Senior Reflection: Cee McClave
The Exeter I am graduating from in a few short weeks is not the Exeter I knew as a wide-eyed, masked prep—is it?
It’s not difficult to list the ways my experience of the school has changed dramatically since then. For one thing, I am physically on campus, attending in-person classes without plexiglass dividers. I know what my friends’ faces look like. I do not have Weth, or regular food trucks on campus, or 8 pm classes. I’m familiar with the interior of classroom buildings. I can perform in the Bowld as a wind player along with the strings, rather than be hooked up to a speaker outside and have to peer through the back window to follow the conductor. The Exeter I know now is alive, and it does not hold its breath.
Unsurprisingly, I’ve changed too. I’d like to think I’m less annoying now that I have a better idea of where I fit within the Exeter ecosystem and have grown into that role. Looking back, it’s ridiculous that, on my first day on campus meeting the rest of my dormmates, I deemed my overly serious self more “mature” than the seniors because they…joked around sometimes? Seriously, what was I thinking?
Still, often I struggle to see how much I or the school has really changed. Yes, wriggling out of the pandemic’s grip on campus created some very obvious contrasts between 2020 and 2024, and I don’t think I’m the same person I was at 15—but sometimes, it all feels very superficial. It is as if nothing integral to the school’s fabric has shifted for the better, and maybe nothing in myself has either.
I’ve heard stories of how, in the years preceding my arrival, students consistently and actively pushed for institutional change. Protests were much more common. In fact, the first club I joined prep year, Sunrise Exeter, had just pivoted after years of going by the name Divest Exeter. The club endeavored to get the school to divest from fossil fuels, but after a few years of uncooperative trustees, they just… gave up. Now that same club is pretty much dead and useless. In my time here, no massive protest has created a story nearly as striking as that of Principal Rawson standing on a chair like it was a liferaft in a sea of angry students. The closest thing we got was the Vanity Fair walkout, and I’m not sure if that spurred any long-term change or not. Though, to be fair, I don’t know if the PRaw-on-chair protest did that either. I don’t even remember what it was about.
Are we doomed to run on a hamster wheel of ineffective outcry forever? Will Exeter ever really change? Despite my occasional despair, I truly believe we can alter this institution for the better. The biggest obstacle to progress, I think, is that we aren’t trying hard enough. Perhaps the open letter (which I contributed to) regarding the cancellation of the Black-Palestinian solidarity workshop on MLK Day was a start. It shows that students are feeling empowered again to push for answers and action. Further, it really did spur administrative efforts in the form of meetings with students, a guest speaker, and a dinner afterward, as well as promises of more to come. Maybe Exonians can ride that wave and call for divestment from Israeli companies profiting from the genocide. We truly are only limited by our own imaginations.
When I really consider the past four years, it seems silly to say nothing has changed. But it’s also silly to say nothing has stayed the same, or that nothing else needs to change. I can say the same for myself, too. Harkness, living away from home, student groups, and the passage of time has shaped me. Thanks to Exeter, I’m more confident and independent, developed better interpersonal skills and a sense of style, and am more connected to my cultural heritage. My time management improved, and I started to heal my need to be the best at everything. In short, I’ve retained the core aspects of my identity while building and improving on that foundation.
Exeter is in the process of doing so as well, but we must remember that it can’t be a passive process. The student body can drive institutional change at Exeter if we put our minds and our hearts to it, and I hope that in the years following my graduation, Exonians will strengthen the tradition of progress and improvement. After all, only two things are constant on the Exeter campus: calling for change and complaining about the schedule.
