gumbo Press, 2018) —“Why We Stole the Disco Ball from Satellite Skate” [story]. IN Southeast Review. (2018) [selected as a finalist for World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest].

Matt W. Miller. “Echo Tourism” [poem]. IN Split Rock Review. (September 2018) Ralph Sneeden.

“Blaenavon” [essay]. IN The Common, https://www. thecommononline.org/ blaenavon/. (Oct. 11, 2018)

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S P O RTS

Before the Whistle ST R E N GT H A N D C O N D I T I O N I N G C OAC H S H AU N F I S H E L B R I N GS A S C I E N T I F I C A P P R O A C H T O T R A I N I N G E X E T E R ’ S AT H L E T E S

By Patrick Garrity

CHRISTIAN HARRISON

on the field and their overall well-being off it.

It’s the latter outcome that motivates Fishel most.

“We want you in your peak condition as far as cardiovascular condition, physical condition, strength — but to me, it’s also about developing them as a person,” he says. “I think facing the adversity, in the weight room, putting this time in, doing all this stuff really builds character, and I think that’s really our end goal. Can we make you a better person? Yes, I want you to become physically better and perform better, but at the end of the day, I want you to be a better person. And if I can help you in some way, I’ve done my job.”

A STUDENT OF SCIENCE

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haun Fishel walks into a huddle of teenagers and disappears. At a brawny 6 feet, 3 inches, Fishel is used to being the biggest guy in the room, but these teens are long and lanky.

It’s a Thursday afternoon in late September, and the band of giants surrounding Fishel is the varsity boys basketball team gathered for a workout at Downer Family Fitness Center. There isn’t a basketball or hoop to be seen, and the season won’t officially open until winter term, but no matter. This workout is with “Coach Fish.”

The Academy’s new head coach of strength and conditioning isn’t the guy who teaches jump shots — or slap shots or curveballs or corner kicks — he’s the guy who makes all of those things a little better. Throughout the school year, in-season and out, Fishel and new assistant Craig Doran develop Exeter athletes physically and physiologically, helping them to improve their performances

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That philosophy dovetails well with the Academy’s goal of developing well-rounded students, and Fishel’s primary classroom is the Downer Center. Opened in 2015 and made possible by a gift from Trustees President John “Tony” Downer ’75 and his family, the 9,000-square-foot center boasts dozens of treadmills, elliptical machines and stationary bikes; a bank of pneumatic function trainers; and 12 power-rack platforms with free weights.

A 25-yard-long artificial turf floor offers room for agility and plyometric training. Andrea Sweet, Fishel’s predecessor and boss for two years, and Rob Morris, the Big Red football coach and former athletic director, developed the vision for the center after touring some of the top collegiate facilities in New England.

To Fishel, the center is a state-of-the-art laboratory for the evolving field of sports science, and he is a constant tinkerer. Physical Education Instructor Bruce Shang, the Academy’s head boys and girls volleyball coach, calls

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Fishel a “strength and conditioning nerd” because of his appetite for studying the latest best practices and tweaking his approach.

“Originally, the field was football coaches and weight lifting,” says Fishel. “There wasn’t much science behind it. Nowadays, most of the top-level collegiate programs aren’t about ‘How much can I push you?’ It’s far more scientific.” He offers as an example measuring the girls ice hockey players’ vertical jump heights each week with a laser-based system and logging the results over time.

Hockey players don’t do much jumping, but their ability to trigger those muscles can tell Fishel how well their central nervous systems are firing. He then can tailor an individual’s training regimen accordingly.

“Science is always changing and a lot of stuff loops back,” he says.

“So, maybe some of the stuff we’re doing is what we were doing four or five years ago or 10 years ago, and the information recycles. But I think the science, in general, allows us to look at the human body in a different way, and it’s been cool to see how we can affect the lives of high school kids.”

EVERY DAY IS TRAINING DAY

“IT’S BEEN COOL TO SEE HOW WE CAN AFFECT THE LIVES OF HIGH SCHOOL KIDS.”

The boys basketball team might be easily confused with the cycling team on this afternoon. After stretching and running through some agility drills, the players climb aboard stationary bikes for “four quarters” of pedaling that loosely simulates their cardio expectations in a game come December. Fishel counts them down and blows a whistle. The teens simultaneously race in place, conjuring up a small gale as the bikes’ wheels spin in frenzied unison.

When the session ends, Fishel keeps watch as the sweaty players sprawl across the turf floor and cool down. “How’d it feel today?” he asks. They huddle again and break ranks with a robust “one-two-three, thanks, Coach Fish!”

The hoops players are his most frequent visitors. They train as often as four days a week during the offseason.

Many of them will return 12 hours later for a predawn weight-lifting session. All of the offseason workouts are voluntary and vary by team and sport. Some follow a regular routine, others occur whenever the athletes have free time. Fishel will work with anyone who walks through his door, in close collaboration with the team’s head coach.

The offseason is a strength and conditioning coach’s

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bread and butter, when he can maximize his time and impact with an athlete. But Fishel and Doran also train each Big Red team, varsity and junior varsity, twice a week during its season. A day after guiding the varsity basketball players through their preseason spinning session in the fitness center, the two coaches are out on Hatch Field to work with the JV field hockey team.

An early autumn sun bathes 15 players as Fishel puts them through a series of agility and conditioning drills.

They deftly navigate horizontal “ladders” in what looks like a game of high-speed hopscotch before Fishel asks them, “Does anyone have a favorite we haven’t done yet?” Just as he tailors drills based on the athlete, he also fine-tunes his methods and messaging. An 18-yearold postgraduate hoping to turn a college coach’s head will respond differently from a new prep playing for fun to fulfill a gym requirement. Fishel appreciates the nuance. Not everybody is looking for a scholarship, but everyone can benefit from learning proper conditioning habits and technique.

‘HEY, COACH FISH!’

One thing is unanimous: The athletes love Coach Fish. The varsity field hockey team chats him up before its practice starts, bouncing an idea for a children’s book off him and trying out material. “Hey, Coach Fish? Where does a hamburger go to dance?” one player asks. “The meat ball!”

Fishel loves the banter. He prides himself on the trust he builds with the athletes, with whom he might spend as much time as their head coach or any teacher on campus.

On game days throughout the year, he’ll bounce between the fields and courts and rinks and see the fruits of his labor. He is a self-described “underachieving athlete” who once weighed 320 pounds before he discovered the rewards of fitness training. He is eager to share his knowledge with the Exeter community.

“I’ve seen kids who were [preps], and they were like ‘Oh, I don’t want to do this,’” he says, sitting in his glass-walled office in a corner of Downer Family Fitness Center. “And now it’s their [upper] year and they’re like knocking down the door to get a workout or they’re in here on their own.

“It’s because they realize ‘Hey, I feel better. I run faster. I throw harder than before.’ They see how their bodies can change. As soon as they understand that, all that extrinsic motivation I’ve been giving them has turned into intrinsic motivation, and they’re their own motivator. That is really cool.” E

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BEHIND

the THE CURTAIN The architects assigned a place for each handmade, Danish brick on this glorious wall. An artisanal process of glazing, water-struck molding and firing in coalfueled ovens, gives each brick a unique color and texture.

THE FORM AND FUNCTION O F T H E D AV I D E . A N D S TA C E Y L . G O E L C E N T E R F O R T H E AT E R A N D D A N C E

by Jennifer Wagner Photography by Christian Harrison, Mary Schwalm and Cheryl Senter

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rchitect Billie Tsien taps a key on her

laptop and a single photograph of an amethyst geode appears on the boardroom wall. There’s no accompanying 3D, balsa-wood building model or life-size posters recounting her firm’s architectural awards, although they have won many.

She’s focusing her audience’s attention on the geode. The rock is bumpy and fairly plain on the outside. Inside, it’s dazzling. Thousands of sparkling crystals erupt in all directions, exuding a deep purple glow. “That’s adolescence,” Tsien says.

It is also her parti, or conceptual big idea. For the next hour, she and partner Tod Williams explain their vision for a new performing arts center at Exeter that, like a geode, will feature a quiet exterior

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VISIONARIES Architects Tod Williams (seated) and Billie Tsien hope their building will inspire curiosity, enable experimentation, and take students on a creative journey that will last a lifetime.

ART MEETS USE The custom-designed felt lining the lobby walls was inspired by an illustration on the program for Léon Bakst’s ballet Afternoon of a Faun. The artwork entices passersby to enter and also dampens sound.

CURTAIN and a dynamic interior that encourage the free expression of another, more hidden sense of self.

Tsien’s elegantly simple presentation resonates with the Academy trustees, faculty, alumni and administration in attendance. “We left that meeting and I think it took us about 45 minutes to make a decision,” recalls Theater and Dance Instructor Sarah Ream ’75; P’09, P’11 of the New York City meetup back in 2014. “It was not dificult to decide that they were the people we wanted to go with for this project.”

Fast-forward four years, and The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance officially opens to the first students. True to concept, the stark, modern cube, clad in muted gray brick, houses vibrant, highly sophisticated interior spaces

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SETTING THE SCENE A pipe-grid of 100 LED lights make technicolor magic on the 40-foot proscenium, while rigging hoists fly scenery and trap doors invite actor trickery.

F/X MAGIC Stage crew perched in the mainstage control booth command a complex array of audio and video boards to manipulate a show’s sound, projection and light.

THE GOEL CENTER

EMPHASIZES DEPTH, QUALITY AND THAT APPROACH TO TEACHING THAT IS BOTH INTIMATE AND COLLABORATIVE.

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RISING UP Able to heft 33,000 pounds, the movable orchestra pit sinks 12 feet below the stage to carry an entire orchestra or heavy scenery from the garden level to the stage.

where Exonians can take creative risks, refine their craft, and collaborate in formerly impossible ways.

Aesthetically and functionally, the Goel Center fits the husbandand-wife team’s body of institutional work — including the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago and the U.S. Embassy complex in Mexico City — which puts a building’s users above architectural whimsy. Despite having two performing arts centers on their architectural CV, for their firm, TWBTA, there’s no such thing as a generic theater building; each one tells its own story.

The Goel Center tells a uniquely Exeter story. It’s one of optimism, of the power of Harkness, and of the belief that the arts play a critical role in education.

The ethos of the Exeter community is inherent in the scale, the geometry and the technical capabilities of the Goel Center, says consultant Martin Vinik, brought on in the early days of the project to help configure the building’s theatrical requirements. “It’s not loud, it’s not self-congratulatory,” Vinik explains. “It emphasizes depth, quality and that approach to teaching at Exeter that is both intimate and collaborative.”

Fitting the Exeter experience into a 143-foot-by-143-foot cube was a highstakes game of Tetris. Vinik, the architects, former Director of Facilities Roger

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ON-FOOT

EDUCATION Wakeman and members of the theater Theater and Dance and dance faculty all shared thoughts Instructor Sarah Ream ’75 on how to place the necessary blocks (right) collaborates with students on the fall producof performance, teaching, rehearsal, tion of A Midsummer technical and public spaces inside the Night’s Dream. building’s box.

“We knew that the theaters, due to their sheer size, would be the rulers of space,” Williams says. Spanning all four levels and seating 350, the mainstage theater fills the bulk of the 63,130-squarefoot building and is large enough to host complex productions in theater or dance. Appointed with the latest high-tech machinery, it also provides the flexibility, versatility and ease of operation required for Exonians to perform as their most imaginative selves. Students can manipulate an intricate web of LED lights to produce limitless color combinations from the theater’s control room or take to the catwalks to make above-stage adjustments. There’s also a movable orchestra pit for musicians and advanced rigging hoists for the stage crew to fly curtains, lights or scenery.

For limited-cast productions with simple sets, solo shows, or multidisciplinary collaborations that would be dwarfed on the mainstage, students can premier work in the smaller thrust stage theater. With seats for 150 and a rectangular forestage that extends into the audience on three sides, the interaction between performer and spectator is palpable. “It’s reminscent of Fisher Theater in that way,” says Theater and Dance Chair Rob Richards, “because the action comes right TRIAL SIZE to the audience.” The additional perforStudents move from mance venue also means that two propractice to performance ductions can happen simultaneously without missing a step inside this double-height rehearsal — one on the mainstage and one on studio (right), which matches the thrust stage. the exact footprint of the And finally, the Goel Center is mainstage. home to the Academy’s very first performance space designed specifically for dancers’ needs. Up until 2017, dance classes were taught on the second floor of the former Davis library, and before that in the basement of Thompson Gym. The new studio stars a classic three-layer basket-weave sprung floor with heat-sealed seams and Marley-finish surfaces; appropriate sightlines for choreography; and a ceiling-mounted projector to add video or animation to the show.

This wide variety of venue type and size offers all students — from the most focused and talented to the casual neophyte — a place to explore and perform. “The theaters themselves are meant to be laboratories in which all sorts of work, new and old, realistic, formalistic, presentational or otherwise, can be produced,” Vinik says.

The size differential is aspirational as well.

“Depending on your level of comfort, you can decide

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where you want to perform,” says John Skillern, TWBTA’s on-site project manager. “I think a lot of kids will look at the mainstage and think it’s phenomenal, it’s a big deal.

Just knowing there is that stage, that they can at some point step onto, I think that’s very inspiring.”

Of course, every on-stage performance is the result of an ensemble’s effort. And much of that work happens before the curtain ever goes up on opening night. “It was really important to us, as an educational institution,” Ream says, “that half the building’s real estate belonged to all of the other work that happens off stage — thinking, rehearsing, costuming and set design.”

PROP The architects responded, providing CENTRAL The scene shop is kitample area for stagecraft, or the techted with a SawStop table nical aspects of theatrical producsaw, Powermatic stationary tion, including a workroom to build tools, a drill press and band saw. Plus, a spray booth for scenery, a sewing room for garment painting and every hand design and a video-editing suite. “The tool imaginable. difference between a Broadway theater and this teaching facility,” Williams says, “is that you’re actually building your sets here, not out in Staten Island. … The teaching occurs in the shop just as well as it occurs in the classroom or on the stage.”

These well-equipped back-of-house spaces enhance the scope and quality of classes for students, bolstering and broadening the Academy’s existing curriculum of 23 dance and theater courses. They also support an alternative framework for understanding and appreciating the arts. “We wanted to make sure that this world is a world that’s balanced between the hand, the mind, the individual and the technology,” Williams says.

Bringing the mind into the building in a very literal way meant the installation of actual Harkness tables (albeit with a slightly more modern design). There are now two Harkness classrooms devoted to theater and dance — a first for the Academy. This spring, Dance Instructor Allison Duke will teach her first hybrid theory and practice course, Dance in Society. Examining movement in a sociocultural context, Duke will have students write an analytical paper and choreograph a dance. “The students will be thinking critically while they are rehearsing and improving their technique,” she says, “but also writing papers and using a completely different part of their brain.”

Positioning these Harkness classrooms close to the performance and rehearsal spaces was a guiding principle of the archiCOSTUME SHOP tectural design. Teachers now Students customize can easily do intensive textual fabric in a 40-gallon dye vat, piece garments together work at the table one minute with industrial irons, sergers, and quickly transition to kinand sewing machines, then esthetic work the next, without fit their designs onto performers.

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RAISING THE BARRE The 120-seat dance performance studio puts a dancer’s needs first, with its sprung floor, full-length mirrors and natural light.

hoofing it across campus. Convenient, yes. But more importantly, it meets students where they are in terms of their style of learning. “There are students who just can’t get Shakespeare at all if they’re sitting around reading it,” Ream says. “But if you let them get up and on their feet, then you see that ‘Aha!’ moment when suddenly it begins to make sense to them.”

The circulation of people and things is very clearly thought out in the Goel Center. “You need to be able to move things around in this box,” Williams says, “which takes a lot of planning. You need to be able to build a set and take it right onto the stage, then straight to storage or out to the dumpster.” The center’s scenery production shop is located directly behind the mainstage ­— placement that makes practical sense — especially when ferrying large-scale props to and fro.

In the same way, the first-floor dramatic rehearsal studio matches the exact footprint of the mainstage (minus the wing space) and includes similar, but scaled-down technical AV instruments. This mirroring means that performers can move seamlessly from rehearsal to the performance space without missing a step, and that a production’s different constituents — actors, stage crew, dancers — can work concurrently.

Plus, the building’s connective tissue, its unfettered passageways — behind the stage, over the stage on the catwalks, up to the control room — all allow

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THE THEATERS

ARE MEANT TO BE LABORATORIES FOR ALL SORTS OF WORK ... NEW, OLD, REALISTIC, FORMALISTIC, PRESENTATIONAL OR OTHERWISE.

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ACTOR’S LAB The dramatic tension between actor and audience is heightened in the thrust stage theater, where the forestage reaches out into the crowd.

THIS IS A WORLD

THAT’S BALANCED

BETWEEN THE HAND, THE MIND, THE INDIVIDUAL AND TECHNOLOGY.

straightforward access from one area to the next. “I think that flow, that’s an important thing to communicate to the students,” Skillern says. “They have access to it all.” A building-wide paging and communication system reinforces the interplay between spaces by making conversations among the tech crew, faculty and performers a button push away. “There is visual connectivity and a physical connectivity in all aspects of the design,” Skillern adds.

Connecting not just the people and parts of a theatrical production process together, but the theater department to the dance department, drove the architectural design as well. “When Billie and I started to think about these components going together,” Williams says, “we thought you could have them connect, they could have this vertical relationship.” Hence, the central staircase in the main lobby, which is a physical link from the theater performance spaces on the main floor to the dance performance space on the third floor. This key form offers landing points, views and access to all levels of the performing arts. Each program fits in the same shell but retains its own identity, affording interdisciplinary collaboration. “The stair connects you to the dance level but the dance also has its own world,” Skillern says.

The Goel Center not only provides an unmatched, professional-grade experience for every student, its very existence is a visible recognition of the

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BACKSTAGE BREAK Student dancers prepare for ballet class in one of the Goel Center’s dressing rooms.

value of the arts as a rigorous academic pursuit at Exeter. “I think there has been a major shift among educators,” Ream says, “from seeing the arts as a charming addition to the curriculum, to seeing it as part of the bedrock of an ideal education.”

Indeed, the importance of arts training in adolescent development is reinforced by current educational theory and brain research.

That’s not to say that the arts haven’t been valued at Exeter for centuries. In fact, from the earliest days of the school’s founding in 1781, “Musick” and “the Art of Speaking” were listed among the “Liberal Arts and Sciences” that the Academy would promote. It is just that student participation was constrained by the limits of the school’s facilities. There are now three separate departments devoted to the arts, including studio art, music, and theater and dance. More than half the student body is involved in a dozen dance clubs, drama clubs that perform weekly productions, and formal music ensembles.

“I’m really hoping that some of the traffic from the gym — the people who think the last thing in the world they would ever do is anything to do with theater — are going to find themselves kind of wandering over and hanging out and getting involved,” Ream says. It appears to be working. Twice the number of students, compared to last year, auditioned for this fall’s production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

On a crisp September day,

IMAGINEERING

backpacks and kicked-off shoes More than half of line the hallways of the Goel the space in the Goel Center is devoted to what Center. Faculty and staff breeze happens behind-the-scenes. through the building, chattering Think: scenery building, and lounging on the comfy red costume design and brainstorming. chairs scattered about the lobby.

Among the passersby are architects Williams and Tsien. “I love seeing kids in the space,” Tsien says. The bustle, apparently, is the one thing you can never simulate in renderings. This is their first visit since the academic year began. They walk into each room, inspect each wall, outlet, fixture — no detail goes unnoticed. “I’m thinking like a dancer,” Williams says, dressed in signature black, as he enters the dance rehearsal space. He eyes the pop of gray paint on an interior window frame. He wonders out loud if, perhaps, it should be painted white. Shouldn’t the whole room be white, ethereal, he muses, to make the dancers feel freer to explore creatively? Tsien shares her thoughts. Williams listens. The conversation continues. They’re thinking and talking about the students and how they’ll inhabit and occupy this space they’ve created. It’s the architecture of Harkness. E

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Always For Exeter A C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H I N T E R I M P R I N C I P A L B I L L R A W S O N ’ 7 1 Compiled by Karen Ingraham

CHERYL SENTER

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n Sept. 5, Interim Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 donned a red T-shirt with “I’m new here, too!” printed across the front in white letters.

He then spent the better part of move-in day greeting new students and their families on the paths.

Two days later, Rawson stood at the podium in Assembly Hall, opposite from where he first sat 50 years earlier as a new lower and a financial aid student. After the exuberant hoots, claps and whistles had concluded, Rawson began his Opening Assembly speech. It was written for the students, spoken to them in a way that demonstrated he understood what they might be feeling: the nervous energy and excitement, to be sure, but also the doubts. “Would I be able to do the work?” he had wondered as a student. “Would I make friends? Did I really belong here?”

Rawson assured the new students sitting before him

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that, yes, “You can do the work. You will make lifelong friends. Absolutely, you belong here.”

Two days after that speech, it’s a Sunday morning and Rawson is participating in bonding activities with lowers during an orientation program. By now, he has already watched several preseason athletic practices and has plans to attend Student Council meetings, ESSO club gatherings and upcoming performing arts rehearsals.

He’ll also attend game night at Ewald dorm, judge a spirit contest for Merrill, play Spikeball for the first time with Langdell Hall residents and visit many other dorms.

He sees his role as one of engagement. To support a community like Exeter, to help its students and adults thrive, you have to know it — from the inside out. Rawson — an alumnus, Exeter parent, former admissions officer and former trustee — has a sizable head start, but he’s not taking anything for granted.

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In the Q&A that follows, Rawson provides readers with a deeper look into why he has taken on the role of interim principal, what it means for him, and how he hopes to support the school.

What drew you back to Exeter to serve as interim principal, after a successful law career?

I view my service as interim principal much like a calling, and I have always said, “yes” when Exeter has called.

I was honored when some of the faculty first reached out to me to consider the role, and I’m thankful that the Trustees then considered me for the position. Exeter was a transformative experience for me, and I have enjoyed over the years doing what I can to help the school provide the same for others. We all want to live productive and useful lives. In my case, I feel fortunate to have that opportunity to do so as Exeter’s interim principal.

You have served as a trustee at several educational institutions, including Exeter, over the last 25 years. Why?

My father was a teacher at the elementary school I attended. Having him as a role model, coupled with the academic experience I had first there and then at the Academy, established for me the importance of education and how it can influence someone’s life. After Exeter, I attended Amherst College and then Stanford Law School; I was a financial aid student at all three schools.

Starting at a young age, I also worked various jobs during school and over the summer months to help pay for my education. When you do that, and when you are fortunate to have access to such rich educational experiences, you don’t take anything for granted. I still don’t. So I have sought opportunities to support schools, from elementary to post-secondary, that seek to make a similar difference in other people’s lives.

I also find school communities to be incredibly exciting because of their missions and the opportunities to think creatively and engage in important issues. My associations at Exeter and at other schools have all been personally very enriching. As much as I try to contribute, I gain even more, in terms of friendships, experience and my own personal growth.

lives outside the classroom, and even outside of Exeter, is reflected in the meditations they give in Phillips Church, the poetry they publish, the music they compose, the books they write, and their many other professional and personal accomplishments — all of which add to the richness of our community.

The same can be said of all the other adults who, through their various duties and responsibilities, support the mission of the school. Their professionalism and commitment are very much the same as I remember from my student days. I have very clear memories of the friendliness of the custodians in my dorm, the person who handed me clean gym clothes and towels, several of the dining hall servers, and many others who supported me.

This kind of meaningful engagement has not changed.

Yet, someone who has not been on the campus since the early 1970s would see immediately that something has changed: The students and faculty are far more diverse than 50 years ago — and far more inclusive. This year, the school hired its first director of equity and inclu-

“I AM HERE TO HELP THE COMMUNITY ANSWER THE BIG QUESTION, ‘HOW DO WE BE THE BEST EXETER?’ ”

What is most familiar to you on campus from your time as a student? What has changed?

The energy and excitement of the student body and their commitment to academic exploration and achievement feels very familiar. It also is wonderful to see the same degree of dorm loyalty that existed when I was a student.

The faculty’s extraordinary commitment to their teaching also remains unchanged. They are an extremely talented group of professionals. The richness of their

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sion and created two coordinator positions to support our LBGTQ+ students and our Asian students. We are also in the second year of piloting two all-gender dorms to support our transgender and gender non-conforming population. Exonians lead more than 15 affinity clubs on campus, and Phillips Church serves as a gathering place for Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and people of other spiritual beliefs. The progress we have made as a school toward being more diverse, inclusive and equitable is impressive. It demonstrates a real commitment to wholly and authentically embracing our mission of “youth from every quarter.”

There is, of course, more work to be done to create a community where everyone has an equal sense of belonging and equal opportunity to thrive. We need to redouble our efforts to attract and retain a diverse adult population.

We need to hold intentional conversations that will help us achieve a greater sense of belonging and inclusiveness for everyone at Exeter.

How was Exeter transformative for you?

I considered myself a typical Exonian when I was a

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Giving Back

Five years after graduating from the Academy, Bill Rawson returned as an admissions officer. He spent the next two years living in a dorm, coaching lacrosse (one of his three varsity sports at PEA), and advising students. Though he left the school to pursue a career in law, Rawson has remained connected to the Academy ever since. He has held positions including class agent, General Alumni/ae Association director and officer, regional association president and class president. He also served 12 years as an Academy trustee. Rawson’s continued involvement reflects his belief in the transformative nature of an Exeter education and his desire to make certain that as many students as possible can access the kinds of opportunities he had as a financial aid student.

In 2005, he and his now deceased wife, Mary Homeier Rawson, established a scholarship fund in honor of his grandmother, Eva Augusta Rawson, who had been a profound influence on Rawson’s life. The fund’s purpose is to support students with financial need who have at least one parent who is a teacher. In the fund’s deed, the Rawsons state: “Since its founding in 1781, Phillips Exeter Academy has sought to enroll youth from every quarter. The Rawson Scholarship Fund assists the Academy in its ambition to admit the most capable and best-qualified students from all areas and financial circumstances.” They hoped the fund “would serve as an example and inspiration to others of the importance of generational philanthropy to the lives of current and future Exonians.”

student. I cared about my work, wanted to do well and was thrilled to be here. I thought my dorm, Dunbar, was the best dorm on campus. I certainly worked hard and learned a great deal. I also made lifelong friends, had a lot of fun and grew in confidence each year.

I found that Exeter embodied the values I wanted to guide my life, ones that resonated from my childhood.

My grandmother, Eva Augusta Rawson, was a person of great character and integrity, who exemplified hard work and humility. She raised five children and, after my

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grandfather died, went to work in a textile mill.

She set an example for me which I have never forgotten — one that I found mirrored in the ethos of Exeter.

The school was the center of my life — because of my friendships, because of my teachers and because of the independence that I had. I was responsible for my own education and loved the academic challenge and how uncompromising the faculty were in wanting each of us to reach our potential, precisely because they cared about us and wanted us to succeed.

I was very aware of the gift of being here, of the privilege of being here; and I spent each summer basically waiting to come back. The school was not very diverse by today’s standards, but it was more diverse than any other environment in my life. Coming from a modest background and being on financial aid, the sense that this was a democratic institution where each student entered the classroom on an equal footing was very important to me.

For all of these reasons, I left the Academy with a deep gratitude for how my time here had changed the course of my life and a strong desire to do what I could to help Exeter do the same for others.

How do your goals as interim principal differ from those of principal, or do they?

In some sense, I am in the same position as any principal who intends to retire in two years. I have some near-term goals, and I will also initiate conversations that will extend well beyond my period of service.

My initial focus includes continuing the strategic initiatives work endorsed by the Trustees last year, which centers on the student experience and how to further enhance it. We are also in the second year of an institutional self-study as part of a multiyear reaccreditation process with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

Our first director of equity and inclusion, Dr. Stephanie Bramlett, started on July 1, as did I. Her success is a critical priority this year. Last January, the Trustees adopted a vision statement recognizing that the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion are critical to sustaining and strengthening our tradition of excellence in all aspects of life at Exeter. They stated, “our commitment is to teach the skills, model the behaviors, provide the resources and cultivate the environment of inclusion.”

That work will be a significant focus of our efforts going forward.

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I told The Exonian in an interview recently that my job is largely to pose questions, not to answer them. Collaboration is very important, especially at Exeter. I spent the first couple of months in this role doing a lot of listening and reading. I received nearly 100 emails from faculty and staff sharing their thoughts about where we are as a school and what we can do to make our school even stronger. I have attended dozens of meetings and chatted with my colleagues more informally on the pathways or in the dining hall. What is clear to me, what really unites all of us, is a shared commitment to the students and to their experiences while at Exeter.

How would you characterize Harkness’ relevancy in today’s world?

The qualities we seek to instill through the Harkness pedagogy are as important today as Words of Wisdom ever. Harkness teaches us how to listen, how to In his Opening Assembly, Interim Principal Bill Rawson told stuthink critically, and how to express ourselves dents, “The mission of Phillips Exeter Academy is to imbue you effectively and respectfully to those around us. with goodness and knowledge, not for selfish reasons, but to Listening is the critical skill on which a stu‘lay the surest foundation of usefulness to [hu]mankind.’ He then dent’s personal involvement and success in and offered three pieces of advice. One focused on respect: out of the classroom will depend. Certainly, as “Respect starts with understanding the privilege we all enjoy we look around the world, we can see a despersimply by being here. If we take things for granted, or act with ate need for more Harkness discussions. We need a sense of entitlement, we disrespect the privilege we enjoy by less talking at each other, more listening to learn being here, and we disrespect the sacrifices of others that have from each other rather than to judge or apply made our time here possible. We are not special simply because labels, and more effort to reach a common underwe are here. But because we are here, we have the opportunity to standing around our problems. accomplish special things together.”

Harkness makes room for that. At Exeter, we have the chance to realize that our differences, and different perspectives, can be the very things that workers who share an Watch the full address at make life exciting. Our differences are how we express incredible passion for www.exeter.edu/openingassembly. our common humanity. Understanding that — valuing it education, a commit— is what I think Harkness drives us toward. ment to excellence, a Over the last few decades, there has been growing boldness of thinking, awareness that our most pressing problems as a global and an openness to solving problems in new and differsociety are interdisciplinary in nature and require interent ways. Our strength is in our willingness to constantly disciplinary thinking. There’s room to grow here at Exeter challenge ourselves and to ask, ‘How well are we living up in terms of how we encourage the kind of multidimento our vision, to our mission?’ sional thinking required to address, for instance, the We must be open to imagining what Exeter could environmental challenges that we face — which are part become tomorrow and not be too preoccupied with what political, part economic, and part a matter of engineering Exeter is today. As the world changes, what is needed in and other scientific disciplines. The humanities, to a great an educational institution like Exeter changes as well. extent, also inform how we think about those problems.

Our adaptability becomes increasingly important even I see multidisciplinary learning as one way our Harkness as we strive to ensure that John and Elizabeth Phillips’ pedagogy is likely to grow in the coming years. founding vision for the school remains intact.

Exeter alumni and parents are also critical points of strength for the school. Without their engagement What do you perceive as Exeter’s greatest strengths through volunteerism, philanthropic support, mentorship today? What do see as opportunities for growth?

Our greatest strengths are the people who are here — both and event participation (including, for example, speaking at assembly), Exeter would not be the school it is today. E the students and the adults. It is a community of hard

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The Boy from Montana

W I L L I A M B O Y C E T H O M P S O N ’ S T I M E AT E X E T E R WA S B R I E F, B U T H I S L EGACY I S E V E R L AST I N G.

By Jack Herney ‘46, ‘69, ‘71, ‘74, ‘92, ‘95 (Hon.) Illustrations by Dave Franks

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n Friday, May 14, 1926, The Wall Street Journal, a newspaper accustomed to

providing its readership with breaking news of the world’s financial markets, ran an article that instead simply reported a birthday. Beyond mention of the individual’s “sojourning at the Ritz Hotel, Madrid, Spain” the article imparted no news of note. Clearly however, whenever this person’s birthday rolled around, the Journal thought it newsworthy enough to alert its readers. The article began, “Colonel William Boyce Thompson celebrated his fifty-seventh birthday Thursday.”

By 1926, such personal information about Thompson had become commonplace in the press. The Boston Daily Globe once reassured the public, in reporting on a recent illness, that Thompson’s “physicians say he is in no immediate danger.”

Such a positive report, other papers noted, produced a rally in the financial markets. On a more cheerful note, The New York Times reported that the colonel had entertained “at tea on board his yacht, Savargra, [sic] the Duke and Duchess of Aosta.”

This rise to such public notoriety belies a rough-and-tumble beginning on the

As a boy, he had little interest in serious matters, having become a formidable poker player in the saloons that populated every street corner in Butte.

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A man in a hurry, Thompson left Columbia after just one year to pursue the dream of silver riches in an abandoned mineshaft near home.

frontiers of the American West.

Thompson spent his youth amid the thousands for whom fortune, much more than fame, had drawn to the Montana Gold Rush sites in Alder Gulch during the 1860s. This was a land that had only recently surrendered its version of vigilante justice to more decorous methods, but not before Thompson’s father had helped dispatch five desperadoes simultaneously on a scaffold that he had constructed himself. By his teenage years — when the family had moved to Butte, where copper had produced another stampede of fortune-hunters — Thompson admitted to having little interest in serious matters. At 15 he was a formidable poker player in the local saloons, which populated every street corner. This pastime replaced earlier ventures designed to enlarge his fortune — a vegetable stand one summer, prospecting the next, an opera house candy concession another.

Early on, Thompson recognized what would increase the world’s bounty, and his own — what came from the soil.

Early on, he evinced his intention to take his share.

Though school seemed to him eminently impractical, Thompson did attract the attention of the man whose advice would change his life. Arthur Cotton Newell of Balliol College, Oxford, a classics scholar hired to instruct the children of a British engineer relocated to Butte, had found himself unemployed when his benefactor lost his fortune, and he willingly took the position of local schoolmaster.

Recognizing Thompson as a talented student in mathematics with a restless and imaginative mind, Newell plied him with serious books that revealed a world of much greater possibility than what awaited him in Butte. Newell’s suggestion of an eastern boarding school promised an adventure worth considering, made possible by his father’s recent financial success. Knowing that a hero of his, Daniel Webster, had attended such a school, Thompson looked to Phillips Exeter.

Arriving at the Academy in January 1887, Thompson entered a school in transition and seemingly moving in the wrong direction. Though growing in enrollment — up to

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William Boyce Thompson [1890] as a young man and later as a “captain of industry.”

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320 students when Thompson arrived, an increase of 50 percent in just 10 years — students distinguished themselves as much by their rowdy behavior as by their scholarship.

Principal Walter Quincy Scott, who had served in the Civil War under General Sherman, called for police protection to control student riots and rode his large white horse around campus to intimidate malcontents, thus obviating the need for the brass knuckles worn by his successor.

Young William made his own contributions to this mayhem, participating with relish in illicit poker games, where now his victims included not only fellow students but Boston card sharks. Other objects of his mischief included the fence at the Robinson Female Seminary, which he helped set afire, and Professor Tufts’ cow, which in darkness he and others led onto the chapel rostrum. More important to his future, Thompson finally began to take academics seriously and to choose courses that served his growing interest in the world of commerce and his understanding of mining’s potential in America. A vacation visit to New York, where he witnessed brokers dealing mining shares on the stock exchange, prompted him to think ahead to a future where the classics were surely less important than the sciences. Therefore, out with Latin and Greek and in with chemistry and physics.

Outside class he contributed to The Exonian and the Exeter Literary Monthly, for which he wrote articles describing his firsthand knowledge of the wonders of the West. His Exeter course selections, his extracurricular choices and even his rule-breaking foreshadowed what would consume so much of his adult life — taking risks and using science to explore the riches that lay in the earth, particularly in the mountains of Montana.

Moreover, the friends he made at Exeter would remain close to him for the rest of his life. The importance of all this to Thompson was expressed much later by his widow, Gertrude, in a letter to Lewis Perry, who would as principal become the steward of the many gifts that Thompson would bestow on the Academy. She wrote, shortly after Thompson’s death: Dear Dr. Perry, I am sure you have

When 100 women were jailed for picketing in support of women’s suffrage, Thompson contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to their cause.

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always known [my husband’s] deep friendship and affectionate regard for you and the happiness it gave him to know that you had in charge his beloved Exeter. Exeter, of course, filled a very large part of his heart, and I think one of the greatest joys of his life was to assure the expansion and endurance of his real alma mater. All of his ideas — patriotic, scientific and construction — seemed to have melded themselves into his love for Exeter.

Enjoyable as Exeter had been, Thompson was a young man in a hurry … and practical, which explains his leaving the Academy as soon as he had acquired sufficient credits to further his education, not at the liberal arts colleges favored by Exeter graduates, but rather at the Columbia School of Mines in New York. But more than a student he was a gambler, and after only one year he abandoned the classroom to pursue the dream of silver riches in an abandoned mineshaft discovered during the summer back home in Butte. Alas, in what was to be the first of many failed ventures, this gamble failed to pay off. Over the next 10 years, Thompson’s efforts to turn silver, lumber and coal to profitability produced little, enough to sustain his new wife and child perhaps, but nothing to match his ambitions.

Then came the Shannon mine, the beginning of a string of successes that would make him an internationally known mining entrepreneur and a giant of Wall Street.

By 1899, when Thompson first heard of Shannon, demand for copper had never been higher — it was needed for the wires to transmit telephone and telegraph messages, for the electricity to move streetcars, and for the lights to illuminate the nation’s offices and homes. Copper would enable Americans to enjoy all that, if someone could find enough of it. Thompson intended to do just that. Meeting personally with the Shannon owners, who were looking to sell their property for $250,000, Thompson managed to secure ownership for $500 down with the promise to provide another $100,000 within a year.

Now all he had to do was to find investors. Using all his contacts and friendships, including his Exeter friends, Thompson paid for the property, made improvements and waited for the mine to produce.

It did, abundantly. Investors recouped windfall profits —continued on page 100

Thompson’s gifts paid for several buildings across campus, including new dorms, a gym, a science building and Jeremiah Smith Hall.

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“CURIOSITY, LISTENING AND LEARNING FORM THE FOUNDATION OF CIVIL DISCOURSE ... .”

CONNECTIONS

News and notes from the alumni community

Harkness 2.0 – (Re)Learning Civil Discourse

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By Ciatta Z. Baysah ’97, trustee and GAA president uriosity + Listening + Learning = Belonging.

This equation created the lens through which I viewed Exeter Leadership Weekend (ELW) and has become the framework for my post-ELW conversations. The words that comprise this equation were (re)introduced to me by Stephanie Bramlett, Exeter’s director of equity and inclusion and reinforced by Bill Rawson ’71, Exeter’s interim principal. Whether calculated or not, the words resonate. The meaning is genuine.

Curiosity, listening and learning form the foundation of civil discourse and the building blocks that gave me a sense of belonging to the Exeter community.

Remember being a nervous new student around that wooden, oblong table with the weird slats? Wasn’t it difficult to listen completely to a classmate instead of waiting to respond with a pre-formulated opinion? Some of us were more talkative but we all had a desire to learn and be heard.

As time went on, curiosity for other viewpoints developed.

The Harkness method provided tools for civil discourse that allowed us to present a point, educate and challenge our colleagues, then respectfully leave the conversation.

Those of us who left the classroom feeling heard developed a sense of belonging in the classroom and in our many ad hoc Harkness situations — the common room, dining hall, club meetings. This translated to an affinity for the school.

Unfortunately, not all Exonians had this experience.

Fast forward to present day. Think about the interactions and conversations you have related to myriad issues affecting the Academy and your daily lives. The civil

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discourse equation becomes fuzzy, does it not? Too often, fellow alumni feel disconnected from the Exeter (and their individual) community because ears are closed to contrary opinion. Pre-formulated answers (read stubbornness) rule the day. Some of those lessons learned around that oblong table have been forgotten. The ability to move the “point-of-view needle,” listen completely and respond civilly is slowly fading.

Recently, I have heard the following from Exonians, “I would hate (fill in the blank group) if it were not for my Exeter family.” The reason is because of interactions they had as students and have presently as alums with schoolmates, faculty and staff who share and receive different opinions civilly. As president of the General Alumni Association, I will focus primarily on intentional, respectful engagement — a unique conduit for reconnecting with and rediscovering Harkness within our community. It is my firm belief that this type of dialogue helps build and maintain a society that serves humanity in that good old, non sibi way. Through two-way communication, social media, parlor discussions and the like, the GAA hopes to create an atmosphere that champions a continued desire to actively learn and listen.

Around the imaginary Harkness tables that pop up in your daily lives, try introducing the civil discourse equation. Do not let ignorance (willful or genuine) or perceived intellectual superiority (or inferiority) inhibit you. Remain curious, listen completely and (re)develop that sense of belonging to community. Harkness 2.0 awaits! E

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Casting a Line

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By Sarah Zobel istory will likely remember Earl J. Silbert

’53 as the lead Watergate prosecutor, the man who faced G. Gordon Liddy in court.

But to a select group of people, Silbert will forever be a tutor and academic cheerleader, a friend and supporter — even a jaw at which to aim a right cross.

Last month, Silbert was recognized for that service in a special tribute from one grateful beneficiary.

“Earl’s impact on The Fishing School is immeasurable,” says Leo Givs, the executive director of the nonprofit that provides academic after-school and summer programs for elementary and middle-school youth from underserved communities in Washington, D.C. “He has worked tirelessly to not only ensure the ongoing success of our organization, but to expand our reach in the communities we aim to serve,” Givs says.

Silbert has been a Fishing School board member and chair for more than two decades. It was a role he fell into when he signed up to take a course at the Servant Leadership School in Washington’s Adams Morgan neighborhood during the late 1980s at the urging of his wife, Pat. Silbert doesn’t remember anything about the course, but he does know it’s where he befriended Tom Lewis, a fellow student and retired police officer who had just opened a center for underprivileged children on a block of Washington then known as the “worst street in America.”

Lewis invited Silbert to take a look at the center, which would later evolve into The Fishing School, its name inspired by the adage “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” Silbert, who says his time working in the U.S. Attorney’s office took him to some rough parts of the city, was alarmed by the center’s location. But once inside the building, he found a peaceful tableau: children reading, working on computers, enjoying hot meals and being attended to by a caring staff and volunteers. He signed up on the spot to help however he could.

Silbert has volunteered his time since his undergraduate days at Harvard, first helping at a teen recreation program in a settlement house in Boston’s South End. “One was a boxing class — I had to make sure I didn’t get hit too hard,” he says with a laugh. “We also did a cooking class. We made fudge — it was the hardest fudge anyone ever saw, but we had a good time.”

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Ten years later he volunteered to tutor in a Washington housing project, and was assigned to a 12-year-old boy who couldn’t write his own middle name. “I said to him, ‘I don’t know how much we’re going to learn this year.

We’ll give it a try, but one thing that’s for sure is you’re going to learn how to spell your middle name,’” Silbert says. He spent five years tutoring in that housing project: “You don’t know how successful you were, but you do your best.”

By then, Silbert’s career had begun its arc; he would be named U.S. Attorney in 1974, a tenure that was indelibly marked by his role as lead Watergate prosecutor. In 1979, he entered private practice, where he has remained, focusing largely on white-collar crime. In 2009, the Council for Court Excellence (CCE) honored Silbert with the Justice Potter Stewart Award for his work to improve the judicial system; in 2012, the National Law Journal listed him among its Champions and Visionaries award recipients. The CCE has a three-year fellowship program named for Silbert.

Still, Silbert turns the conversation toward his daughters, one a writer, the other an English professor.

He enthuses about The Fishing School’s new home, and shares a draft of comments he delivered at the event honoring him. They focused primarily on the achievements of others, especially Tom Lewis.

“He could get a lot of people to participate with him in this work,” Silbert says. “And I was one of them.” E

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Man of the Town

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By Debbie Kane he son of a Finnish

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immigrant carpenter, Frank Eld ’65 will tell you that carpentry and construction are part of his identity. “Finns are born with an ax in their hands,” he jokes. “We’re natural builders.” But his love for historic preservation and his Finnish heritage runs just as deep; it has ever since he was a teenager growing up in central Idaho’s Long Valley, where his Finnish maternal grandparents homesteaded.

Eld’s fascination with history was inspired by a 19th-century pump organ discovered in a barn on his family’s farm when he was 14. Eld begged his mother to allow him to fix it. Together, they carefully restored the antique instrument, mending its bellows and replacing damaged wood, and got it working again. “Restoring that organ gave me the passion I’ve had my entire life for history, heritage and antiques,” Eld says.

His affinity for historic restoration — he earned a history degree from Columbia University after a postgraduate year at Exeter — has taken him in many interesting directions but none so all-encompassing as his decades-long, pieceby-piece restoration of Roseberry, Idaho, a small Finnish community near his hometown of Donnelly.

A virtual ghost town since the 1940s, Roseberry had dwindled in population since being bypassed by the railroad during the early 1900s. The town’s only remaining commercial building was its circa 1905 general store, which Eld purchased in 1969, not long after graduating from Columbia. He and his wife, Kathy, ran the store as a living history museum for years, often greeting customers in period costume. “I furnished the store like it would have looked in about 1920 to 1930,” Eld says, stocking it with candy, soda, trinkets, old-fashioned toys and Finnish items.

The general store was the first of 25 buildings that

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Eld and a committed group of volunteers moved to Roseberry from other locations in the Long Valley and then restored.

The buildings belong to the Long Valley Preservation Society, which Eld helped found and ran as president for 20 years (he sold the general store to the society several years ago). “I was the mover and shaker,” Eld says. “I was a teacher at the time and spent my summers in Idaho, moving and restoring buildings.”

Buildings on site now include a schoolhouse, a blacksmith’s shop, a church and private homes, as well as eight Finnish-style log cabins and a Finnish barn that was dismantled and rebuilt.

The Finnish cabins, constructed using square logs, became Eld’s next obsession.

Eld has logged thousands of driving miles in his “Finnabago,” a customized Toyota pickup truck with a log cabin on the back, crisscrossing the United States researching Finnish log structures. His fascination with the craft led to his first book, Finnish Log Construction – The Art; he’s compiling research for his second. As a distinguished Finlandia Foundation lecturer, he also speaks about his research at Finnish heritage societies and festivals, dressed in traditional garb, complete with reindeer-hide boots. That’s in addition to recently moving and restoring his current Boise, Idaho, home, an 1893 Victorian, and helping save historic structures across the state from demolition. A self-described “George Washington addict” — his Boise home has a corner devoted to the first president of the United States — Eld is emphatic about the importance of historic preservation. “We can learn all we want about history through books and movies, but if you want to really experience it, you have to visit an original historic site,” he says.

Eld is happy to continue providing links to the past through his research and lectures. “People ask if this is going to be my last restoration project,” he says. “I never say never.” E

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Being Smart About Service

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By Genny Beckman Moriarty

junior at Johns Hopkins University, Melody Nguyen ’16 has already put in a lifetime of service. She first felt the pull of helping others when she was in middle school, while volunteering at an orphanage in her hometown of Ho Chi Minh City. Her interest deepened at the Academy, where she became involved with the Exeter Student Service Organization. By her senior year, already attuned to the complexities of community service, Nguyen spent time as ESSO’s global coordinator urging club members to think through possible consequences of their wellintentioned plans to help: “You have to really listen and learn as much as you can about the people you’re working with.”

Nguyen remains devoted to non sibi at Hopkins — and she takes the same thoughtful approach today. “It’s important to keep [considering] whether an organization reflects your values and is having a positive impact,” she says. “Be guided by research, and try to find organizations that help more than hurt.”

Majoring in molecular and cellular biology with an eye toward public health, Nguyen looks to sociology classes to drive where and how she spends her volunteer time. As president of Project Prevention, a public health care project serving low-income neighborhoods in Baltimore, she helps organize health fairs to provide free medical screenings and checkups to uninsured residents. “We’re trying to close the gap between not having the money to access medicines and services but not being poor enough to have Medicaid,” she says. “But that’s only putting a Band-Aid on the situation, so we also bring in social workers to help people find insurance that will work for them.”

The university’s long-running Jail Tutorial Project, which provides educational opportunities to inmates within Baltimore’s prison system, is another effort dear to her heart.

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Nguyen works at a pretrial detention center with young people awaiting trial on adult charges. Most of her students have been raised in extreme poverty or come through the foster care system, she says, and many have histories of trauma, neglect or abuse. Without high school diplomas or employable skills, they face a bleak future after their release.

Tutors like Nguyen help the mostly male, teenage population get ready for graduation exams or the GED and SAT, and the center provides access to additional educational and rehabilitative services. The Jail Tutorial Project also works with Goucher College Prison Partnership, the only program approved in Maryland to confer a bachelor’s degree within prisons.

Nguyen is struck by her students’ motivation to prepare for life outside the prison system — even if that day is far in the future. “They come from such a difficult place, and sometimes we don’t recognize that what they are experiencing is so different from what other kids are experiencing,” she says. “But they still want to get an education. They still want to improve their lives. A lot of them want to be doctors and lawyers; a few asked me to bring in a biology textbook because they’d never held one before. They’re not studying biology yet, but they read it for the sake of getting close to a dream job.”

Though hungry to learn, they may also find it difficult to accept help. When she first started at the center, Nguyen’s students often asked, “Do you get credit for this? Do you get paid?” She understands their reluctance to trust and knows that mentors often come and go, so Nguyen works hard to prove she’s sincere. “To [them], I’m just another Hopkins face,” she says. “It can be hard to get through. You have to find a way to show them, ‘She may not be here anymore, but I’m here. I got you now.’

“No matter how busy I am,” she adds, “I always show up.” E

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Alumni in the News PAUL ROMER ’73 AWARDED NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS

Romer

Paul Romer ’73, an economist at New York University who has long championed the idea that intentional policymaking is essential to technological innovation, is the winner of the 2018 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Romer, 62, shares this year’s prize — the 50th bestowed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences — with William Nordhaus, 77, a graduate of Andover and a longtime professor of economics at Yale University who was recognized for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis.

The Royal Academy cited Romer’s “endogenous growth theory,” developed in 1990, as the backbone of his work. The theory explains the importance of investing in people and ideas to foster technological growth, when economists had previously believed that it was impossible to influence through policy the rate of innovation in technology.

Romer is a former senior vice president of the World Bank who received his bachelor’s and master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Chicago and also did graduate study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Queen’s University in Ontario.

Romer’s argument for the need to invest in technological advancement received a real-life plug on the morning of the Nobel announcement. His blog crashed from overdemand.

“FYI, the little cloud server that is running my blog is having trouble keeping up with the load,” Romer tweeted. “If you get a 404, you might want to try again in a few minutes.”

CLAUDINE GAY ’88 NAMED DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES AT HARVARD

Claudine Gay ’88 is the new Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.

Gay, a trustee at Exeter since 2017 and member of the Harvard faculty since 2006, is the founding chair of the university’s Inequality in America Initiative.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from Stanford and her doctorate from Harvard.

“Claudine Gay is an eminent political scientist, an admired teacher and mentor, and an experienced leader with a talent for collaboration and a passion for academic excellence,” Harvard President Larry Bacow said in a statement announcing the appointment. “She is a scholar of uncommon creativity and rigor, with a strong working knowledge of the opportunities and challenges facing the FAS. She radiates a concern for others, and for how what we do here can help improve lives far beyond our walls. I am confident she will lead the FAS with the vitality and the values that characterize universities at their best.” E

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For more alumni in the news, visit exeter.edu/news.

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FROM EVERY QUARTER E XO N I A N S M A K E C O N N E C T I O N S AT H O M E A N D A R O U N D T H E WO R L D Please note, all photos are identified left to right unless otherwise indicated.

CHATHAM, MASS Dean of Enrollment Bill Leahy spoke with parents, students and alumni at a reception on Cape Cod.

Alicia Coble ’21, Annabel Ramsay ’21 and JP Mullins ’17 with Dean of Enrollment Bill Leahy

Hosts Lesley and John Nicholson ’78

Rachel Moberg ’18 and Peggy Nicholson P’78

Paul Stanzler ’69 and Andrew Atsalis ’18 Anne Moronta ’02 with her daughters

See more event photos at www.exeter.edu/receptions.

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ISLAND RECEPTIONS Interim Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08 shared updates and highlights from campus during visits to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

NANTUCKET Scott Kelley P’20, Natalie Kelley and Jill Kelley P’20 enjoyed a Sunday at The Westmoor Club, hosted by Ginny Grenham and Paul Zevnik ’68.

Interim Principal Bill Rawson ’71 and Olivia Jackson ’13

Paul Zevnik ’68 and Andrew Atsalis ’18

MARTHA’S VINEYARD Cooper Walshe ’21, Milo Walshe ’20, Taylor Walshe ’18 and Ronnie Dixon ’07 found themselves in good company at the home of Henry and Belle Davis ’87.

Christina Lavallee P’22, Charles Lavallee ’22, Emma Lavallee, David Lavallee ’83 and Nathaniel Mason ’89

Creighton Reed ’92 and son Will; Mark and Dara Quinlan, both class of ’92; and host Henry Davis.

Linda Ettinger P’08, P’16; Belle Davis ’87; Interim Principal Bill Rawson ’71; Jim Bankoff ’87 and John Ettinger ’69; P’08, P’16

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Academy Trustee Wole Coaxum ’88; Christina Crowley P’18,’21; Eric Reaman P’18, P’21 and Susan Vissers Lisa P’21, P’21

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WATCH HILL, RHODE ISLAND Elizabeth and Jonathan Bean ’81 welcomed Exonians aboard the Miss Asis at the Watch Hill Yacht Club this summer.

Host Jonathan Bean ’81 with Academy Trustee Mark Edwards ’78; P’12,’14, who delivered remarks to the assembled guests.

Frank Smith ’68, Pam Bingham ’81, Heidi Sommers P’07, P’11 and David Sommers ’64; P’07, P’11

Peter Fuchs ’78 and Brendan Evans ’01

Tom Swift ’60; P’18 and Joan Swift P’18

See more event photos at www.exeter.edu/receptions.

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NEAR AND FAR Members of the Exeter family came together for music, laughter and more.

WASHINGTON, D.C. Exonians enjoyed an evening of music when the National Symphony Orchestra performed selections from Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Pictured: Marissa Lowman ’01, Geoffrey Bay ’74, Noah Williams ’11, Lori Lincoln ’86, Lawrence Young ’96 and Ben Austrin-Willis ’00.

PITTSBURGH Members of the Exeter family enjoyed the final Summer Fridays at the Frick concert.

MINNEAPOLIS Exonians enjoyed a happy hour at Butcher & the Boar Beer Garden.

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COLORADO Exonians gathered in the Colorado Rockies over the summer months.

VAIL Jim Light ’61, Laura and Dave Brackett ’73, and Carolyn Atwood ’04 were among the revelers at a reception in the home of Sally and Byron Rose ’59.

REUNIONS 2019 Each Exeter class hosts a reunion on campus every five years.

These events culminate a year or more of planning by classmates and the Alumni Relations Office and include informal gatherings, family activities, music, meals and plenty of time to reconnect with old friends and discover new ones. If your graduation year ends in a 4 or 9, we look forward to seeing you in May.

May 3 – May 5, 2019 (Children’s Program) 1979 40th Reunion 1984 35th Reunion 1989 30th Reunion 1994 25th Reunion 1999 20th Reunion 2004 15th Reunion

Kendall Reiley ’05 and Lizzy Grater ’05 Hosts Sally (right) and Byron Rose ’59

May 16 - May 19, 2019 1969 50th Reunion May 17 – May 19, 2019 1959 60th Reunion 1964 55th Reunion 1974 45th Reunion 2009 10th Reunion 2014 5th Reunion May 21 - 23, 2019 1944 75th Reunion

DENVER John and Maureen Kechriotis P ’21 hosted a send-off party for new Exonians.

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UPCOMING EVENTS Join us at one of these events between now and the end of the year. You can view a full listing of events and register online at www.exonians.exeter.edu, or call the Alumni Relations Office at 603-777-3454.

Nov. 10 E/A at Andover Nov. 10 E/A Watch Parties (Dallas, D.C., Minneapolis, NYC, S.F. and Toronto) Nov. 17 Entertainment Panel in Los Angeles Nov. 27 Denver Reception Dec. 8 Smithsonian Tour in D.C. Dec. 12 Holiday Party in San Francisco

EXETER IN ASIA Nov. 1 Seoul Dinner Nov. 2 Shanghai Reception Nov. 3 Taipei Dinner Nov. 4 Hong Kong Parent Dinner Nov. 5 Hong Kong Alumni Reception Nov. 6 Bangkok Reception Nov. 7 Manila Dinner

LONDON Participants in the 2018 Exeter Expedition London Theater Tour enjoyed a week of extraordinary drama and lively Harkness discussions with Theater Instructor Sarah Ream ’75; P’09, P’11 (front row, third from left).

INTERNATIONAL Alumni, parents and friends from across the globe reconnected at social and cultural events.

RIO Hosts Wolff Klabin ’92 (far left) and Amanda Klabin ’97 (second from right) with guests Chip Peterson ’68, Director of Principal and Major Gifts Chuck Ramsay P’21 and Luciano de Souza Leao ’71 at a dinner in Brazil.

See more event photos at www.exeter.edu/receptions.

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The Boy From Montana

—continued from page 41

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and news quickly spread, bringing admirers willing to financially support more Thompson projects, which came fast. Hiring private railroad cars to transport interested partners to investment sites, Thompson had little trouble finding the capital to expand his properties. Over the next 20 years would come more copper mines, as well as zinc mines in Missouri and Oklahoma, the world’s largest sulfur mine in Texas, tungsten properties in Peru, an iron mine in Brazil, diamonds in South Africa and silver in China. Companies of all sorts — dealing in tobacco, airplanes, life insurance, and oil — offered Thompson directorships, as did the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

Politics increasingly occupied his attention, particularly the prospects of Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Party, and Thompson became a presidential elector and champion of Roosevelt. By 1920, Thompson had become wealthy and famous, the kind of person, say, whose birthday was significant enough news for The Wall Street Journal to report to its readers.

As with any rich man, many individuals and institutions approached Thompson with ways to relieve him of the burdens of all that wealth.

National and world events commanded his attention, and the causes to which he contributed reveal much about his values.

In 1917, when 100 women picketing the White House in support of women’s suffrage were manhandled by the police and tossed in jail,

Thompson gave each of them $100, the equivalent of $2,000 today, and contributed nearly $200,000, in today’s dollars to their cause.

When Herbert Hoover, as head of Belgian relief, sought funds in 1917 to relieve the suffering of that war-ravaged country, Thompson first donated the equivalent of $2 million and then helped Hoover raise an additional $100 million, just from his close friends.

At the outset of America’s own participation in World War I, Thompson’s gifts to war bond drives and the Red Cross totaled more than $5 million.

Later in the war, Thompson became a prominent player in international politics. Appointed head of the Red Cross Mission to Russia in the spring of 1917, which carried with it the rank of colonel, Thompson traveled to Russia and spoke often with Alexander Kerensky, head of the Provisional Government, which had replaced the Czar. In response to Kerensky’s stated need for funds to solidify his government’s standing, Thompson wrote a check for $20 million in today’s dollars.

Having seen in Russia the political danger of widespread famine, Thompson committed himself to feeding the world’s population, a challenge he feared would face all nations. To meet that challenge, he established the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, a large laboratory of scientists devoted to the research necessary to ensure the world’s food supply. That it remains an important research facility today, now on the campus of Cornell University, is no doubt due

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at least in part to the endowment Thompson established with a gift of $10 million, or $150 million in today’s dollars.

When Thompson built a large house in Arizona, he also built nearby the Thompson Arboretum, to collect and study varieties of desert plants, which today exists as the largest state park in Arizona.

Clearly, Thompson recognized a responsibility to support causes that would benefit citizens of the United States and of the world. The extent of his impact, however, remains somewhat a mystery, as at the time of his death his obituary in The New York Times stated, “Many of his large

later, Perry received a response: How much for items 2 through 6, asked Thompson, and when each was itemized, Thompson proceeded to fund a new science building, the Cage and Jeremiah Smith Hall, at a cost of $8 million in today’s dollars.

The first item on the list had been money for an endowment, which Perry had attempted to grow with little success. On Jan. 28, 1930, Perry received the following telegram: To Lewis Perry: Yesterday Colonel Thompson gave Exeter one million dollars cash [$15 million in today’s dollars] following idea he long had in mind gift to be used as trust-

“Principal Perry was not indulging in hyperbole when he said … Thompson could be considered the second founder of the Academy.” philanthropies will probably never be known, as he was always averse to having his name appear in connection with his gifts.”

In the last decade of his life, the largesse bestowed on one beneficiary indicates the hold it had on his affections. His Exeter friend Thomas Lamont ’88, head of JP Morgan, asked Thompson — after he had become a man of great fortune and celebrity — what he wanted in life. Thompson’s response: “to be a trustee of Exeter.” Thompson became a trustee in 1920 and would remain so until his death in 1930.

In 1916, he had given the Academy a new gymnasium, along with a swimming pool and tennis courts.

Then, in 1927, Principal Lewis Perry wrote Thompson, saying that he had “made a list of what seemed to be the greatest needs of the school.” The list of six items included a science laboratory, a covered cage and a new administration building. Two weeks

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ees judge best but Thompson thinks more attention could be given educating boys in a scientific way and possibly some could be applied in that direction STOP he also feels good deal of care should be used in handling seemingly backward boys who might thereby get through successfully …

Beyond these gifts, Thompson also donated money to help build three dormitories, for scholarship funds, and for teaching funds. In all, Thompson’s gifts to Exeter totaled approximately $30 million in today’s dollars. Principal Perry was not indulging in hyperbole when he said, acknowledging all these gifts, that in a very real sense Thompson could be considered the second founder of the Academy.

Sadly, Thompson did not live to see what his generosity made possible, succumbing to pneumonia in 1930.

He had not been kind to his health; his

prodigious appetites for work, food and cigars — as many as 40 a day — took a toll over time. These qualities one might expect in the life of a Wall Street tycoon in the early 20th century.

Yet they obscure other qualities that one might applaud. Not long after his death, Lamont said of him, “W.B … he was called W.B. from schoolboy days … always struck me as the complete philosopher. He was amused and serene …” One doesn’t normally think of philosophy when considering the lives of those called, alternatively, “captains of industry” or “robber barons.” Nor does one normally use the term idealist when explaining how Wall Street millionaires made their fortunes. But consider these words of W.B., spoken at an Exeter alumni reception in New York over which he presided as its president. “… youth is a period of life when we walk on the summits, and it is a period with which we break contact at our peril. It is a period of magnificent dreams, of gay courage, of a readiness to serve, and a willingness to sacrifice that knows no withholding. The world of action and competition is not particularly gentle; it is not particularly tender with youthful aspirations. It breaks them, if it can; and if it cannot, it clouds the fine glamour of them with the smoke of conflict. The best of dreams have a way of going glimmering. We smile in our maturity at what we call our ‘boyish illusions’; but if we do that, we do wrong. The judgment of youth on essential things has a way of being clearer and surer than the judgment of maturity. It is only in the worldly inessentials that 50 has the advantage of seventeen.”

Thompson had thrived in that world of action and competition, achieving success and fortune far greater than most, yet here he is celebrating his 17-year-old world, which for him was the world of Exeter. One can imagine that those many gifts he left behind for Exeter, for his country and for humanity were intended to fulfill the dreams, the ideals, those boyish illusions he had back then. E

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Dudley Shepard Taft C H A I R O F T H E S C I E N C E D E P A R T M E N T, E M E R I T U S 1 9 2 4 - 2 0 1 6

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udley Shepard Taft was born on Oct. 7, 1924, in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Dudley attended Deerfield Academy and Williams College, where he earned a Master of Science in physics. His career at Williams was interrupted by military service during World War II in France, where he was a member of the Signal Corps. In 1948, Dudley married Marcia Ann Watters. Their five children, Thomas, Michael, Stephen, Martha and Deborah, all attended PEA. Upon completing his master’s degree in physics, Dudley received a number of employment offers from industry. Instead, in 1951, he chose a somewhat less lucrative offer to join the Science Department at PEA. Were he here to comment, though, we suspect Dudley would say that he had no regrets over that choice. His long and productive career at the Academy (Dudley retired in

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1988) bears witness to a person committed and devoted to his work with students and colleagues.

That commitment included 23 years in the dormitories; two stints as chair of the Science Department (the second term to fill in for an ailing colleague); many years coaching swimming, golf and soccer; and serving as chair of the Discipline Committee, to name but a few of the responsibilities Dudley took on during his long career. It is not surprising that in 1985, then-Principal Stephen G. Kurtz awarded Dudley the Harlan Page Amen Professorship. In his remembrance of Dudley, a longtime colleague wrote: “Dudley’s impact on Phillips Exeter was immediate and prolonged. Not only was his classroom technique inspired, but he got to manage the Science Department — at Exeter that was akin to herding cats. He kept the golf team alive

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and was an indispensable judge of diving at all swimming meets. As dormitory parents, they fed the hordes endlessly — Marcia’s student feeds were fabulous.”

However, there is one aspect of Dudley’s career that is not well documented and is perhaps best understood by some of us old-timers whose careers overlapped with his.

We can attest to the fact that, in many ways, Dudley Taft ushered in the computer era at PEA. Dudley’s interest in electronics, his natural curiosity and his desire to learn new things made him a likely candidate to investigate the potential for this new technology at the Academy. He served as chair of the Computer Advisory Committee when the Academy was just beginning to recognize both the potential and the problems inherent in adapting the power of digital technology to an academic setting.

Dudley undertook the mission to drag every faculty member, some kicking and screaming, into the computer age. He encouraged the Academy to make personal computers available to all faculty members at reduced cost and then gave of his time unstintingly to answer cries of help from his distressed colleagues.

A colleague who was initially very skeptical about the adoption of computers reflected: “I was won over to computing and recruited by Dudley, and from the time of the academic mainframes, I can attest that Dudley was the main force in the faculty promoting their value and use.”

In his roles as dorm head and department chair, Dudley moved sensibly and gracefully through times of major transition at the Academy. When Exeter became fully coeducational, Dudley and Marcia served as dorm parents in one of the first dormitories for girls. One of the students in the dorm at that time wrote, “I had the great privilege of being in Lamont under Mr. Taft’s loving guidance. We couldn’t have asked for better dorm parents than Mr. and Mrs. Taft.” In his role as Science Department chair, Dudley actively recruited and hired female faculty in a department that had been all male.

As to Dudley’s devotion to his work, many testimonials exist from students and colleagues acknowledging and reciprocating that devotion. One that we suspect Dudley to have been most proud of came in a letter to him from the Stanford University School of Engineering informing him that “one of our most outstanding seniors has selected you as the secondary school teacher most influential in guiding him during the formative stages of his career.” Upon learning of Dudley’s death, numerous colleagues and students were moved to express

their grief, and their gratitude for his life. A sample of comments from former students includes: “He started me on the road to a profession in engineering as my first physics teacher. What a special man.” “ … best teacher at Exeter. He was a gentle, dear and insistent man, damn near perfect.”

“Three generations of my family knew him as a kind and generous man.”

“A truly wonderful man. Like many of my teachers at Exeter he cared, nurtured and brought the best out of me.

What a lovely man, indeed. I will remember his lessons and will pass them on to my kids.”

And from a faculty colleague: “Dudley was a force for humanity at PEA at a time

“HE WAS A GENTLE, DEAR AND INSISTENT MAN, DAMN NEAR PERFECT.”

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when that couldn’t be taken for granted.”

Dudley Shepard Taft died in Concord, New Hampshire, on Nov. 17, 2016, at age 92. It is difficult to summarize Dudley’s career and contributions to PEA in a few short words, but perhaps Principal Kurtz did it best in the citation he wrote awarding the Harlan Page Amen Professorship: “There are many students past and present who have basked in your special warmth for and interest in those who are genuinely interested in physics, your ability to establish human relationships while teaching a subject that may be one of the most difficult of all to humanize.

“In the inelegantly immortal words of a former student as quoted by his mother, you are ‘the most all right guy around.’ ” In his commencement address to the class of 1967, Dean Ernest Gillespie included the words “I don’t believe that anyone has ever claimed that Exeter is a warm nest.”

That often-quoted phrase became the catalyst for a great deal of reflection about the ethos of the Academy.

A more nuanced view might suggest that in 1967 there were many nests at Exeter and that the one maintained

by Dudley Shepard Taft was very warm indeed. His was a life of service, good humor and grace — a life to honor and remember. E This Memorial Minute was written by Science Instructor Emeritus Lew Hitzrot ’60; ’96 (Hon.); P’88, P’95; Science Instructor Rich Aaronian ’76, ’78, ’97 (Hon.); P’94; and Science Instructor Chris Matlack and was presented at faculty meeting on March 26, 2018.

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Mother Nature

By Anne Brandes ’21

DAVID NELSON

Pine.

Feathered needles spread by Damp, salty breeze & Thick, sour syrup Hail on me.

Now crisp, brittle Prickling against my velvet feet.

Mother squeezes my wrist, Using firm fingers to wipe my Dusty cheeks, scraped elbows.

Japanese Maple.

I cradle brilliant, crimson leaves, Piercing the pale veins with a nail, Rocking up & down in The crux of two smooth branches, Until I drop backwards, Ribs knocked like drums.

Mother cradles my head, Wind-swept hair wrapped around My crumbling face.

Daisy.

Our legs tangled together on a Striped blanket nestled in long grass.

Mother laces daisies in my hair, & she lets her tight bun loose, our strands falling in between each other.

Small, white petals spill Amid our twisted russet locks.

Heather.

A bowl of long stiff blooms on my desk Tumbling silent & furious Crushed purple clutters the table.

My mother’s name.

Sometimes I run the letters through My teeth, relishing the scraping syllables Wishing she was here.

Editor’s note: Anne was honored by the English Department as one of four 2018 Lamont Younger Poets for “Mother Nature.” Her work was also selected for publication in an ecology-themed anthology, iWrite Short Stories By Kids, for Kids Vol. 9, published by the iWrite Literacy Organization.

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LAMONT GALLERY FREDERICK R. MAYER ’45 ART CENTER

2018 & 2019 EXHIBITIONS

WELCOME TO BIRD LAND: MICHELE L’HEUREUX

With artist collaborator Helen Popinchalk June 26-Oct. 13, 2018

Welcome to Bird Land draws inspiration from birds and the human enterprises of bird appreciation and birdwatching, as well as the interspecies commonalities that bind us. The exhibition, which includes an interactive bird blind, collage, costumes, prints, photography, and works of art from the Lamont Gallery collection, is an immersive ode to birds.

MICHELE L’HEUREUX, TWINS, 2018, MIXED MEDIA

SOUTHERN RITES: GILLIAN LAUB

Oct. 25-Dec. 15, 2018 Reception: Thursday, Oct. 25, 5-7 p.m.

Artist Talk: Thursday, Oct. 25, 7-8 p.m. in the Forum

In Southern Rites, Laub engages her skills as a photographer, filmmaker, storyteller and visual activist to examine the realities of racism and raise questions that are simultaneously painful and essential to understanding the American consciousness.

Southern Rites is organized by the International Center of Photography, New York.

Lamont Gallery showing of Southern Rites is supported by Marina and Andrew E. Lewin ’77; P’07, P’10 GILLIAN LAUB, SHA’VON, JUSTIN, AND SANTA, MOUNT VERNON, GEORGIA, 2012, INKJET PRINT. COURTESY OF BENRUBI GALLERY

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: UNIVERSAL ARCHIVE

Jan. 11-March 9, 2019 Reception: Friday, Jan. 11, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Renowned South African artist William Kentridge shares new work inspired during the writing of his Norton Lectures, delivered at Harvard in 2012. In this expanding series, a familiar personal iconography is revisited and over 75 linocut prints shift from identifiable subject matter to deconstructed images of abstract images.

This exhibition is organized for tour by the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College and is made possible, in part, by contributions from Alva Greenberg ’74, the Gund Gallery Board of Directors and Ohio Arts Council.

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE, (FAR LEFT) TWELVE COFFEE POTS, 2012, LINOCUT PRINT; (LEFT) SIX BIRDS, 2012, LINOCUT PRINT

SPRING EXHIBITION — TO BE ANNOUNCED

March 29-May 11, 2019

STUDENT ART SHOW

May 22-June 2, 2019

This annual student exhibition showcases the risk-taking inherent in creative discovery.

Exeter students in ART 500 and ART 999

Please check the Lamont

courses engage in an in-depth exploration of

Gallery website for

art materials and themes while developing

updated information on this

their own body of work in capstone projects.

exhibition.

(FAR LEFT) GRACE HUANG ’18, PROPERTY OF THE USA, OIL ON PLEXI; (LEFT) MAYA KIM ’18, OBJECTS THAT MATTER, OIL ON CANVAS

LAMONT GALLERY PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY 11 TAN LANE EXETER, NH 03833

603-777-3461 • gallery@exeter.edu Gallery hours: Monday by appointment, Tuesday-Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Free and open to the public. Call for accessibility information.

For more on events, special programs and past exhibitions, visit www.exeter.edu/lamontgallery