The Exeter Bulletin, winter 2025

WINTER 2025 / CONTENTS

The Future

Is Now

Classmates and Trustees

Dr. Sanjay Shetty ’92 and Sam Brown ’92 discuss the fall Trustee meeting, being an Exonian and whether a hot dog is technically a sandwich.

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Conversation

Starters

Roland Merullo ’71 and his daughter Zanny Merullo Stefgen ’16 bridge gender and generations in online newsletter.

Andrew Faught

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Going the Distance

From Ironman World Championship to the UltraTrail du Mont-Blanc, Heather Jackson ’02 on winning, losing and growing as a professional athlete.

Miles Howard

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“When you’re in your 30s, you often get the sense that life is changing. I had no idea what I would ultimately be stepping into ... but I also wanted to try new things while I still could. I was still fit and healthy. And life isn’t infinite.”

Heather Jackson ’02, p 44

Heather Jackson ’02 brings her dogs along for a training ride.

Cover: Photography by Generation Media

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Around the Table

Correspondence ∙ Principal’s letter

∙ Remembering the Ioka Theatre ∙ Heard in Assembly Hall ∙ Student Listener Program ∙ Classroom tour with English Instructor Todd Hearon

∙ A conversation with children’s book author Gwendolyn Wallace ’17

∙ Exonians in review ∙ A meditation by Lauren Josef, chair of the Department of Theater and Dance ∙ Exoniana

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The Academy

Exeter Salutes program ∙ Jim Coleman ’66 receives alumni award

∙ Academy Band of Lego Builders

∙ New Innovations course on performance and the brain ∙ Theater, dance and music ∙ The ice hockey rink by the numbers ∙ Rhodes scholars ∙ Instructor fellowships ∙ fall sports

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Connections

Artist Tifanie Turner ’88 ∙ Dr. Andy Novik ’01 on psilocybin research ∙ Jamie Waller ’75 uplifts children in Guatemala ∙ Lauren Arkell ’18 controls lunar lander ∙ Events around the world

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Class News and Notes

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Memorial Minute

David Hamlin Arnold

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Finis Origine Pendet

The Exeter Bulletin

Volume CXXIX, Issue no. 2

Principal

William K. Rawson ’71; P’08

Director of Communications

Robin Giampa

Editor in Chief

Jennifer Wagner P’24

Class Notes Editor

Cathy Webber

Contributing Editor

Patrick Garrity

Staff Writers

Adam Loyd, Sarah Pruitt ’95

Production Coordinator

Ben Harriton

Designers

Frank Webster, Jacqueline Trimmer

Photography Editor

Christian Harrison

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

Kristyn A. McLeod Van Ostern ’96

Vice President

Suzi Kwon Cohen ’88

Bradford “Brad” Briner ’95, Samuel “Sam” Brown ’92, Elizabeth A. “Betsy” Fleming ’86, Scott S.W. Hahn ’90, Ira D. Helfand, M.D. ’67, Paulina L. Jerez ’91, Giles “Gil” Kemp ’68, Eric A. Logan ’92, Eugene “Gene” Lynch ’79, Cornelia “Cia” Buckley Marakovits ’83, William K. Rawson ’71, Christine M. Robson Weaver ’99, Genisha Saverimuthu ’02, Michael J. Schmidtberger ’78, Peter M. Scocimara ’82, Sanjay K. Shetty, M.D. ’92, Leroy Sims, M.D. ’97, Rhoda K. Tamakloe ’01, Belinda A. Tate ’90, 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 Tel: 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 sent free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, friends and educational institutions by Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH. Communications may be emailed to the editor at bulletin@exeter.edu.

Copyright 2025 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

Some 86,000 Legos snapped together for this rendition of the Class of 1945 Library. p. 24

A rose by artist Tiffanie Turner ’88. p. 52

Hoop Dreams

Last year’s NEPSAC Class A Player of the Year Ryder Frost ’25 drives to the hoop in Big Red’s earlyseason victory over Dexter Southfield. Identified as one of the best shooters in the country, Frost, a 6-foot-6inch native of Hamilton, Massachusetts, was highly recruited this summer, receiving ofers from multiple Division I colleges. He has committed to play for Notre Dame next fall.

“Ryder is a worker,” varsity boys basketball coach Jay Tilton says. “He owns his path. He is always open to learning what he can to improve his game. Above all, he is grounded, cares for his teammates and is relentlessly competitive.” ●

Exeter for Educators

Hone your craft and expand your skills with like-minded educators and leaders. Exeter’s summer conferences ofer intensive workshops on our beautiful New Hampshire campus.

Conferences ofered in 2025:

Anja S. Greer Conference on Mathematics and Technology

Biology Institute at Exeter

Exeter Diversity Leadership Institute

Writers’ Workshop

Exeter Humanities Institute

Exeter Humanities Institute – West Join us in La Jolla, California, July 6-10

June 22–27, 2025

Find out more »

Around the Table

Academy Archives The Ioka Theatre from 1915 to today. p 8

This photograph of Water Street in downtown Exeter was taken by Peter Straub in 1924. Courtesy of the Academy Archives.

Letters to the Editor

It was a pleasure to receive the most recent issue of the Bulletin. I always enjoy reading it and staying connected to Exeter. I was especially surprised to see a photo of the VW Beetle on the stage of Assembly Hall, called the Chapel in 1957. On my dresser, I keep a blackand-white photo of that very scene, given to me by my grandfather, Freddy Baillargeon. By 1957, when the picture was taken, he had already served as a janitor for 30 years, with the Academy Building as his primary responsibility.

I inherited this “treasure” from him, and it’s a great reminder of a great man. I am the only grandchild of nine to attend the Academy. I know it meant so much to him for me to be there, and I am indebted to Exeter because I am a prep school teacher trying to bring the values of my education to my students. A summer session and PG year became my north star.

I first learned of the VW story while reading A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving ’61. When I came across that passage in the 1990s, I asked my grandfather about it, and he shared that he had indeed been present when

the prank was carried out. There’s even mention of a janitor in the book, and he felt certain it referred to him. Thank you to the Bulletin for bringing this story back to life.

Kevin Cronin ’83

Just finished reading the latest Bulletin! As always, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Some comments: The VW caper. In the fall of 1956 I was a prep. When we assembled for Saturday morning chapel, there were rumors about a prank. Dave Bohn ’57 was a member of the class that initiated the prank. The class of ’57 was composed of several mammoth football players who believed they could do anything — and get away with it. The prank was brilliantly described in John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. PEA’s Athletic Director Jason Baseden understandably is a big fan of Nike. When I moved back to Exeter in 1979, Nike had an old mill brick building next to the railroad tracks on Front Street (Route 111). I recall that Nike used the building for “R&D” purposes. Within a year or two, Nike shut it down. I think the old brick building remains. Ben Wagner ’60

I want to compliment you for the work in updating the look of the Fall 2024 Exeter Bulletin. Just lovely! The Class News and Notes section looks great, and I am delighted to see the word “EXETER” in a fresh new font!

Tom Porter ’69

The redesigned Bulletin is fantastic! I can’t put my finger on what it is, but I literally just sat down and went through it front to back — even including the older class notes from the ’50s and ’60s! Whatever magic you’ve done to make this a beautiful compelling piece of work, congrats! It’s awesome.

Genisha Saverimuthu ’02

How can we move on?

That is a question many of my friends and I are asking after the recent elections.

Principal Rawson’s letter, “Seeking Complex Truths,” guides us towards where we might find the path. Please share how we can acquire a copy of Bill Jordan’s “You Could Be Wrong” poster displayed on the door of Alexa Caldwell’s classroom. I need this reminder desperately during these contentious times.

David Chipman ’84

Your new format for the Bulletin is enjoyable, and the depth of some of the articles impressive. For example, as a former proctor, I don’t think I would have ever worn a T-shirt saying, “I am a leader: Follow me.” In these times of protodictatorship, such a shirt may be prescient.

The Rev. Theron David Cook ’78

Thanks for providing the email to which we can respond about the Bulletin

At age 92½, my vision has weakened. … As your readers age, small type is more and more difcult to read.

For my own usage, a minimum of 12-point type is necessary, otherwise I have to use a magnifying glass. Of course, this means you don’t have as much space for your copy, but if the copy cannot be read, what’s the answer?

I found a great deal more of interest to read in this issue than I have for a couple of years. Just my reaction.

Lou Browning ’50

I knew an old graduate of Taft School who told me that Mr. Harkness ofered the chance and the money to implement the “conference method of instruction” to Taft as well as to Exeter, but Taft turned him down. Almost 100 years later, Exeter is No. 1 and, well, who has even heard of Taft? I think this fellow is long since dead, but I don’t think he ever got over it.

Al Lewis ’74

We want to hear from you! The Exeter Bulletin welcomes story ideas and letters related to articles published in recent issues. Please send your remarks for consideration to bulletin@exeter.edu or Phillips Exeter Academy, The Exeter Bulletin, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833.

Belonging

At Opening Assembly each year, I tell all our students — new and returning — the same three things: “You can do the work. You will make lifelong friends. Absolutely, you belong here.” These are the three things I wanted to know and would have appreciated hearing as a new lower so many years ago. Of the three, a sense of belonging is arguably the most important, because that is the foundation for thriving inside and outside the classroom and making lifelong friends.

Every student at Exeter should have a strong sense of belonging. The responsibility to make this a reality is embraced by all the adults in our community. In recent years, we have worked hard to strengthen how we welcome, support and celebrate our students across all backgrounds, experiences and identities. Examples are too numerous to list here, but they include new fall orientation programs, expanded recognition of diferent faith traditions and ethnic holidays in our school calendar, more culturally diverse food oferings, stronger afliation of day students with dormitories, and improved training of student leaders in how to support new and younger students. Our need-blind admissions policies also support a strong sense of belonging for our students. These policies and our commitment to meeting the full demonstrated need of all families are grounded in our mission and commitment to youth from every quarter, and are essential to preserving our ability to attract middle-income families as well as families

“The diversity of our student body is a defining strength of our school that propels our students’ learning and growth.”

with the greatest need. We have 35 more students on financial aid this year than last and anticipate that the financial aid census will continue to grow in the years ahead. The diversity of our student body is a defining strength of our school that propels our students’ learning and growth.

Our commitment to attracting and supporting diverse faculty and staf is also essential to fostering a strong sense of belonging for our students. This commitment extends beyond race and includes all forms of diversity represented in our student body. We are hiring excellent people across a wide range of backgrounds and experiences who want to teach and work in a boarding school environment and are committed to supporting the learning, growth and holistic development of every student.

Our students also contribute to strengthening their own sense of belonging by how they support and encourage each other. Recently I attended the presentation of a senior project by a student who had designed and built a laptop computer that matched the functionalities of the most expensive laptops on the market. His presentation was outstanding (and way over my head), yet even more impressive was the standing room only crowd of at least 50 students who had come to hear and cheer his presentation in Phelps Science Center.

This is typical of how students support one another across all arenas and activities. We see this when students hug each other in the lobby of the Goel Center for Theater and Dance after a performance, when they rush the court after a volleyball or basketball victory, when they loudly cheer each other’s accomplishments at Prize Day assembly and graduation, and in countless other ways. This support translates directly to a sense of belonging.

I hope you enjoy reading in this issue about our two graduates who were recently named Rhodes scholars. This is on a par with our two recent grand prize winners in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, who were featured in previous issues of the Bulletin. These are remarkable individual achievements. Yet they are also the product of the very special learning environment at Exeter, and they reflect how our students find joy in their collaborative learning and support each other in the pursuit of their passions. In that sense, these are group achievements that reflect the importance of belonging for all our students.

A few days after Opening Assembly one year, a senior approached me at Senior Sunrise in the stadium — a tradition introduced during COVID — and told me, “Mr. Rawson, every year at Opening Assembly when you tell me that I belong here, it means a lot to me.” That was the most important meeting I had that day, and there is no more important work that we do every day here at Exeter. — Principal Bill Rawson ’71; P’08

Remembering the Ioka Theatre

Clipped from the scrapbook of Percy C. Rogers

Do you have fond memories of the Ioka? Write to us at bulletin@exeter.edu

The Ioka Theatre, a stalwart of Water Street in downtown Exeter, first opened its doors to the community in 1915.

Visitors at the time paid just a quarter to take in an afternoon screening of a silent picture accompanied by a 10-piece orchestra and a pipe organ for sound efects.

Over the decades, the Ioka and the Academy grew together. Students often helped pick the movies the theater would show, Exeter Theater Department productions graced its stage and in 2005, Principal Ty Tingley announced Principal’s Day on its marquee. For students, it was a welcome social diversion from their studies.

“I remember the excitement and shock of Pulp Fiction, which we all raced

to see,” Laura Menge ’95 says. “I remember watching Reality Bites with Bancroft friends and couldn’t wait for my 20s when I could live as cool as Winona Ryder. And I remember seeing The English Patient there on a date.”

Alas, the Ioka showed its last film in 2008. Then the building lay dormant until 2020 when Ioka Properties purchased the property and began redeveloping it into a mixed-use space. The plans include a restaurant in the basement, retail space on the first floor and condominiums on the upper floors. Construction is due for completion this year.

For those who miss the 19.6-footwide triangular marquee, it found a new home in Cincinnati at the American Sign Museum (pictured right), where it was installed in July.

Local residents lined up at the Ioka for the premiere of a 1941 newsreel that featured the town of Exeter. This image is part of a scrapbook in the Academy Archives made by Percy C. Rogers, who taught French and Spanish at Exeter for 43 years. For much of that time, he served as coach of the varsity tennis and hockey teams. He was president of the Exeter Historical Society for 16 years.

Heard in Assembly Hall

Sound bites from this fall’s speaker series

“Everybody in this world, everybody in this room, is complicit in terms of what we’ve done in terms of burning fossil fuels and heating up the planet. The question is, how do we together solve that?”

Tom Steyer ’75 Climate activist and author of Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We’ll Win the Climate War

“You have to put yourself in the moment and see that things are not inevitable. … It’s a very good lesson, a lesson I always took to heart: Things can change very quickly. In politics. In society. In culture. And in life.”

William Kristol Writer, commentator, founding director of Defending Democracy Together

“Sometimes [men] struggle to express emotion because quite frankly, we are not told how to do that. … We’re not taught how to handle the sadness of being broken up with. We’re not taught how to handle the disappointment of not making the sports team. No one taught us how to do that. So, we grow up and it’s not like you magically just learn how to do it. You still don’t know how to do it in your adult life.”

James Wilkerson Speaker, writer, professor and sexual assault prevention advocate

“The hardest part about growing up in the digital world right now is that it’s never been easier to run away from ourselves. … We’re running away from every little challenge, every little boredom, every little anxiety, every little everything. I’m worried that it’s not giving us the skills to live meaningful, full lives.”

Max Stossel Poet, filmmaker, speaker and founder of Social Awakening

“How do we make this study of history fundamental to understanding what’s happening today? One does not preclude the other. This is the balancing that we need to do.” Tarek El-Ariss

“You can tell when someone’s listening to you in a deep way. Ask yourself, ‘What kind of a listener can I be? That’s a skill that we need to develop.” Susannah Heschel

El-Ariss and Heschel, professors at Dartmouth College, created and co-teach a course that ofers historical context to the modern-day strife of the Middle East by exploring the politics, religion and literature of the past.

To watch videos of some of these assemblies, go to exeter.edu/live

Front-line Support Network

Clinician Jo Mautz and Health and Human Development Instructor Brandon Thomas on Exeter’s Student Listener Program

It’s 8 p.m. on a Monday night in the Phillips Church basement. We greet the assembled group of 45 student listeners with snacks and a positive spirit as we settle in for our “mindful minute,” an intentional activity to center ourselves. As coordinators of the Student Listener Program, we use this biweekly, scheduled meeting time to check in about what’s happening on campus and in the dorms and discuss logistics of an upcoming assembly in which we’ll share information about the role of student listeners on campus. Two seniors, based on their own research and a pre-meeting review with us, then lead a training on the topic of homesickness, complete with a PowerPoint presentation and a Kahoot! exercise to test our knowledge. As the meeting lets out, a few students stay behind to run some hypotheticals by us in an e fort to help peers they’re concerned about.

In the face of worry, stress and loneliness, any Exeter student can knock on dorm room doors with the familiar blue signs to talk with a student listener. Rising uppers become listeners through a complex and collaborative process that entails a personal application, faculty recommendation and dorm feedback; trustworthiness, approachability and respect from peers and adults all factor into their selection. Once appointed, student listeners undergo biweekly training throughout the academic year on topics such as anxiety, homesickness, depression, roommate issues, disordered eating, drugs and alcohol, and supporting

“In the face of worry, stress and loneliness, any student can knock on dorm room doors with the familiar blue signs to talk with a student listener.”

LGBTQIA+ students. These meetings cover many aspects of the position, including planning events in the dorm and how to appropriately respond to di ferent situations. This dedicated time ensures that listeners are perceived as a “safe outlet” for the dorm as a whole.

It is developmentally appropriate that teenagers when in distress go to peers first, so student listeners are the front-line support networks for students at Exeter. Besides ofering private support, they can also connect their peers with appropriate Academy resources. Most issues are kept confidential, unless a student listener believes someone has been harmed or is a danger to oneself or others. Should an issue extend beyond the scope of a peer-to-peer conversation, listeners are trained

to reach out to a trusted adult and are supported by on-call counselors at the Lamont Health and Wellness Center, the dean on duty and Campus Safety as needed.

Counseling and Psychological Services collaborates with the Health and Human Development Department to oversee the Student Listener Program. This has been a wonderful partnership, as we weave together our respective disciplines to promote health and wellness on campus. But it’s not strictly business with student listeners, as the students say. We attempt to model living a balanced life. Whether it’s telling jokes, breaking into song or students giving each other shout-outs for their accomplishments in athletics, theater or music, Student Listener meetings have an air of

positivity, peace and fun.

On the day of our assembly, we gather onstage in the Assembly Hall, wearing our Student Listener T-shirts. After we speak about our role on campus, we play a short music video of a day in the life of a listener. It’s electric to come together to promote the work we do. As Bruno Mars’ “You Can Count on Me” fills the hall, we hope students take away our guiding principles: When in doubt, reach out. Look for the blue door tag. And never hesitate to knock.

Jo Mautz is a licensed clinician and counselor in the Lamont Health and Wellness Center. Brandon Thomas is an instructor in the Health and Human Development Department. Mautz and Thomas coordinate Exeter’s Student Listener Program.

A Short History of the Student Listener Program

The Student Listener Program started with a handful of listeners in the spring of 1983. Pioneering counselors Jan Eaton, Patty Schwartz and Connie Morse co-founded the program and established many tried-and-true traditions over the years, including the annual fall retreat and community-building dorm events. As Ms. Morse would say, “We do not want students worrying alone about their peers — we want them to reach out to grown-ups and seek help. Many have helped students access help and counseling over the years and have made a big difference in a student’s life by being there in hard times.”

The program has undergone some recent changes, including asking listeners for a twoyear commitment to help with continuity and mentorship of younger students. We have also streamlined the number of listeners in each dorm/house to ensure proper supervision and support. Yet our goal and mission have remained the same: to ensure that students feel heard not only in their dorms, but also in the larger school community, and to give students a familiar face and access to whatever they need to unlock their best selves.

A Cabin in the Clearing

The poetry of English Instructor Todd Hearon’s classroom

There’s a story behind everything you see in this room,” Todd Hearon says, surveying the treasures in his Phillips Hall basement classroom.

Throughout his life, including 21 years of teaching English at the Academy, he has picked up trinkets from his travels, oddities from long-forgotten campus storage rooms and gifts from

grateful students. “A lot of the stuf I’ve just been carrying around with me for years,” he says.

Hearon has curated his subterranean space (“We’re six feet under,” he jokes) with warm tones and even a faux fireplace all meant to draw students into a setting that feels comfortable. “I think that if I had a room upstairs in some of the more ornate and stately classrooms,”

he says, “I probably wouldn’t do all this.”

A playwright, poet, author and song writer, Hearon needs only to look at the collage of notable Irish poets above his desk or spin a Bob Dylan vinyl record on the corner turntable for inspiration. “This is kind of an extension of my home,” he says. “This is where I’ve written most of my books. I feel a sense of relief here.” ●

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“There was a flood in 2006 and my classroom at that time was destroyed: all my books, everything. Anything that was below waist level couldn’t be salvaged because the water was septic. The only thing that survived was this Harkness table. This is one of the original Harkness tables, and a few legendary teachers have used it. It lifted and floated to the back of the room, like Noah’s Ark.”

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“This is ‘The Wonder Horse.’ I found it in a dumpster outside Phillips Hall years ago. I used to ride on one of these when I was a little boy, so I have a special affection for it. Also, the flying horse, Pegasus, is a symbol of poetry, right? The medals are all medals that students have won for their writing in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.”

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“When I teach senior creative writing poetry, every time the students come into the room, the sign is appended to some object. It might be on the hornet’s nest, it might be on the stained glass, and they have to fashion a metaphor telling how poetry is a hornet’s nest or is stained glass. Lots of the objects in this room function in that way — as generative promptings for the imagination.”

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“When we’re studying Hamlet, this is Yorick’s skull — Yorick the jester. This jester’s cap came from Florence, Italy.”

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“Before Phillips Hall was renovated there was a departmental closet upstairs that was piled to the ceiling with ‘junk.’ They were going to throw it all away. What I found in there was amazing: old copies of The Exonian from Robert Frost’s visit to campus and a book he signed and dedicated to the English Department. He was a big friend of the English Department, and it would be common where you would come to class and your substitute teacher for the day would be Robert Frost.”

AROUND THE TABLE / INSIDE THE WRITING LIFE

Nurturing Our Future

A conversation with children’s book author Gwendolyn Wallace ’17

Gwendolyn Wallace gives children’s literature a new perspective. By centering Black history and Afrodiasporic voices, she says, she hopes to inspire youngsters to “step into their transformative power.”

Wallace draws from her upbringing in Connecticut, visits with grandparents in South Carolina and academic pursuits to seed her plots. She holds a master’s degree in public history from University College London and is in the first year of a History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society (HASTS) Ph.D. program at MIT.

Her book The Light She Feels Inside, published in 2023, ofers canny lessons in the history of resistance, name-checking sheroes such as Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, Nina Simone and the Combahee River Collective. In Joy Takes Root, also published in 2023, Wallace portrays a Black grandmother and granddaughter bonding over their mutual love of gardening. Dancing with Water , due out this year, is about the tradition of water divining and opens the door, she says, to conversation about

“environmental racism, water protection and water rights.”

We caught up with Wallace to hear more about her writing.

You place great importance on representation in stories. Does that drive your books?

I think a lot about what it means for children and adults to see themselves in stories, and it’s not helpful when that conversation begins and ends with visual representation. As a Black woman writing about the experiences of Black children and Black people, my goal is to speak to a distinctly Black mode of living and way of thinking that draws from my experiences. That goes beyond just seeing someone who looks like you: it’s also important that I’m giving children tools in my books, that I’m passing on lessons that I wish had been explained to me when I was 6. I approach writing for children and interacting with them with the understanding that we, as adults, have just as much to learn from them as we have to teach them. I want to hear their vision of the world

and let them know that they have a safe place to share that, to combat the messaging telling them that they’re too small or too quiet or too little to have anything important to say.

Your first two books feature libraries and gardens. What do those places mean to you?

I wrote Joy Takes Root and The Light She Feels Inside in 2020, and both touch on questions I was wrestling with at the time. I wrote The Light She Feels Inside first, when demonstrations for racial justice were getting quite a bit of media attention, and a lot of people were engaged. I was struck by how artists and writers I was following then were thinking not just about things that we need to get rid of, but also about the excitement and joy and imagination that’s required to build a world after those changes.

I wanted to give that feeling to children, to help them understand that there’s this long lineage of hopeful, powerful and resistant people whom they came from, who dealt with the same feelings, and who found something to do about it; I wanted to say, “None of those things are too far out of your reach.” As a kid, libraries were a safe space — I felt freedom to read and explore — so I wanted to share my love for libraries as imaginative, as generative, as nurturing spaces.

And Joy Takes Root?

That came from the same time frame. I had COVID; I was very sick for many months, back in my childhood bedroom, relying on my parents in a way that I hadn’t since I left for Exeter. I was struggling with exhaustion, fatigue and brain fog, feeling distant from my body. One important thing that helped me get back to that feeling of embodiment was gardening. I spent a lot of time with my hands and feet in the dirt, thinking about my ancestors, thinking about my body, thinking about the connections I feel to plants and animals. My paternal grandmother was an avid gardener; she taught me so much about plants, and how to think about myself in the world. Joy Takes Root is about my paternal grandmother; Ms. Scott, the librarian in The Light She Feels Inside, is named after my maternal grandmother.

Is there a shared thread running through your fiction and academic work?

There’s a topical thread of wanting to connect with the people I came from, wanting to understand Black history, to highlight histories of Black resistance. There’s also this methodological thread: play. When I was a child, I loved to play and make things and try every art form under the sun. As I got older, I lost some of that curiosity, some of that willingness to play. Writing for children, then turning back to my adult writing, helps me keep that playful spirit, that spirit of experimenting and pursuing paths that might not make it into the final draft.

Your Ph.D. encompasses history, anthropology, science, technology and society. Have those areas always been of interest?

I’ve always felt uncomfortable placing myself in

“My goal is to speak to a distinctly Black mode of living and way of thinking that draws from my experiences.”

one discipline. When I went to Yale and found the Program in the History of Science and Medicine, something clicked, and I thought, “Oh, this is where I want to be, working at all these diferent scales and time periods, where I get to use lots of diferent methods and lots of diferent parts of my brain.”

Was Exeter influential in shaping your worldview?

Exeter introduced me to so many diferent topics and thinkers that I would not have otherwise discovered at that time. My favorite courses at Exeter were Courtney Marshall’s Toni Morrison and Sydnee Goddard’s Animal Behavior. In Animal Behavior, we were studying mice and mazes, and to have that kind of opportunity before college was amazing. To read and think about a good chunk of Toni Morrison’s work for a semester is something a lot of people don’t get ever in their lives, certainly not until college. Having the chance to think deeply, to walk into every class thinking, “I might not have understood everything that happened in the reading or the homework last night, but I do have something valuable to say about it” — that definitely shaped how I see the world and how I move in it.

Tell me about the new book you are working on that’s due out this year.

Dancing with Water is about the tradition of water divining, that there are people who can sense water underground and dig wells for their community. I set it in the Black South to open a conversation with children about things like environmental racism, water protection and water rights. The main character, Kit, is nonbinary, and learning this tradition from their grandfather. It’s also a story about gender fluidity and what it means to feel safe in your body, learning something that is being passed down to you, something that is yours.

And you have another title, about pioneering Black science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, coming out in 2026.

Yes. Imagine New Suns will be the first picture-book biography of Octavia Butler, which I am honored to have had the opportunity to write — and sad that it took this long for her to have a picture-book biography. I didn’t learn about Butler until I was in college. If I had learned about her earlier, about her use of experimentation and play, she would have been another person that I could have seen myself in.

— Daneet Steffens ’82 is a books-focused journalist. She has contributed to the Bulletin since 2013.

Dancing with Water, Joy Takes Root and The Light She Feels Inside, by Gwendolyn Wallace ’17.

Exonians in Review

The latest publications, recordings and films by Exeter alumni and faculty

Learn, Lead, Serve: A Civic Life

Thomas Ehrlich ’52 Indiana University Press, 2025

Nation Building in Japan, 1945–1952: The Allied Occupation and the US-Japan Alliance

Peter K. Frost ’54 Routledge, 2024

Behind the Law

Bob Matisof ’67

Self-published, 2024

Who Killed Sir William?

A Community-University Research Alliance Seeks Justice for Injured Workers

Steve Mantis ’68, with Marion Endicott FriesenPress, 2024

The Larger Reality: The Realm of Higher Consciousness

Tony Seton ’68 Self-published, 2024

100 Years of Princeton Fencing

Rob Dinerman ’72 2024

“Blood and the Liquid ‘I’: Carl Jung’s Black Books,” paper

Constance Hamilton Jameson ’74

The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism, ARAS Connections, 2022, Issue 2

“Directors & Ofcers Liability Perspectives,” article

Alan W. Borst Jr. ’75 Arias U.S. Quarterly, Q4, 2024

“The Ambivalence of Laughter: Carnival and Politics in Dostoevsky’s Devils,” article

Peter B. Josephson ’80, with Erik Cleven Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, 2024, Issue 3

To Reach the Source: The Stepwells of India

Claudio Cambon ’85 ORO Editions, 2025

Soy Sauce!

Laura G. Lee ’95 Hatchette Book Group, 2025

Christmas in the Spotlight, movie

Eirene Donohue ’96, writer Premiered on Lifetime in November 2024.

FACULTY

I Like Birds, Too Alexa D. Caldwell, Instructor in History Palmetto Publishing, 2024

Impossible Man, album Todd Hearon, Instructor in English 2024

“Temporality in Maria Adelmann’s How to Be Eaten (2022),” paper Nova Seals, Instructor in English Presented at the Northeast Popular Culture Association’s annual conference in October 2024.

“ŠTO TE NEMA: The Evolution and Transformation of a Participatory Monument to the Srebrenica Genocide,” paper Tom Simpson, Religion, Ethics and Philosophy Department chair, with artist Aida Šehović Presented at the annual BiH Diasporic Conference in June 2024.

Look, Arabic-English play Sahar Ullah, Instructor in English Premiered at the Theatre Zendela in Tunisia in 2024.

Submit your work Alumni are encouraged to advise the Bulletin editor (bulletin@exeter.edu) of their own publications, recordings, films, etc., in any field, and those of their classmates, for inclusion in future Exonians in Review columns. Please send a review copy of your published work to the editor to be considered for an extended profile in future issues. Works can be sent to: Phillips Exeter Academy, The Exeter Bulletin, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833.

“Amid the perpetual scurries from class to class, mountains of textbooks and endless hours spent hunched over screens, I find moments of solace in the rituals that break up the relentless grind. One of my favorites? Stopping by Grill with my friend Mya Scott, where we blow our entire points stash on TruFru (hers raspberry, mine strawberry) after finishing our respective classes for the day …

This portrait of Mya captures the seemingly trivial elements of our everyday lives that fuel us, lift up spirits and add a spark to our days.

Through the bright primary color palette, natural light and a vivid outdoor setting, I aim to convey the warmth of my friendship with Mya and the way these small acts of unity — with raspberry TruFru acting as a vessel — help sustain us through the whirlwind of our lives.”

Sofia Wang ’25 wrote this artist statement about her painting “Tru Fru,” made in Art408: Advanced Projects: Painting Portraits during her senior fall.

To see students in Art 500 and Art 690 at work, scan this QR code.

AROUND THE TABLE / MEDITATION

Song of Thyself

Lauren Josef, chair of the Theater and Dance Department, on growing up, The Wizard of Oz and motherhood

Each fall, faculty members take to the podium in Phillips Church, in front of peers, students and friends, to deliver meditations. There is no template or paradigm for a meditation. Most are personal and evolve from thinking about life and one’s place in it.

One of the earliest published collections of meditations states: “The meditations may well signify the best of what Phillips Exeter Academy seeks to nurture within its community: clear cogent expression, observation and contemplation, respect for others, and a sense of the complex interrelatedness of humankind.”

Here is an excerpt of the meditation Lauren Josef shared with the community this fall.

I always looked forward to a tradition my dad started where he’d sing to me on my birthday eve. When I was turning 5, he sang, “Daddy’s little girl is growing up in the world, and you’ll never be 5 again.” Five was the time for a Barney-themed birthday party, forcing my next tooth to be loose during class, the Girl Scout Law, and heating up steak and potatoes for breakfast. Five was the time for playing house in my friend Kristina’s basement and always playing the role of mom. Sometimes I would cave and dive headfirst into embodying the sister, but I was usually the mom. Coming home from work,

rocking the baby, making spaghetti and playing a really great mom. Five was when I started to understand death, and I had a hard time falling asleep because I was thinking about the idea of my parents dying — falling deep into a void, disappearing forever. I’d get out of bed, walk downstairs, my parents were usually watching TV. “I’m scared,” I’d say. Mom would always walk me back up.

“Daddy’s little girl is growing up in the world, and you’ll never be 12 again.” Twelve was the age my skirts were too short and I started wearing makeup. Twelve was when I wanted an older sister more than anything, so she could tell my mom I wanted a bra, so I didn’t have to. Our sixth grade talent show was fast approaching, and “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers was it. Amanda Pollack and I had rehearsed for weeks on her bedroom floor. If I was nervous, I don’t remember. I recall feeling brave and proud, lights bright on my face, and Eric Irwin, the class bully, telling me I had a nice voice afterwards.

“Daddy’s little girl is growing up in the world, and you’ll never be 16 again.” Sixteen was all about driving. I went straight to the DMV the day I turned 16. Buying my own CDs and learning every word, belting with the windows down. Sixteen was All-State Show Choir and driving to school with my friend

Kyle. Cracking up in the car for an hour together every morning, just to get the good parking spot. It was making up characters and voices with my theater friends and going to parties for the first time. Making my own money on roller skates as a carhop at Sonic. Sixteen was when I got into an argument with my parents about grades — I only had so much time in the day, and I was totally fine getting Bs if it meant I had time to memorize lines.

Over the holidays we always went to my grandparents’ house, and that year my family wanted me to sing for them. I was nervous. I quickly realized how vastly diferent it felt to be singing on stage under blindingly bright lights to being in your dimly lit grandparents’ house (or a church), with the people you love the most staring at you with bated breath and eyes of encouragement. I’d been putting on shows and directing my cousins in my own made-up plays for years! I forced Monica to wear the pink leotard because the black one looked better on me as we sashayed across the living room floor. I improvised a plot, came up with the blocking. At the end I’d be beaming, arm in arm with Monica, Wyatt and Dillon as our parents clapped and full-blown hand-whistled at us. This moment in my grandparents’ living room felt very diferent. I was so nervous, I almost didn’t do it. Mom said, “You can do this, Lar.”

The song was an aria called “Tu Lo Sai,” a classic. A piece from one of those anthologies that everyone sings their first Italian aria from. After some bargaining and pleading with my family, we finally reached a compromise. I would sing, but only if I faced the wall. And that’s exactly what I did. I sang the entire aria to the wall. When I turned around, my Aunt Leslie, my Grandma Audrey, and my mom were all sobbing. Leslie’s never held back; she’s always been one to really blow her nose and let out little pufs of sing-songy sounds while she’s lamenting. Mom was teary-eyed, face damp, and Grandma was tastefully dabbing at her eyes with her crumpled tissue. I took it all in, rebooted, and had the guts to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” looking right at my mom.

I’ve been watching The Wizard of Oz since I can remember. Our first house in Roanoke, I would run all the way to the back of the house when the Wicked Witch came on. My mom was folding laundry and assured me she’d fast-forward through that part. The movie, the story, has followed me. My mom actually saved her original L. Frank Baum books from when she was little. She somehow knew she wanted to give them to her future children, and I loved them just as much as she did! I sang “Over the Rainbow” at my senior recital, I sang it for an impromptu jam in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and a few years later I tried to sing it to Mom when she was in hospice.

“Daddy’s little girl is growing up in the world, and she’ll never be 31 again.” Oof, 31 was a time of becoming an adult, supposedly. Of watching my family hurt more than I could ever imagine, of keeping busy and settling into my new full-time job here at PEA. It was a time of calling Dad every day, unable to read between the lines. Thirty-one is when I directed “The Wizard of Oz” here at Phillips Exeter, and it opened not even a year after Mom died. I poured every

“I feel her in me, as a mom. ... I dive into the uncomfortable because she taught me that I’m strong and I’ll be OK.”

ounce of myself into that show, serving as director and costume designer — everyone had at least four costumes. A technicolor story of whimsical dreams, of following your heart and a reminder that even when all the clouds darken up the skyway, there’s a rainbow highway to be found. I told the cast on Day 1 that my mom had died in April and how meaningful that story was to me. I couldn’t hold it in, I had to say it, my mom taught me to put it all out there. To say what you feel in your heart. Just a couple weeks after the show closed, we were on spring break, and I found out that I was pregnant with Lily.

“Daddy’s little girl is growing up in the world, and she’ll never be 37 again.” Mom was silly and fun — there were times I almost peed my pants from laughing so hard with her. She fought fiercely for what she believed in and commanded a room in her little 5-foot-1½-inch frame. (The half really counts; she taught me that.) She loved so deeply, and cried tears of joy all the time. “It’s not because I’m sad,” she’d say. “I’m just so happy!” She felt every feeling and never apologized for it. She talked it through, because there was no way she was stufng anything down. Mom was up on that dance floor, owning it. She was preaching YOLO before it was even a thing. You only live once.

I feel her in me, as a mom. I am inspired to be brave, like she always was. I dive into the uncomfortable because she taught me that I’m strong and I’ll be OK. I can sing in front of people as they’re looking at me, I can dance whenever I want. I am her as a mom. I do get it. I am me, and I am my mom. Just as Lily is Lily, but she is also me.

Lauren Josef joined the Academy in 2018. She is the chair of the Department of Theater and Dance, Costume Designer and Director of Costumes.

from

A scene

Exeter’s 2019 performance of The Wizard of Oz.

“Exeter beats Andover 20–20”

Who can recall the circumstances and inspiration behind this brilliant headline in The Exonian, published 30 years ago?

November 1994 edition of The Exonian student newspaper

@paulsuwan given it’s your headline and you were in the game I think you’re well positioned to answer this one …

Eli Porter ’95

@eliporter Haha, yeah. I can answer it. I reread my story in the archives and @rthowell3 aka Big Daddy had a big role! … My memories of that game

Do You Remember?

basically are that we felt like we had won, even if the scoreboard didn’t exactly reflect it in the end. I’m not sure if the headline was my handiwork, to be honest. I wish I could remember who actually came up with the idea. Obviously, someone had knowledge of The Harvard Crimson headline from the 29–29 game in 1968 and it just seemed to fit the story of our 20–20 game perfectly.

Paul Suwan ’95, starting ofensive lineman and editor-inchief of The Exonian

I do!

Rob “Big Daddy” Howell ’96

Saw that game. What a comeback.

Troy Miksen ’81

Wow that was 30 years ago?

Ugh

Tom Cochran ’96

— Responses originally shared via email or on social media

From the Editor

Down 20–12 and standing on their own 15-yard line with 90 seconds to go, Big Red looked beaten. Exeter had trailed all day in the

1994 installment of its annual football feud with Andover. Big Red needed to go 85 yards in a minuteand-a-half to not only score a touchdown but also convert a 2-point try just to salvage a tie.

When Darin Byrne ’95 plunged into the endzone to score that touchdown, and Tony Volpone ’95 caught a pass from Todd Nichols ’95 to convert that 2-point try — and Exeter snatched a victory from Andover — the tie tasted sweeter than most.

The Exonian headline was an homage to a headline published by The Harvard Crimson in 1968. After Harvard scored 16 points in the game’s final 42 seconds to tie the score, the paper proclaimed HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29–29.

Andover’s editors had a diferent perspective about the tie with Exeter. The Phillipian published this headline: “Blue Kisses its Sister.” ●

Where was this picture taken? And do you have a memory to share about it? Email your reminiscences to bulletin@exeter.edu. Responses will be published in the next issue of the Bulletin

The Academy

Fall Dance Concert Original student choreography featured at The Goel Center. p 26

Grace Yang ’27 bends beautifully during the Natural Landscapes performance.

Service and Sacrifice

Exeter Salutes program honors Exonians and their military service

More than 700 current Exeter alumni, faculty and staf have served or are serving in the armed forces. Scores more have died in combat or in active service to their country. Each November, the Academy gathers to hear from veterans and active service members to learn how the spirit of non sibi ingrained at Exeter molded their sense of responsibility and self-sacrifice.

This year’s two-day Exeter Salutes celebration opened with a virtual panel of alumni in the early stages of their military careers or attending a military academy. With their Exeter experience still fresh in their minds, featured speakers Layne Erickson ’18, Cooper Walshe ’21 and Ursula Wise ’21 described how the Academy prepared them for life in the military. “A lot of my peers in my plebe year were really overwhelmed by the amount of work,” Erickson said, adding that academically Exeter “set me up to be very, very successful.”

At Assembly the next day, Caleb Hofman-Johnson ’09 delivered a captivating address focused on the core Exeter value of non sibi. His talk began with a confession to the student audience. “When I was your age … I was non sibi agnostic,” said Hofman-Johnson, who attended Exeter for a postgrad year. “I

had no real concept of non sibi and the culture of this community. What non sibi meant to me when I was here and what it means to me now are two very diferent things.”

Inspired by his grandfathers’ service and yearning for a challenge, HofmanJohnson joined the Marine Corps after attending Williams College. He said he grew to understand the importance of non sibi in his military career. “As an ofcer you are measured by the capabilities of your subordinates; that is non sibi.”

The Exeter Salutes programming continued with back-to-back panels in the Forum. History Instructor Emeritus Jack Herney moderated the “Lessons Learned” panel featuring Bob DeVore ’58, Steve Parker ’63, Rich Rowe ’69 and David Heist ’92.

Heist drew parallels from his time in the service and his years at Exeter. “I really enjoyed the camaraderie that you can get in the dorms … that can be replicated in the military, those late nights of staying up studying or working,” he said. Then Assistant Principal Karen Lassey led a discussion with alums Ken Swanberg ’59, Nat Butler ’64, Wick Sloane ’71, Jef Eggers ’89, Lindsey Wetzel ’92 and Miller Pearsall ’96 about their unique paths to military service.

To conclude the event, all the guests joined students for dinner. ●

Reflection from the past “It is because there lies pent up in our breasts that flaming fire which, from the earliest years of Exeter’s existence, has been handed down from generation to generation of classes, what we know as the ‘Exeter spirit’ and love for the old school. It is as fierce burning and contagious as love for our country, and I dare say that most of the 3,000 and more Exonians who gave their services, and many their lives, to this country of ours in the recent war, did so with the thought that in serving our country’s flag of red, white and blue they were also serving that other glorious banner of Crimson and Gray.”

—F.L.S. Harmon, class of 1904, as recounted at the dinner of the alumni of Southern California in anticipation of the Exeter vs. Andover football game and printed in the April 1924 edition of the Bulletin of the Phillips Exeter Academy.

Add your military status to Exeter’s official record at exeter.edu/alumni/ exeter-salutes.

Caleb Hoffman-Johnson ’09 delivered a captivating address focused on non sibi

Justice for All

Jim Coleman ’66 receives the 2024 John and Elizabeth Phillips Award

As an attorney, Jim Coleman ’66; P’16 took on high-profile pro bono death penalty cases with the conviction that every defendant has a constitutional right to fair and equal treatment according to the rule of law. Later, as a longtime professor at Duke Law School, he co-founded the Duke Law Wrongful Convictions Clinic in 2008 to investigate plausible claims of innocence by people incarcerated for felonies in North Carolina. The clinic has since secured exonerations for 11 clients, many of whom served several decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.

In October, Coleman returned to campus to accept this year’s John and Elizabeth Phillips Award, which recognizes an Exonian who has contributed significantly to the welfare of community, country or humanity. “You have led nationally recognized eforts on behalf of death penalty reform and the wrongfully convicted and have mentored and inspired a new generation of lawyers with what one longtime friend calls your distinctive blend of ‘passion and principle,’” Sam Brown ’92, trustee and president of Exeter’s General Alumni Association, said while delivering the award citation in Assembly Hall.

In his acceptance remarks, Coleman mentioned the award’s first recipient, Burke Marshall ’40, who was assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil rights division during President John F. Kennedy's administration. “For me to be associated with Burke Marshall through Exeter and this award has special meaning,” Coleman said.

He also spoke about growing up in a three-room house with his parents and six siblings in Charlotte, North Carolina, and attending racially segregated schools. “Our schools were intentionally denied the resources that white public schools received,” he said. “But the Black teachers at our inferior schools did not saddle us with the heavy burden of being told that the students were inferior.”

Instead, Coleman said, his teachers instilled the confidence that, with hard work, he could achieve whatever he set out to do. When he was in 11th grade,

About the Award

The John and Elizabeth Phillips Award was inaugurated in 1965 at the behest of the Academy Trustees and the Executive Committee of the General Alumni Associations. The award honors Exonians whose lives and contributions to the welfare of community, country and humanity exemplify the nobility of character and usefulness to society that John and Elizabeth Phillips sought to promote in establishing the Academy.

his guidance counselor connected him with a white friend of hers who wanted to pay for a student from his school to attend a five-week summer program at Exeter.

“In June 1964, I packed my cheap metal footlocker that I purchased with money I earned as a caddie and boarded a Greyhound bus for an 830-mile trip north,” Coleman recalled. He ended up not only staying for that summer, but also returning for a postgraduate year in 1965 after his graduation from high school in Charlotte. “That year … was the best and most important academic experience of my life,” he said.

Though relatively few Black students attended Exeter at the time, Coleman said he wasn’t made to feel like an outsider by his teachers or classmates. “That allowed me to do my best, unencumbered by the kind of self-doubts engendered by the ongoing public debates that take place today about whether students of color should be at places like Exeter,” Coleman said. “The only question is not whether they belong at places like Exeter, but what places like Exeter can do to ensure their success as students.”

Coleman credited his experience at Exeter with teaching him to be a stronger, more confident and engaged student, and showing him the possibility of opportunities he had never been able to imagine before he came to the Academy. He went on to attend Harvard University and Columbia Law School, then practiced law in New York and Washington, D.C., becoming the first Black partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in 1982. He has taught full time at Duke Law since 1996.

“My presence at Exeter changed both me and Exeter,” Coleman said near the end of his remarks. “My life story became part of Exeter’s story and my subsequent accomplishments became part of Exeter’s legacy.” ●

To watch the award assembly, visit exeter.edu/live

“My presence at Exeter changed both me and Exeter,” Jim Coleman ’66 says, accepting the John and Elizabeth Phillips award.

Brick by Brick

Students channel architect Louis Kahn in Lego rendition of the Class of 1945 Library

Armed with architect Louis Kahn’s original blueprints and the digital building application

Studio, Nathan Frankel ’25 designed an 86,000-piece model of the Class of 1945 Library on his computer — then saw it through to construction.

More than a year later, the ambitious Lego Library was unveiled this fall at Family Weekend. It featured the building’s signature grand entry stairway, giant ovals in Rockefeller Hall, working lights and, of course, books and minifigure students with backpacks and water bottles. “I chose the library because it serves as a community place for Exeter where people can learn as well as socialize with one another,” says Frankel, co-head of the Academy Band of Lego Builders.

More than 60 faculty, staf and students

helped piece the Lego library together. “During the construction phase, I made stations with pictures and instructions for building simple replicable parts of the library model, such as bookshelves or chairs,” Frankel says. “I made these stations so that anyone stopping by could easily contribute by following the diagrams and building Lego furniture.”

For Frankel, the project was a natural next step. “I have been building with Legos since I was 3,” he says. “Over the years, I have spent many hours playing with Legos with my twin brother. I began designing Lego creations during my prep year, when I created a Lego Spider-Man mosaic for my dorm room wall with my dormmates.”

The project was supported by the Friends of the Academy Library, an alumni network that provides funding for various projects in the library. ●

Lego Library by the Numbers 86,000 Lego pieces

100 minifigures of students and staff

15,000 1x1 Lego plates representing books

260 hours of work on the project

120 hours of physical construction

60+ faculty, students and staff built the model

6 countries from which Lego pieces were ordered $6,500 budget

Nathan Frankel ’25 (third from left) and members of the the Academy Band of Lego Builders in front of the Lego rendition of the library.

NEUROCIRCUITRY

Brain Training

New Exeter Innovation course teaches mental skills critical for peak performance

Did you ever hear a coach say, “Get your head in the game”? The idea was that by simply focusing your brain, you would play better.

Students in this fall’s new Exeter Innovation course EXI540:Performance and the Brain studied links just like that, connections between the brain’s cognitive functions and an individual’s ability to perform well in various tasks, whether physical, mental or cognitive. Conceived and taught by Instructor in Physical Education Don Mills, the course paired readings at the Harkness table with meaningful activities to focus on realtime application of skills and strategies used to build strong systems of success for everyday life at Exeter and beyond.

“Initially students assumed this would be a sports psychology class,” Mills says, “but it really went down a path that

impacted their daily personal development. It was interesting to hear how students wanted to work on themselves, put a plan into efect, and learn the science behind training your brain to make the plan work.”

Charles Dobbins ’25 says: “The class was a really eye-opening way to learn about yourself. It was so interesting to learn about how the chemistry in your brain influences the decisions that we make and how it afects long-term health, happiness and demeanor.”

One assignment tasked students with

“The class was a really eye-opening way to learn about yourself.”

developing a personal performance-enhancement plan. They identified the formation of a habit — how it is constructed, maintained and broken — and experimented and implemented practical techniques to design personal systems of growth. In an era when distractions like smartphones and social media are consistently competing for more attention, this led several students to pursue a path to decreased screen time, less procrastination and more production.

“I was using strategies we read about and discussed in class in an attempt to not be on my phone as much,” Dobbins says. “I was trying to make the habit of grabbing my phone be unattractive and used some apps that take away the instant gratification of social media. I was able to decrease my weekly average screen time by two hours.”

For Kai Dunham ’25, “This class allowed me to take care of myself while learning how to be successful. … It was easy to participate around the table because the content applies to everyone — everyone has good habits, bad habits, and things they can better understand about themselves.”

Mills concluded: “This class featured students that hold various passions and I hope they were all able to leave this class with tools to build success.” ●

Instructor in Physical Education Don Mills

Music

Sounds of the Orchestra Concert filled the ForrestalBowld Music Center in November.

Theater

Andrew Gould ’26, Evan Dierberg ’25 and Simon Taylor ’27 light up the stage in this fall’s production of The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson.

The charming play follows William Shakespeare’s friends as they attempt to gather the scenes of his plays together to create the Bard’s First Folio.

“Lauren Gunderson has a way of making historical figures feel incredibly relatable and somehow current, despite them having lived 400 years ago,” director Liz Calandra wrote in the playbill. “The characters in this show strugle through losses but learn to lean on those who are still with them, an important lesson that sometimes we forget during troubling times.”

Dance

Liv Van Ledtje ’25 (above) takes a leap in the fall dance concert Natural Landscapes, which featured original choreography by students, faculty members and guest artist Curtis Thomas ’09.

For his piece, “it only happens once,” Thomas says he explored “how space transforms through the presence of those who inhabit it. … As the dancers sweep through the space, they bring to life countless worlds, connections and moments that are gone as quickly as they have arrived.”

Chilling Out

The art and science of perfect hockey ice

Just as outdoor temperatures start to dip, a familiar chill begins to emanate from the south end of the George H. Love Gymnasium. For decades, Rinks A and B have been the home to Exeter’s boys and girls hockey teams and the setting for recreational skating for the Academy community. Construction of the first indoor rinks on campus began in the late 1960s as part of the massive “new gymnasium” project which was ofcially rededicated as Love Gymnasium in 1980. Since then, the rinks have played host to thousands of competitions, dorm night outings and, when not frozen, alumni receptions.

1. FILLING THE RINK It takes tens of thousands of gallons of water at the start of every season to turn the concrete subfloor into a skateable surface.

2. KEEPING IT COOL The rinks’ refrigeration system keeps the ice temperature from 17 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit. The indoor air temperature is set to 55 degrees with an ideal humidity level no greater than 50%.

3. SMOOTH SURFACE Zamboni is a brand of ice resurfacing machines made by a California-based company, but it has become the common term for any apparatus that performs this function. They shave a thin layer of ice, wash the remaining ice with hot water (about 140 degrees Fahrenheit), then spread the water to create a smooth surface as it refreezes. Ice resurfacers can weigh more than six tons with a full tank. According to Zamboni.com, the machines’ top speed is 9.7 m.p.h.

4. ICE TIME Academy teams, clubs and physical education classes, as well as local public high school teams keep the facility bustling all winter long. On average, the rinks are in use 70 hours each week. Five dedicated employees keep them in top condition.

5. WINNING HISTORY The first E/A hockey game took place in 1914. The seeds of what became the first Academy-sponsored hockey team were planted a few years earlier, but we all know that sports don’t get real until Big Red and Big Blue clash. Girls hockey at Exeter began for the 1974–75 season. In 1998–99, the boys team posted a 30–3 record en route to its only New England crown. The next season, the girls team took home their own New England championship. ●

Skating by the numbers

Gallons of water used to resurface the ice

9.7MPH

Top speed of a Zamboni

2 Inches of ice surface

70+

Hours a week the rinks are in use during the season

1914

Date of the first Exeter-Andover hockey game

Alumni Awarded Rhodes Scholarships

Ayush Noori ’20 and Alyssa Xu ’21 have earned 2025 Rhodes scholarships to study at the University of Oxford in October. The Exonians were chosen from a pool of 3,000 applicants for the prestigious honor.

projects and a free summer research program for high school students with backgrounds underrepresented in science.

have accomplished also says a lot about the teaching and learning environment at Exeter. You all play a part.”

In an email to the community, Principal Bill Rawson ’71 wrote: “I am pleased to share the exciting news that two recent graduates have been named Rhodes scholars. … I am sure all who taught, advised, coached, counseled, mentored or supported Ayush or Alyssa in any way will be particularly thrilled to hear this news. … While these are outstanding individual achievements, what Ayush and Alyssa

Noori is a senior at Harvard University and hopes to complete two Master of Science degrees, in clinical neurosciences and in physiology, anatomy and genetics at Oxford. His research involves AI-enabled technologies that facilitate novel diagnostics and therapeutics for bipolar disorder, Parkinson’s disease and neuropathic conditions. Ayush is also a co-founder and co-president of the Harvard Undergraduate OpenBio Laboratory, which supports undergraduate biology research

Xu is a senior at Amherst College. At Oxford, she hopes to explore interdisciplinary approaches to medicine and integrate creative, accessible innovations into health care practices. Her honors thesis involves sensory processing in zebrafish. She has conducted neuroscience research at Yale School of Medicine and has worked as a clinical research associate at a Level I trauma center. She is also a varsity ice hockey player and youth coach, president of the Amherst chapter of Amnesty International and an EMT for Amherst College Emergency Medical Services.●

“While these are outstanding individual achievements ... [it] says a lot about the teaching and learning environment at Exeter.”

FACULTY

Instructors Honored with Prestigious Fellowships

English Instructor

Willie Perdomo was named a Letras Boricuas 2024 Fellow. The fellowship celebrates 100 writers from diverse backgrounds and identities who embody the vastness, diversity and complexity of Puerto Rican experiences. Perdomo is the co-editor of the anthology Latínext and his work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, The Washington Post and African Voices.

“Above all, I believe that writers share the responsibility of documenting collective memory,”

Perdomo says. “As a consequence, their craft is a never-ending process, mostly carried out in silence and solitude. Letras Boricuas has proven to provide writers with companionship and a flicker of light on this artistic — and therefore arduous — journey. Being a recipient of this fellowship means having an opportunity to connect with readers and readings that, otherwise, may not have been drawn to the page.”

History Instructor Kent McConnell was recognized with a fellowship with the United States Institute of Peace. One of just 26 teachers selected for this year’s Peace Teachers Program, McConnell will meet with other fellows to discuss themes around teaching peace and diplomacy, and eforts

by government agencies, the U.N. and NGOs. In addition, he will meet diplomats, lawyers and other practitioners of peace around the globe to discuss societal challenges within their geographic region.

“You now have the amazing opportunity to learn from other professionals about how to solve international conflict using peacemaking solutions,” U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas wrote in a congratulatory note to McConnell. “What is even more special is that you will be able to transfer over what you learn to your students.” ●

The Oval Ofce

Scholar shares history of women’s pursuit of the presidency

Throughout the history of the United States, the majority of candidates running for president have shared a few common traits. Regardless of party a f liation, white men of means have traditionally appeared at the top of the ticket. But as Ellen Fitzpatrick told students gathered at assembly this fall, there are examples of women who challenged barriers and vied for the highest ofce in the land that date back further than you might imagine.

“I’m going to begin today with the takeaway message,” said Fitzpatrick, who holds a Ph.D. in history from Brandeis University and is a veteran professor of Harvard University, M.I.T. and Wellesley College, and an emerita at the University of New Hampshire. “Historical change takes a very long time. Often to achieve especially transformative and profound change, it doesn’t come easily.”

Fitzpatrick spoke briefly about Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2016 bid for president and acknowledged former Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, but used most of her time on the Assembly Hall stage to talk about some lesser-known political pioneers. She pointed out that over 200 women have run for president including the first, Victoria Woodhull, in 1872, nearly a half century before women had the right to vote.

“She was among the most radical presidential candidates of any sex,” Fitzpatrick said. “She set up her own political party and her own newspaper to promote her candidacy. … At 34, she was ineligible under the constitution to even hold the ofce that she sought.”

Fitzpatrick chronicles Woodhull as well as Margaret Chase Smith (who in 1964 became the

“Historical change takes a very long time. Often to achieve especially transformative and profound change, it doesn't come easily.”

Professor and historian Ellen Fitzpatrick

first woman to be placed in nomination for the presidency at a major party’s convention), and Shirley Chisholm (who became the first Black candidate for a major-party nomination in 1972) in her book The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for the American Presidency, a 2016 “Editor’s Choice” by The New York Times.

After assembly, students joined Fitzpatrick for a lunch-and-learn session in the Elting Room where discussion topics ranged from the election in the United States to recent elections in Mexico and Europe that have seen women assume ruling positions. ●

The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for the American Presidency, by Ellen Fitzpatrick.

Fall Highlights

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BOYS CROSS COUNTRY

New England Champions

Head Coach: Brandon Newbould

Assistant Coaches: Diana Davis ’03, Hilary Hall, Emily Quirk, Nick Unger

Captains: Pearce Covert ’25, Dhruv Reddy ’25

MVP: Owen Welch ’26

↑

GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY

3rd Place in New England

Head Coach: Brandon Newbould

Assistant Coaches: Diana Davis ’03, Hilary Hall, Emily Quirk, Nick Unger

Captains: Melani Dowling ’25, Leta Griffith ’25

MVP: Leta Griffith ’25

← FIELD HOCKEY

Record: 6-7-2

Head Coach: Samantha Fahey

Assistant Coaches: Mercy Carbonell, Sarah Nelson

Captains: Hannah Hoyt ’25, Natalia Ulbin ’25

MVP: Lindsay Rogers ’25

↓ FOOTBALL

Drew Gamere Bowl Champions Record: 8-1

Head Coach: Panos Voulgaris

Assistant Coaches: Patrick Bond, Tom Evans, Bill Glennon, Ryan Griffin, Dave Hudson, Max Lane, Stephan Lewis, Matt Miller

Captains: Thomas Hoey ’25, Ewan Newton ’25, Isaiah Reese ’25, Rand Shepard ’25

MVP: Isaiah Reese ’25

↑

GIRLS SOCCER Record: 3-12-4

Head Coach: Diego Ardura

Assistant Coaches: Alia Haskins, Jackie Langevin

Captains: Celia Dowling ’25, Aubrey Silvestri ’25

MVP: Ella Shea ’26

←

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL

2nd in New England Record: 15-1

Head Coach: Bruce Shang

Assistant Coaches: Sue Rowe, Sophia Scola

Captains: Olivia Lang ’26, Clare McCann ’25, Ellie Ocampo ’25

MVP: Ellie Ocampo ’25

↑ BOYS SOCCER Record: 9-6-3

Head Coaches: A.J. Cosgrove, Nolan Lincoln

Captains: Jaylen Bennett ’25, Sebastian Hiller ’25

MVP: Sophian Lovato ’25

↑ BOYS WATER POLO

2nd in New England Record: 16-3

Head Coach: Don Mills

Assistant Coach: Meg Blitzshaw

Captain: Winston Wang ’25

MVP: James Faulhaber ’26

The Future Is Now

Classmates and Trustees Dr. Sanjay Shetty ’92 and Sam Brown ’92 discuss the fall Trustees meeting, being an Exonian and whether a hot dog is technically a sandwich

DR. SANJAY SHETTY ’92; P’23, P’27 is in his fifth year as an Exeter trustee. He is president of CenterWell, Humana’s health care delivery and services segment, overseeing its national primary care, home health, pharmacy and military business.

Sanjay Shetty: What inspired you to serve in the leadership of the General Alumni Association (GAA) and now as a trustee?

Sam Brown: I think it was eight years ago that I was discussing with somebody in IA, which is, I learned, not Internal Afairs, but Institutional Advancement, and was expressing my desire to be more involved in the Academy. They pointed to the General Alumni Association. I went through the process and joined the GAA board. I have since learned that the entire alumni body, all of the almost 20,000 alumni of Exeter, are automatically part of the GAA. Then there are about 20-plus board members who serve as facilitators of information from the alumni body to the Academy, and from the Academy to the alumni body. I became a very active and enthusiastic member of the GAA board leading up to being elected as the president over the summer. The way that the governance is structured, that role automatically becomes a trustee ex ofcio. But really, all of it stems from the fact that I had an incredible time at Exeter. Exeter shaped

SAM BROWN ’92 is president of the General Alumni Association and is serving his first term as an Exeter trustee. He oversees film and TV production and development as president of STX Entertainment.

me into the person I am today. And ever since I left Exeter I’ve been looking for ways to repay Exeter.

What drew you to get involved as a trustee?

Shetty: Similar story. When I look back at Exeter, it really changed my life. I think about what I was like before, and what I was like during and after. It really changed how I thought about myself. I think it was at our 10-year class reunion, where I got pulled into being a class correspondent. I was a class correspondent for 10 years with Shane Kramer ’92, and then class vice president and then class president. That led to me being approached to serve as a trustee. The commitment is a lot larger as a trustee, but it’s been amazing. I feel like it pays itself back.

You recently attended your first Trustee meeting. From your perspective, as the new guy, tell us about the meeting. What did you do?

Brown: The meeting was in October.

The weather was spectacular — perfect fall days — and the campus was vibrant. As a new trustee, there was an extra day of meetings, so I had a full day of meetings on Wednesday — starting at 8, not 8:05, but 8 o’clock Wednesday morning and going all the way through to post dinner Wednesday night. And that’s repeated Thursday and Friday. It is a lot.

The other thing I’ll point out is, and I was warned going in, there is a lot of reading. It’s not surprising that there is a lot that goes into preparing for these meetings, so you can come ready to engage.

It was exactly like being a student at Exeter. You’re on campus, and you’re around a supersize Harkness table because it has to accommodate 20 to 25 people. It’s like the Hulk of Harkness tables. It’s like 10 pieces of table that are pieced together to make one giant Harkness table. It’s a feat of woodcrafting.

I had a bunch of reading that I left to the last minute. I had to race to make sure I was there on time because it was really not OK for the new guy

“The reality is that the world is changing around us. How can we continue to support our core mission?”

to be late and hold everything up. You were in these meetings through an entire day, past dinner. Yet coming out of it, I wasn’t exhausted. I was invigorated. All of it is completely engaging and the people are incredible. Ultimately, my headline impression was just how much it brought me back to being an Exonian student.

Shetty: I’m glad you mentioned the big Harkness table. That was truly surprising to me when we got there because it actually puts everyone in that frame of mind of when we were students, like you are there to participate. You are there to listen. The expectation of each of the trustees is that you are engaging in the conversation and have input in whatever we’re talking about, and you will get called out if you are too quiet.

One of the things I’m sure people are wondering about is: What were the big topics on the agenda for the discussion? What seem to be the most pressing decisions for the trustees in the coming year? In the coming five years?

Brown: I’ll speak about the things that stuck with me as topics of investigation. And I would point out that the Trustees are not having these conversations in a vacuum. There are discussions that are just Trusteeonly discussions, but those are, from what I just experienced, much more the exception than the rule. Principal

Rawson is in most of these conversations as are representatives of the key departments within the Exeter community, and many of the discussions are based on presentations of these various department heads and representatives of the various aspects of the community.

One area of ongoing consideration is balance. How does the school continue to challenge some of the most high-achieving students on the planet in a way that acknowledges and balances the stresses and rigors of those challenges? It is not a topic that is unique to Exeter. But that is an area of ongoing debate.

There were some interesting conversations around how to honor students’ desire to become extremely pointed in certain areas. How is Exeter allowing for those students to pursue specialized interests, while at the same time acknowledging that part of what distinguishes Exeter as a school that is preparing kids to be leaders within society and humanity, is the need for balance in life. How does the school acknowledge and allow for both specialization and balance?

Another important ongoing conversation is around attracting and maintaining the best faculty and staf. The Academy, I think appropriately and rightly, aspires to the most diverse faculty and staf. How do we do that when Exeter is not in an incredibly diverse part of the world? How does the school do a better job of marketing itself to those potential job applicants?

And how are we honoring the students’ and, to a certain degree, their families’ expectations that Exeter is setting them up to succeed? How do we define success? And how are we defining success when it comes to college admissions in an environment that is becoming more and more competitive?

Those are certainly not the entirety of the topics discussed, but they are representative of the kinds of topics and issues that were discussed.

Rapid-fire questions for Sam Brown

What’s your most intimidating Exeter moment? Getting to Webster as a lower. I must have mumbled my name when they said, “What’s your name?” And they called me “same” for the first few months.

What are you reading? A stack of scripts on a bunch of movies that I hope to make.

What is the last movie you watched in the theater? Bad Boys for Life and Deadpool & Wolverine.

And other than don’t mumble your first name, do you have any advice for your lower self?

Really try to soak it up as much as possible. It’s easy to get caught up in the outcomes as opposed to the process. But at that stage, learning and absorbing, and really immersing yourself in life is more important than grades or quantifiable achievement.

Is a hot dog a sandwich? Yes. Why is there even a debate? It’s like a gyro or pita. It’s meat sandwiched between two pieces of bread or one piece of bread folded onto itself.

Shetty: I think a lot of people also don’t realize that the Trustees are the fiduciaries for the school. We’re charged with overseeing the school over the long haul, inheriting the responsibilities of the Deed of Gift from back in 1781. A lot of those questions you just talked about are very much strategic. My daughter has asked me, only half joking, “What are the Trustees going to do about lunch

Rapid-fire questions for Sanjay Shetty

What’s your most memorable Exeter moment? When I was on the assembly stage doing the debate assembly, and I closed my speech with something that was wholly inappropriate, but I got a really good laugh. I can’t believe I didn’t get in more trouble for it.

What are you reading? The Economist every single day.

Do you have a favorite holiday tradition? We just started celebrating Christmas as a family. We’re Hindu, so we didn’t celebrate it for religious reasons, but my daughter made a really good case that we should start.

What was the one thing you had to bring to Exeter from home? A little Sony Watchman. I don't think those were allowed back then. I definitely snuck it in because sometimes I need to study with the TV on. I still do that to this day. I work with the TV on.

Is a hot dog a sandwich? Yes, it’s something in bread. It’s a version of a sandwich. It shouldn't even be controversial, but I'm ready to debate it around the table.

in Elm Street?” That’s not what we’re doing. We don’t get involved in the day-to-day operations. We select a principal and the principal is charged with running the school. Our job is to help develop and manage the long-term strategy. And that’s what focuses a lot of our conversation.

Long-term financial sustainability is one area of focus. Some might say that our resources are infinite — what do we have to be worried about given our large endowment? But the reality is that the world is changing around us. How can we continue to support our core mission, ensuring that Exeter is a school that’s available to youth from every quarter? I think the Trustees really take that responsibility very seriously. Our job is to look around the corner, think far ahead. That’s what makes it so interesting for me because I never really thought of Exeter that way. Exeter, for me, was the three years that I was there and then a reunion every so often. But the fact is, it’s this living, breathing institution that continues to evolve. It’s really cool that we get to play even a small part in helping develop that strategy, with a hope that the school will end up a better place because of what we did.

Brown: I can’t say enough how impressive the Academy looked through the prism of the Trustee meeting. Just how intentional trusteeship is. It is not a preference that people attend the meetings in person, it is a requirement. That’s a big commitment for anyone. By having everyone there in person, engaged and focused during those conversations, it leads to a level of thoughtfulness and stewardship that I haven’t seen in other boards that I have

Scan this QR code to listen to an audio version of this conversation.

participated in. I know that that’s a result of the Trustees and the governance that came before me.

Shetty: I’ve had a chance to serve on Governance and Nominations, which is the committee that helps manage that process. The main criteria for people that we’re bringing onto the board is that we’re looking for that diversity of perspectives and expertise. It’s amazing what can happen when you put all these diferent voices around the table. We get to a better answer because of it. And we keep it intentionally small. At about 20 people, it’s a very meaningfully chosen set of alumni at the table that allows for robust conversations. And, like you said, it’s a really big commitment. People find a way, no matter what their day job is, to make it happen. And it all, I think, stems from that love for the Academy.

Brown: Absolutely. It is an engaged and empowered board. It is not performative. It’s not a group of people that are there just because they’re able to make large donations. It is stewardship and leadership. That was what was really exciting for me as a new trustee.

Shetty: This is more of a fun question because you’re in the film industry. If you were to do a movie about the Trustee meeting, whom would you cast as Principal Rawson?

Brown: Easy. Robert Redford. He’s both thoughtful and strong, but also deeply caring, which are elements of Principal Rawson. His leadership has been very impressive to me, both as an alum, as a member of the GAA board, and now, as a trustee.●

Conversation Starters

Roland Merullo ’71 and his daughter Zanny Merullo Stefgen ’16 bridge gender and generations in online newsletter

BY ANDREW FAUGHT

Illustration by Peter James Field | Photography by Amanda S. Merullo

Just weeks

shy of his 71st birthday, author Roland Merullo ’71 sits at his computer keyboard in Conway, Massachusetts, pondering an eighth decade on Earth. “There is more free time,” he types, “and there is the comfort of financial security.”

But there is also angst.

“Many days I wake up now and there’s nothing I really have to do, which can be nice … but feeling like I’m making zero contribution to the world sometimes brings on a nagging uneasiness,” Merullo writes.

Nearly 1,900 miles away in Fort Collins, Colorado, Merullo’s daughter, 26-year-old travel writer Zanny Merullo Stefgen ’16, sits at her computer, reading her dad’s words in real time on a Google Doc that they share.

“What is it like to be your age?” he asks her.

“The best part of being 26 is feeling like I have all the benefits of youth and all of the benefits of adulthood,” Ste f gen types. “I’m in good physical shape and still look young enough to be ID’d at a bar.”

But, she adds, “it feels like a turning point in a lot of ways. I’m looking ahead to ‘next steps,’ like buying a home and having a family, and trying to figure out how to get there while also feeling overwhelmed with the realization that this relatively free phase of my life might be over.”

That conversation, later titled “Two Perspectives: What it’s like being 26 and 70 in 2024,” became the 24th edition of Hi Zan, Hi Pa, a newsletter Merullo and Steffgen have been co-writing

since 2023. Billed as a “father-daughter conversation” that considers life, from the ordinary to the philosophical, the twice-monthly newsletters are posted to Substack, an online platform that lets writers publish directly to subscribers.

Hi Zan, Hi Pa is among hundreds of thousands of Substack publications whose writers have found an audience. For its 450 subscribers, Hi Zan, Hi Pa is a meditation, a treatise on what it is to be human and, most of all, the chronicle of a friendship.

A Newsletter Is Born

The newsletter was Merullo’s idea, so far as either of them can remember. It mostly came about organically, born of discontent of the soulless social media climate. “Mean-spirited, intolerant and superficial,” is the way Merullo describes it.

“We thought that we could put something into the atmosphere that’s more

Conversations between Zanny Merullo Steffgen ’16 and her father, Roland Merullo ’71, (pictured left) start with a question and go from there.

wholesome, thoughtful and provocative, but also respectful,” he says. “I remember a long conversation we had outside the library in Fort Collins, talking about how we might do it, how we might organize, and what we should call it.”

Stefgen describes Hi Zan, Hi Pa as a public extension of the “contemplative” conversations and emails that she and her dad have exchanged for decades. At 7 years old, Stefgen was asking Merullo to divine the meaning of life and death.

“Neither of us is fond of superficial exchanges,” Merullo says.

Newsletter conversations typically flow to a weighty 2,000 words, expositions that allow them to take deep dives into what it means to be alive. Topics are limited only by their imagination. They can be whimsical but have taken plenty of sojourns into the existential: Are you happy? What does love mean to you? What is your relationship with God and spirituality?

The exchanges start slowly. Comfortably. They are a “natural conversation,” characterized by a “warming up,” Stefgen says.

“And then the deeper we go, we start to tease out the diferent facets. By the end, the conversation is often totally diferent from how it started, which is fun to see. We don’t plan what we’re going to say, and we don’t have any outline. We start with a question and go from there.”

One newsletter topic was disagreement, something that doesn’t happen frequently in their relationship. They have always shown mutual respect. Commenting on their newsletter, one baffled reader asked why father and daughter are so civil.

“We tried really hard to disagree, and it was kind of funny,” Merullo says. “You can probe the depths of an important issue without disagreeing, and certainly without being disrespectful and mean-spirited.”

“The biggest diferences between us are our perspectives on gender and generation,” Stefgen says. Merullo became a first-time father at 44, so their age gap is sizable.

Merullo has opinions on climate change and gender topics, but Stefgen’s counterpoint has proven enlightening. “I really try hard to be open to Zan’s points of view,” he says. “The interesting thing to me is that as well as I know Zan, these conversations enable me to see facets of her thinking that even I don’t know after all these years, and I love that.”

The Merullo household was never about rigid rules. It was, instead, a place for conversations about “how to be” in a world crying for kindness. In fact, the newsletter is a template of sorts for social decorum. Merullo says, “By nature, Zan

and I think about how people behave, how we behave, how the world works, and how we wish it worked.”

Growing Up Together

The newsletter and the written word were natural ways for Merullo and Steffgen to communicate. He is the author of 21 novels, including Breakfast with Buddha and A Harvest of Secrets. From Exeter, he went on to earn two degrees in Russian language and literature from Brown University, in addition to working as a cabdriver and a carpenter. He has also worked for the United States Information Agency and taught at institutions that include Amherst and Bennington colleges.

Stefgen took a less traditional route to finding her voice. In lieu of college, she moved to Cambodia at 20 and started a writing career that highlighted her experiences living abroad. She has since written for publications including Fodor’s, Scuba Diving and Adventure.com.

Merullo grew up in a lower-middle-class household outside Boston, the grandson of English and Italian immigrants. He enrolled at Exeter on a scholarship, after a woman told his mother, “You have to get him into a better school system.”

“My mother told me that when I was in my 50s,” Merullo says. Exeter was a place where it wasn’t “weird” to care about academics. The attitude was refreshing, and he was thrilled to participate in

“The interesting thing to me is that as well as I know Zan, these conversations enable me to see facets of her thinking that even I don’t know after all these years, and I love that.”

A graphic from the Hi Zan, Hi Pa newsletter

PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMANDA S. MERULLO

roundtable classroom conversations in which teachers encouraged discussion, disagreement and the investigation of meaty questions.

Steffgen enrolled at Exeter in her junior year, after spending two years at home because of a chronic illness. “At that point, I was just grateful to be able to go to school at all,” she says. “And I was really excited for the experience because it always sounded like my dad had a lot of independence, and I thrive on independence. I had a wonderful Exeter experience.”

She says Exeter’s Harkness approach, and its focus on courage, compassion and empathy, is integral to the person she is today. They’re characteristics that can be found in Hi Zan, Hi Pa.

A Broader Purpose

While the national discourse is fractured along political and cultural fault lines, the newsletter ofers a kinder and gentler alternative.

“Hi Zan, Hi Pa impressively aspires to restore dialogue in the age of monologue, the experience of speaking with someone rather than past someone, an experience with which we’ve dangerously lost touch as a culture and a society,” says Robert Braile, a longtime friend of the Merullo family and former environmental correspondent and book critic for The Boston Globe. Braile is the husband of Exeter Mathematics Instructor Dale Braile and father of Assistant Director of Admissions Alex Braile.

“Conversation is the heart and soul of a society,” Merullo says. “If you can’t have open, forthright, respectful conversations, the society falls apart, I think. I don’t know that we’re modeling that for the entire nation, but we’re putting our little piece out there and saying, look, this is how you can talk to somebody. And I’m proud of that and it matters to me that we do that.”

“Hi Zan, Hi Pa impressively aspires to restore dialogue in the age of monologue, the experience of speaking with someone rather than past someone, an experience with which we’ve dangerously lost touch as a culture.”

Braile adds, “That the exchange between Roland and Zanny crosses genders and generations makes it even more integral to resurrecting thoughtful and civil discourse in our country: a common language to sustain our common humanity.”

The newsletters resonate in still other ways.

“I love that their columns are about everyday situations I’m experiencing and thinking about,” says longtime English Instructor Lundy Smith, who was an adviser to Stefgen and her sister, Juliana ’19, when both lived in Langdell Hall. “Roland and Zanny are kind of the ‘Seinfeld’ of the Substack world. One of the things I love about all of the Merullos is that they welcome debate and don’t shy away from controversy. Zanny and Roland model the skills we all need to navigate our divisive society.”

While they have avoided being overtly political, Merullo acknowledges that the political headwinds are getting harder to ignore. “In a politically divided nation, conversation is curative,” he says.

Perhaps not so much more than in communicating with his daughter Zanny.

WHAT IS SUBSTACK?

Substack is an online publishing platform where content creators — including award-winning journalists, doctors, politicians, students, chefs and everyone in between — can post articles, insights and personal stories and build an audience through either paid or free subscriptions. Alternatives to Substack include Beehiiv, Ghost, Medium and Patreon.

A newsletter

Steffgen

“We’re exposing our relationship to people that we don’t know,” Merullo says. “We get very personal. We’re not afraid to show who we are. We’re not afraid to talk about difculties we’ve had in the past especially, but even now. And I think that too sets it a little bit apart from some of the stuf online.”

Readers can expect the unexpected. Some recent newsletter topics include their relationship with money. A July installment highlighted father’s and daughter’s struggles with directions. “We get lost really easily,” Stefgen says. “It’s something we’re able to joke about.”

Stefgen, who posts “discussion questions” at the end of each newsletter, is calculated in her outreach. “Being vulnerable gives our readers permission to be vulnerable too,” she says. “We’ve had some really good discussions with our readers that way.”

Merullo and Stefgen are on to something. In a world of limited attention spans and limitless entertainment options, 90% of Hi Zan, Hi Pa subscribers renewed their annual memberships. The secret to success, Merullo and Stefgen say, stems from mutual respect, as evidenced by an early pact.

“I said to Zan, ‘If you get to be 18 and you never say, “Dad, you ruined my life,” I’ll give you a hundred bucks,’” Merullo says. “When she got to be 18, she said, ‘You owe me a hundred bucks.’ And I paid up.”

ANDREW FAUGHT is a freelance writer in Fresno, California. He has written widely on the issues and ideas of education.

drawing by

Zanny Merullo Steffgen ’16 and her father, Roland Merullo ’71

GOING THE

FROM THE IRONMAN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TO THE ULTRATRAIL DU MONT-BLANC, HEATHER

JACKSON ’02 ON WINNING, LOSING AND GROWING AS A PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE BY MILES HOWARD

Heather Jackson ’02 has a system for packing, honed after years of globetrotting. One bag contains wetsuits and goggles. Another holds bicycle shorts, sunglasses and anti-chafe tape. Her running shoes go into a third bag. She also brings a pillow, to ensure a proper night’s sleep. That was an especially important piece of luggage as she prepared to fly across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii with a uniquely grueling intention.

When the sun rose over Hualālai on October 6, 2022, Jackson and 49 other female professional racers would begin the Ironman World Championship triathlon. The race started with a 2.4-mile swim across Kailua Bay, followed by a 112-mile bike ride through the lava fields along the coastline on the Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway. The final challenge — a 26.2-mile run to Kona — led to a finish line flanked by tropical flowers and roaring spectators.

Race day in 2022 — the first year the World Championship was split into separate men’s and women’s races — was Jackson’s sixth time on the course. But this time, Kona was sweltering, with only a faint breeze. As Jackson hufed past Pahoehoe Beach, the halfway point on the running course, she braced herself for an agonizing three-mile stretch known as the Energy Lab where racers are exposed to some of the strongest, skin-crisping sun rays anywhere in the United States.

Sweat flying, lungs burning from a recent case of COVID-19, Jackson knew she would finish. She had placed among the top five women four times at Kona. But this time, something was diferent. Jackson was tired, and not just tired in the expected ways. “There was a sense of bittersweetness,” she says. “I was glad to be there, but I knew that this was the last one.”

This Ironman was the closing chapter of Jackson’s triathlon career. At the age of 38, she had “retired” from the regimented training that occupied her waking hours. But she was approaching a far more intimidating juncture: what comes after being a champion.

PART I A TRIATHLETE IS BORN

When Jackson recalls her childhood, many memories are rooted in the woods, fields and streets of Exeter: being outdoors, moving around and loving it. “I was one of four kids, and growing up, we’d get out of school and then we would pretty much be outside playing street hockey or playing tag until dinner,” Jackson says. “I remember our mom saying, ‘Be home before the streetlights come on.’ That was the rule.”

Jackson’s family lived one mile from the Academy campus, where she enrolled as a day student in 1998 and honed her ice hockey skills. “When I thought about what kind of career I wanted, I assumed I would end up coaching at a school,” Jackson says. “There weren’t a lot of options after college if you were a woman playing ice hockey. The thought of actually becoming a professional athlete had never crossed my mind as something that was possible.”

After graduating from Princeton in 2006 with a dual degree in political science and East Asian studies, Jackson contemplated her next moves back in Exeter. She had been captain of Princeton’s women’s ice hockey team and had played with the U.S. national team, but did not make the 2006 Olympic team roster. One summer day, her parents — both outdoor adventurers — ofered a brief escape from the uncertainty — an escape that required another kind of athleticism.

“They were heading up to the White Mountains to enter this sprint triathlon called Race to the Face,” Jackson says. The race at Cannon Mountain — where New Hampshire’s Old Man of the Mountain used to loom over Interstate 93 — involved a half-mile swim across Echo Lake, a 12.4-mile bike ride through Franconia Notch and a glute-busting 3.1-mile run up the steep, exposed skiing slopes. “It sounded cool and like a lot of fun, so I just went with them,” Jackson says. “I entered the race with my parents and tried it.”

Swimming in the lake, gasping with each vertical foot of climbing Cannon Mountain, Jackson was walloped yet hooked. “I went home and immediately dove into learning about how triathlons worked, and where the biggest races in the world took place,” she says.

This surge of curiosity is integral for those who pursue the sport. “You have to go for a long run, bike ride or swim before you reach the point where it really gets hard, and that’s the point the curiosity starts,” says ultra marathoner and author Doug Mayer ’83, speaking from Chamonix, France, where he manages his own ultra-running tour company Run The Alps. “The runner Courtney DeWalter describes this as going into her ‘pain cave’ and what we’re trying to do is make the cave bigger. For many of us, racing is all about what happens at that moment and how we cope with it.”

First, Jackson tried her luck at a triathlon in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. Then, while

Training for Heather Jackson ’02 includes hiking, swimming, biking and running. “There really aren’t off days,” she says.

“THE THRILL OF BEING THERE ... SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH THE TOP TRIATHLETES IN THE WORLD, WAS ELECTRIC.”

teaching English in Chiang Mai, Thailand, she completed the Laguna Phuket Triathlon, one of the oldest and most storied triathlons in Asia. She returned to the U.S. and placed second in her age group in her first long-distance triathlon, the 2007 Ironman Lake Placid in New York.

Soon after, Jackson moved to California to teach

world history at The Harker School in San Jose. But just a few weeks after arriving, another door opened, unexpectedly. With her impressive finish in Lake Placid, she earned an invitation to compete in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii.

The thrill of being there, under the broiling sun, shoulder to shoulder with the top triathletes in the world, was electric. Jackson persevered and won her 18–24 age group. It was the adventure of a lifetime. But until then, triathlons had been only adventures. When Jackson returned to San Jose, the idea of racing professionally started percolating on a long bike ride with a local triathlon training group.

“On that ride, I met the person who would become my husband,” she says. Sean “Wattie” Watkins, a professional cyclist, was struck by Jackson’s strength on the roads. When the conversation turned to triathlons, she recalls, “He was the one who said to me, ‘You should really give this a try.’ He saw something.”

Heather Jackson ’02 cycles up a dirt road during the 125.4mile SBT GRVL race in Bend, Oregon.

EVERY RACER NEEDS A ROUTINE TO HONE MIND AND BODY FOR MAXIMUM COMPETITIVE OUTPUT.

JACKSON REBUILT HER LIFE.

PART II THE ROUTINE

The road from weekend warrior to professional triathlete runs through a series of finish lines and podiums — where stars are born, and sponsorship deals are earned. But every racer needs a routine to hone mind and body for maximum competitive output. Jackson rebuilt her life. She left her teaching job and established a foundation of daily, meticulously scheduled triathlon training and conditioning.

“My long game goal was always competing in Kona,” Jackson says. “And I worked backward from there, when thinking about my training.” Her riseand-grind rituals, which carried her through 15 years of competing in triathlons, often began before dawn. “Almost every day, I would be at the pool from around 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.,” Jackson says. “Then I’d come back home, eat breakfast, and from there, I’d either get on the bike or start running; either of which

could last anywhere from two hours to six hours.”

Whichever activity Jackson left for the final hours of daylight served as her “recovery” activity, after wolfing down a restorative late lunch. “There really aren’t of days,” she says. “There are lighter activity days, when I had a little more time to get back to sponsor emails or to run errands. But the training is all-consuming.”

Her tough regimen paid of in sponsorships as Jackson reached milestones like setting a speed record at the 2011 Wildflower Triathlon in California and winning the 2013 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon — famous for its ice-cold swim across the San Francisco Bay. Her early deals came in the form of free gear: a race bike or a pair of running shoes. When she started to earn money, the checks were relatively modest and usually contingent on her performances.

“I would place fifth and receive a check for $1,500, and that would still feel like winning a million,” Jackson says of being paid to do something she loves. “During

that time, Sean and I would drive all over the country for diferent races. We would be staying in friends’ houses or sleeping in our car. And it was so fun.”

Mayer describes going from one-of checks or free gear to sponsorship as a series of concentric circles.

“You begin from a place of having fun,” Mayer says, “but you’re winning regularly enough to come on to the radar of a few sponsors and then, both parties — the racer and the sponsor — start to think, ‘What if…?’”

By the time Jackson had earned more lucrative deals with sponsors like Herbalife, which makes nutritional products, and Shimano, a Japanese cycling parts manufacturer, the job had expanded too. “When a sponsor is paying you $10,000 a year, plus bonuses for placing in races, you’re doing a lot more than just racing,” Jackson says. “You’re also doing photo shoots, going on podcasts, attending meet-and-greets, making appearances at 10K runs, and when you work with multiple sponsors, you’re flying all over the map for these things. It involves a ton of time management.”

But even as her global footprint expanded, the mountains of Kona loomed highest. The island kept calling. Having gotten a taste of reaching the podium at the Ironman World Championship, Jackson continued to pursue the grand prize. She made it through the punishing course five times and won the bronze medal in 2016. To augment the Ironman training, Jackson and Watkins split their time between the Cascades Range trails of Bend, Oregon (now their primary home), and the desert outside of Tucson, where the triple-digit temperatures mimicked the conditions of the infamous Energy Lab segment of Kona’s Ironman course.

The more time Jackson spent cycling and running in Arizona, the more the high-heat training o fered something beyond strength and stamina-building. “The elevation down there is around 5,000 feet above sea level — you’re higher than you think you are,” Jackson says. “You look to the horizon and you can barely see anyone out there. It’s just you and the landscape.”

“The training is allconsuming,” says Heather Jackson ’02, pictured above on a ride in the Oregon woods.

PART III REDEFINING

“WINNING”

One of the tensions of being an athlete is the unanswered question, How long can I keep doing this? “What tends to happen is that their victories and their sponsorships are this series of cascading events until they hit a plateau in their mid-to-late 30s,” Mayer says. “And then they have to find something else to do.”

After finishing fifth among the female pros in the 2019 Ironman World Championship, Jackson decided that the 2020 edition of the race would be her final shot. “I had been trying to win this race for 10 years,” Jackson says. She had mostly avoided overuse injuries, but a stress fracture that sidelined her for eight weeks in 2015 was a glimpse of what she would probably face down the road.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic forced race organizers to cancel the 2020 Kona Ironman, and Jackson’s “retirement” was postponed indefinitely. She and Watkins started spending more time in the mountains and the desert, enjoying the quiet, immersive beauty of the outdoors.

“There was absolutely no racing,” Jackson says. “We were primarily living in our camper van, and I was riding my gravel bike a ton; running around on long trails through the woods and the desert with no one in sight.”

The solitude of Jackson’s new adventures awakened her desire to go further, higher and deeper. Even something as thrilling as the Ironman World Championship can become routine. As her life started to return to normal after a brutal year of social distancing, Jackson felt that something had shifted. “I was adjusting to these two new sports, trail running and gravel biking, and I was having so much fun doing it,” she says. “I had fallen in love again.”

By the time the Ironman World Championship race was rescheduled for October 2022, she had found a new path that felt like a natural segue from 15 years of professional triathlon racing. But how would it feel to learn the grueling mechanics of less familiar gravel biking and trail races that were hundreds of miles long? How would it feel to make this leap while approaching 40? And would Jackson’s sponsors follow her?

“When you’re in your 30s, you often get the sense that life is changing,” Jackson says. “I had no idea what I would ultimately be stepping into, if I walked away from what was familiar, but I also wanted to try new things while I still could. I was still fit and healthy. And life isn’t infinite.”

Jackson needed a new mountain to scale — a gateway like Cannon Mountain, where she learned to love the triathlon. And just a few weeks after wrapping up her last Ironman on Kona, she entered an ultramarathon in the parched mountains of Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. At 100 miles, with almost 8,000 feet of elevation gain, the Javelina Jundred would test Jackson like nothing before.

“I had never run anything longer than a regular marathon,” Jackson says. She led for the first 26 miles and kept up her strong pace, doubling the distance and leading the runners at Mile 52. “And then, around Mile 80, I just imploded,” Jackson says.

But falling behind the other front-runners felt more like being awestruck. “I had just gone for it,” Jackson says. “The word ringing in my ears was, ‘Whoa.’ Being out there, trying this and diving in ... that felt like a victory, even though I obviously didn’t win the race.”

By vaulting into the unknown, she had a taste of what was still possible. “I had been thinking about this for such a long time,” Jackson says, “and coming out of the Javelina Jundred unscathed, I wondered, What was I waiting for?”

It’s a question many of us might ask ourselves when thinking about the curiosities that call out to us; the shots not taken. What are we waiting for?

Two years after Kona, mountain trails and gravel bike courses have become Jackson’s training grounds. Still a sponsored athlete, and still an adventurer, she has run and pedaled her way back onto podiums, through the hills of Sonoma County in California and historic stagecoach routes in the desert outside of Phoenix.

In August, she plans to head to Chamonix, France, for the 106-mile Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) race, where runners set of at 6 p.m., chugging into the darkness with only their headlamps (and a lot of extra batteries). It’s a race that Mayer once considered “crazy” and completely out of his wheelhouse, before running it for the first time in 2017. “As you get older and more experienced, you start casting about for new ways to grow,” Doug says. “It’s a progression of many small steps.”

For Jackson, who’s now doing most of her running practice at night, the UTMB is uncharted territory — literally running into the dark, which she describes as “a scary challenge.” And yet, it’s hardly her first leap into the great wide unknown.

“I know that there will be a time when I can’t compete at the highest level as a professional athlete,” Jackson says. “But, I’m not sure if there’s ever really a good time to say, ‘I’m done.’ Because you need to believe there’s more in there. And out there.”

MILES HOWARD is a writer and author based in Boston. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post and National Geographic

Heather Jackson ’02 takes her dog Stevie for a spin.

Connections

Crafting Nature Tiffanie Turner ’88 explores the human experience through floral art. p 52

At work in her home studio, Tiffanie Turner ’88 turns Italian crepe paper into lifelike anemones.

The Fine Art of Flowers

Tifanie Turner ’88 tells stories of humanity and ephemerality in giant paper blooms

It was the paper as much as anything that really just lit me up,”

Ti f anie Turner ’88 says of the Italian crepe paper that inspired her to begin making craft flowers in 2013. At the time, she was a practicing architect raising two young children and in search of materials to make a flower crown for a dance class she was taking in San Francisco. Discovering the delicate paper was a creative awakening.

“I started having epiphany after epiphany,” she says. “‘What if I built a big, peony-shaped piñata?’ Then I thought, ‘What if I hang this peony on the wall, and don’t bash it with a bat?’”

But now, flowers were all she could think about.

“I don’t think I had really ever given myself permission to be outwardly creative,” Turner says. “At first, making flowers was something to do when the kids were asleep. Then I began to feel that, wow, I could do this every single day for the rest of my life.”

Turner had spent 15 years as an architect after graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York. Prior to that, she attended the Academy, where she studied architecture with Art Instructor Nick Dawson.

Encouraged by her husband, David, she began applying her engineering skills to a new end: capturing the beauty, intricacy and intrinsic hope found in flowers.

Today, Turner’s dramatic creations adorn walls from coast to coast, including in her dining room in West Marin County, California, and the homes of art collectors and galleries. She has had several solo exhibitions in San Francisco and Massachusetts, and in 2017 published a book of her techniques, The Fine Art of

Paper Flowers. She also regularly travels abroad to teach flower-making during residential retreats in France and the U.K.

This past fall, three of Turner’s large, statement-making flower sculptures were part of an exhibit called “GROW” at the Palo Alto Art Center. In one installment, two 3-foot-wide pink roses hung on the wall, one freshly budding and one with wilting petals, joined by three blue ribbon bows. Titled Soup to Nuts, it speaks to the stages of marriage over a lifetime, from the fresh, hopeful beginnings to the very end.

Turner says she “uses the accessibility of flowers to invite people in,” then incorporates natural irregularities through decay, wilt, dormancy and death to challenge viewers with ruminations on the human condition, ephemerality or the state of the environment. This creative process begins with a distinct conceptual moment.

“I’ll find a flower that I’m dying to

Tiffanie Turner’s “American Grown” collection of statement-making paper sculptures on display at Eleanor Harwood gallery in San Francisco.

Tiffanie Turner ’88

make — some just speak to me,” she says. “Then I think: ‘What do I want to talk about? What does this flower remind me of?’ It’s a superimposition of concept, then flower, sometimes color and then form.”

Constructed primarily from papier-mâché, wood or metal rods, cardboard and glue, with layers of exotic crepe paper stained or dyed in natural hues, the blooms are arresting. With each petal deftly textured, colored and carefully draped into position, they are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing — but on an enormous scale. Turner emphasizes that the great unseen material in all her pieces is patience. “Each large-scale sculpture takes two to four months of around-the-clock work to complete,” she says. “There’s no immediate gratification in what I do.”

Finding enough time is always a challenge. By securing grants, selling her work and teaching, Turner has been able to aford the time to keep developing her art. In 2021, a $25,000 grant from the Pirkle Jones Fund helped her build a body of work over two and a half years. She named the collection “American Grown,” and mounted a show in the fall of 2023 at her home gallery in San Francisco, Eleanor Harwood. It then moved to Saint Joseph’s Arts Foundation in early 2024. A career milestone, the exhibit explored themes of generational diferences and American exceptionalism.

Turner is currently plotting her next exhibit. “Conceptually, I have a lot of ‘old work’ that I still want to do before I can move on to new ideas,” she says. “There is just an unbelievable amount of material to plumb, because there are so many beautiful flowers out there. And so many issues to talk about.” —Danielle Cantor

“Each large-scale sculpture takes two to four months of aroundthe-clock work.”

PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY

Novel Therapeutics

Dr. Andy Novick ’01 researches psilocybin as promising treatment for neuropsychiatric disorders

Andy Novick ’01 enjoys all aspects of his work as an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado, a psychiatrist and a researcher. But spearheading clinical trials in treating major depressive disorder with psilocybin, a component found in certain species of fungi, is what he finds the most exciting.

“It’s the ability to oversee people getting dosed with this psychedelic compound, making sure it is done safely, and the potential things we can learn from it,” Novick says.

A Drug Enforcement Administration Schedule I license allows Novick to possess and administer the drug for research, and an investigational new drug license from the Food and Drug Administration authorizes him to specifically study psilocybin for major depressive disorder, he says. The FDA “had to green light me and go through my study protocol with a finetoothed comb.”

Novick’s interest in psychopharmacology began at Exeter, where he felt supported as he explored the topic. Science Instructor Kathleen Curwen, one of his favorite teachers, taught him both chemistry and biochemistry. “It was in her class that I got to write my first psychopharmacology paper,” he says, “critiquing an article on testosterone derivatives and aggressive behavior. When I told her the topic, she didn’t consider it odd. Instead, she let me run with it.”

Novick began doing research in neuroscience at Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacology. He went on to receive his medical degree and Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of South Dakota. In 2019, he joined the faculty at the University of Colorado.

“It became really obvious around 2021 or so that psychedelics were going to be a part of psychiatry that wasn’t going anywhere,” he says. “Psilocybin was something I wanted to start with given that it had some research suggesting a really high utility in things like major depressive disorder.”

The clinical research Novick is conducting at the university’s Anschutz Medical Campus entails a psilocybin trial in 40 individuals with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder. He says, “Subjects are randomized to receive either a therapeutic dose of psilocybin or an inactive microdose of psilocybin that acts as a placebo.”

Results from the eight-week trial have proved auspicious. “What we think psilocybin does is that it creates a window of opportunity in the brain for significant change,” he says. “People with depression are often stuck in a brain state in which they have certain thoughts and feelings, often of a very negative nature, that they can’t get out of. Psilocybin makes the brain more plastic and more open to potential change — to change those patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors.”

Novick tempers his enthusiasm with reality. “Major depressive disorder is a serious and difcult illness,” he says. “I don’t think this is going to be the ultimate fix for the entire population. But I do think it’s going to be a huge improvement from what we have right now.

“This work is very much my life,” Novick continues. “Some call that being a workaholic or not having balance. I prefer to view it as getting to do interesting stuf that I enjoy, every day.” — Marisa Procopio

Andy Novick ’01

Education and Opportunity

Jamie Waller ’75 uplifts the lives of Guatemalan children

In 1973, English Instructor Peter Greer brought his Outdoor Challenge physical education class to a rock ledge, explained how to rappel, then asked for a volunteer to go first. Jamie Waller’s hand went up immediately. “I was always a risk taker,” Waller ’75 says. “I always had to climb to the top of the tree.”

Waller points to that Exeter course focusing on limit-testing activities including orienteering and solo hiking as the genesis of his lifelong can-do attitude. That energy fueled his successful 25-year career as a fintech executive and second calling to devote his time and resources to helping others. In 2008, Waller, a father of two adult children, founded Cadaniño, a nonprofit that ofers aid to special needs orphans in Guatemala City — a decision he made only a year after he had first set foot in the country. He has called Guatemala home ever since.

Over time, Cadaniño has broadened its scope. The free after-school program now serves 250 children ages 7 to 18 at two community centers that ofer academic tutoring in STEM subjects, access to computers and a lending library — a rarity in the sprawling city of 7 million. It employs neighborhood teachers who are given access to financial support for continuing education.

“We want to increase a thirst and a desire to learn,” Waller says. Most participants visit three times a week and are welcome to continue so long as they stay in school. “We don’t have a Harkness table, but we do align with concepts of self-development and self-motivation in the sense that the kids decide when and how they advance. They learn to type and use a mouse, and then Word, PowerPoint and Excel. There are kids who even start programming in Python and C++.”

Cadaniño’s efforts have positively

“We want to increase a thirst and a desire to learn.”

affected post-middle school dropout and low literacy rates. Many participants have graduated from high school and some have gone on to college. Others have found employment with a local tech company. Although the organization is ministry-based, it has no religious requirements. Waller says the “nones” are the biggest group in terms of religion, but everyone is ofered Bible classes, and older participants can take part in a local mission program, bringing food to shut-ins.

During COVID, Cadaniño sent home not only weekly assignments, but also food. Ensuring that program participants have at least one meal a day is a tradition that has endured. It’s part of a holistic approach to help children gain a “sense of opportunity,” Waller says.

Waller followed his brother, William ’73, to Exeter, where he played water polo, dabbled in theater and spent a semester in Barcelona improving his Spanish skills. After taking time of, he landed at Syracuse University, where he was an English major and fiction editor of the Syracuse Review

Rejected by the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, despite letters of recommendation from fellow writers Tobias Wolf

and Raymond Carver, Waller headed to New York City after graduation. There he reconnected with classmate and friend Jay Whipple III ’75, founder of Security APL. Early Internet pioneers, they were the first to facilitate a trade over the public internet. In 1996, they sold the company to CheckFree, where Waller stayed until 2001.

It’s an easy date for him to remember: His ofce was on the 42nd floor of 7 World Trade Center, which collapsed after the twin towers fell on 9/11. Though he was at Citibank at the time, he later returned to CheckFree to run three turnaround companies. When the 2008 recession hit, he was ready to start over.

Waller says that his business background keeps Cadaniño a “tight ship financially,” with accountability and transparency always top of mind. The future includes developing ideas to share the curriculum and best practices with other community centers, a concept Waller calls “Cadaniño in a box.”

But for Waller, who personally gifts new laptops to the top two students in the program each year, relationships are most important. “You want to work with each kid and treat them as an individual,” he says, “and eventually you want to reach all children.”—Sarah Zobel

Jamie Waller ’75 (second from right) delivers food to a village in the highlands of Alta Verapaz.

Mission to the Moon

Lauren Arkell ’18 will steer lunar lander on its inaugural flight

Just three years out of college, Lauren Arkell ’18 is fulfilling one of her big career goals in aerospace: working on a mission to the moon. As flight controller on the mission operations team at Firefly Aerospace, she is playing a key role in the debut flight of the company’s lunar lander, Blue Ghost, which is scheduled to launch in mid-January.

During the two-month mission, the Firefly team will work around the clock in the console room, with Arkell and two other flight controllers alternating in 12-hour shifts. “I’ll be sending all the commands from the ground to the spacecraft and working hand in hand with the flight director to run through all of our operations procedures,” Arkell says. The procedures “make sure we meet our mission requirements and do all of the payload

operations we need to, as well as monitor the health and safety of the vehicle.”

Blue Ghost will spend nearly a month orbiting the Earth and about two weeks in lunar orbit before landing near Mare Crisium, a basin in the far northeast quadrant of the moon’s Earth-facing side, for 14 days of surface operations. Dubbed Ghost Riders in the Sky, the mission will use 10 scientific instruments (or payloads) to collect data as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

Arkell’s ties to Blue Ghost go back to a summer internship at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio during college. She worked on a passive coating to mitigate lunar dust, the abrasive fragments from the moon’s surface that can wreck astronauts’ spacesuits and equipment. “That coating is one of the payloads

that Blue Ghost will bring to the moon,” Arkell says.

After graduating from Davidson College in 2022, she worked on various projects for a contractor for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland but kept her eye on the lunar dust mitigation project. When a position opened at Firefly, she jumped at the opportunity, moving to Austin, Texas, to fulfill her goal of working on a lunar mission. “Getting that data on lunar dust mitigation can solve the issues we saw during all of the Apollo missions and be super beneficial for NASA’s return to the moon,” Arkell says.

A presentation by Tom Marshburn, a Davidson alumnus and former astronaut who made three flights to the International Space Station, inspired Arkell to enter the aerospace field. At the time, she was majoring in physics and on a pre-med track but was undecided on a career. “I was able to connect with him personally,” she recalls. “He was such a nice guy, so normal and willing to chat, that I saw myself in him and saw the path that he took as an option for the first time.”

But Arkell says she discovered her passion for STEM at Exeter, where she was a three-year senior day student from nearby Brentwood. She loved her chemistry and physics classes, and vividly remembers taking astronomy with Science Instructor John Blackwell, including regular trips to Grainger Observatory. “Mr. Blackwell had a great take on how expansive space is, and how we know so little about it,” Arkell says.

A co-captain of the varsity lacrosse and soccer teams at Exeter, Arkell went on to play lacrosse at Davidson. She brings those well-honed teamwork skills to the work she’s doing on the Blue Ghost mission.

“So much of it is active troubleshooting, working with everyone in the room,” Arkell says. “You really have to trust yourself, your co-workers and the other people on console that are the specialists, and you’re constantly working through problems. It’s a lot of pressure, but I think it’s very exciting.”

—Sarah Pruitt ’95

Rendering of Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander

Lauren Arkell ’18

Fish Bone Broth

With each smack of the knife against the cutting board, the odor of raw fish grows stronger. My mother tosses precisely cut chunks of northern red snapper into the pot of boiling water, then adds a bulb of spring onion, minced ginger, diced tofu and a sprinkle of goji berries — steps she’s performed countless times to make her famous fish-bone broth.

I first tried her broth at the age of 5, when Mom walked into the playroom carrying a blue porcelain bowl, picked out a small piece of fish with her chopsticks, and fed it to me. As I chewed, something jabbed the roof of my mouth: a fish bone my mom had overlooked. I panicked and swallowed the bone, feeling it lodge in my throat. Afraid to say anything, I dutifully opened my mouth for more, but from that moment on, my relationship with the soup was fraught.

As I grew older, I could no longer conceal my disgust for the broth, full of tofu with fish scales stuck to it and soggy goji berries. Whenever the familiar odor permeated the house, I’d scowl, throw a tantrum, and threaten to starve. My mom insisted fish broth is the brain’s golden food, nutritious and

healthy, but her comments did nothing to lessen my loathing.

One day, as I feigned vomiting at the bowl in front of me, my mom told me about her childhood in a village in southern China. At 9 years old she attended an elementary school in the city, staying at a friend’s house during the week and riding her bike home on weekends. Before she left for school on Monday mornings, her mother would prepare a bento box with a few pieces of meat and vegetables. The meager portion was supposed to last until Friday. When the contents of her bento box ran out, my mother’s diet consisted of rice doused in soy sauce, the only food her host family ofered. Pride prevented her from asking for more.

As I stared at the broth, now forming a film of oil, a wave of guilt washed over me. How could I have been so insensitive? Fish-bone broth was an emblem of the life my mom had struggled to attain, one in which she could provide her children with the abundance she’d never had.

Reaching across the table, my mom skimmed the film away, revealing the creamy white soup she’d spent years perfecting. I picked up my spoon and began to eat. ●

Amy Lin ’25 wrote this narrative story for an English course with Instructor Ellee Dean ’01. It was published in The Sun magazine Readers Write section in May 2024.