2016-17 ESSO Board Decided
The ESSO board for 2016-2017 was decided on Tuesday night following deliberation by the selection committee. Uppers Connie Cai and Sarah Brown were chosen as co-Presidents, upper Aivant Goyal as the Off-Campus Coordinator, lower Jackson Parrell as the On-Campus Coordinator, lower Emmett Shell and upper Evan Xiang as Children’s Coordinators and lower Lucas Schroeder and uppers John Ragone and Joanna Papadakis as Communications Coordinators.
The selection committee received applications around two weeks ago. The committee consisted of nine members: three students, three faculty members and three staff members. Following an initial sort, the applicant pool was reduced to 27 candidates. From those, 15 students were interviewed. The committee met on Tuesday to review the applications, interviews and faculty recommendations before deciding the final board.
In the new board, the selection committee was looking for organization, dedication and energy. “We need someone who has shown us through past experiences that you can get the job done, that you can follow through and that ESSO will be a priority in their lives,” said Community Service Coordinator Elizabeth Reyes.
Senior Maegan Moriarty, member of the selection committee and co-head of ESSO Games with Seniors, further expanded on the criteria used to select the board. “We looked for applicants who were obviously involved in and actively committed to volunteering,” she said.
“We need someone who has shown us through past experiences that you can get the job done, that you can follow through and that ESSO will be a priority in their lives.”
Although initially the committee had planned on taking seven members for the new board, they ended up taking two additional Communications Coordinators. “We thought that the three people we’re bringing in for communications all have great but different strengths, so we chose to take all three,” said Costello. By bringing in three people for the Communications position, the committee hoped to further the presence of ESSO on campus. “This will allow for more publicizing, more outreach in the community and more social media connections,” said Moriarty.
The committee also hoped to form a diverse group. “We want some of everyone on the board to help represent and take in every interest. One person cannot know what the various groups are looking for,” Reyes said. The new group also saw a more even gender ratio; the board has four girls and five boys compared to last year’s three boys and five girls.
The new ESSO board members expressed their enthusiasm for leading the organization for the upcoming year. Cai served on the former ESSO board as the Children’s Coordinator. “Being on the board last year allowed me to see firsthand all the amazing work that David and Raghav did, and I hope to continue the great work they started as well as do even more,” Cai said.
Cai looked forward to working with students who have been involved with ESSO projects and clubs for many years. She hopes to integrate ESSO into the classroom setting by “combining knowledge with goodness.”
Brown agreed with Cai. Along with plans to promote ESSO clubs and events within the school, she hoped to work more closely with the Exeter High School and build connections in the town to strengthen ESSO’s own programs. “ESSO has been a great way for me to be involved in the Exeter community, make friends and learn new useful skills. I believe that the act of providing service to a community benefits everyone involved,” Brown said.
In order to help ESSO grow as an entire organization, Xiang plans on fulfilling her role as a Children’s Coordinator by creating new events. She formed an idea to host an ESSO field day where all the ESSO sports clubs could participate and let the kids try out different sports.
“It would hone a stronger sense of community within ESSO, which I think is very important in a social service organization. It would also bolster participation of kids because they can try out sports that they’ve never thought about before, which can open the door to new possibilities,” Xiang said.
Goyal is looking forward to serving as the Off-Campus Coordinator. “Now that I’ll be working with a lot of local organizations, I’m eager to learn how to work with people outside of the Exeter ‘bubble’ and to help facilitate the connection between students and these organizations like Salvation Army,” he said.
Papadakis wanted to apply for Communications Coordinator because she wanted to take part in the marketing and promoting aspect of ESSO. On the board, she hopes to share with others the “amazing aspects of ESSO” that she has experienced throughout her three years in ESSO clubs.
In addition to the social service aspect of ESSO, Papadakis emphasized the learning opportunities for Exeter students offered from participating in ESSO clubs. “I think a lot of our education at Exeter comes from outside of the classroom experiences and there are skills and lessons that I have gotten from ESSO that I would have never gotten around a Harkness table,” she said.
Looking forward to the upcoming year, Reyes hopes that the new board will take action to fulfill some of the ideas and plans made by the previous year’s board. “The group this year [focused] a lot [on the] big picture and how to get more involved in the fabric of the community, so I want to take what this year has done and try to make it happen over the next year,” she said.
Senior and former co-President Raghav Bhat expressed confidence in the new board as they work to take action on the current board’s plans. “The past year in ESSO has mostly been about laying out a vision for ESSO’s future, and I believe that Connie and Sarah will lead the board in taking the first concrete steps,” he said.