HARKNE’66 to Foster Discussion Among Alumni and Students

Members of the class of 1966 will be joining students for discussions as part of the HARKNE’66 program from Thursday, May 19 to Saturday, May 21. These series of conversations were organized by Stephen Gardiner ’66 in collaboration with the Office of Alumni Affairs.

Gardiner organized these conversations in hope of allowing alums to reconnect with the Harkness experience and share the lessons they have learned in the 50 years since they graduated from Exeter. He hopes that the returning alums will offer their life experiences to students and combine their knowledge with “the work you bright students have to offer” to discuss “questions that can engage all of us.”

“There will be a different kind of diversity around this discussion and that should make for an excellent conversation.”

Having gone to many reunions during the past 50 years, Gardiner expressed dissatisfaction toward past events offered to returning alums. “The few reunions I have been back to, including our 25th, were sort of typical. You’d have a golf outing or a cocktail party or dinners—plenty of chances to be with your classmates. But I thought, knowing Exeter as well as I did, offered more than that,” he said. In creating this event, Gardiner hopes that alumni can truly reunite with their high school through the people and Harkness, two integral parts of the Exeter experience.

Gardiner reflected that since graduating, he has grown to further appreciate the nuances of Harkness discussion and has learned to apply the lessons he learned at Exeter to other worldly situations. “I think the richness around the Harkness table is just more evident than when I was a 17-year-old. Some of that comes with spending 50 years of my life since then and learning more and learning how to learn better, and applying some of the curiosity, exploratory type things from Exeter to the rest of our lives,” he said.

Gardiner hopes that discussion between alums and students can offer students further learning opportunities and insight on life after Exeter, especially in regards to what he termed the more “everyday” lives of Exeter alums. “I just think there are a lot of everyday [Exeter] graduates who have had really interesting life experiences or have accomplished really unusual things in life that don’t make headlines,” Gardiner said. “There are people like me or my 80-or-so classmates that are going to come back for our reunion that can actually help current students think through what their next steps are in their own education and career planning and their life decisions. Some of that could be expanded on with a little more engaged alumni population.”

Gardiner said he hoped that the alums, students and faculty members involved in HARKNE’66 will find common ground and give back to Exeter. On Thursday, alums will be joining religion instructor Thomas Simpson’s Human Rights and Holocaust classes, science instructor Tatiana Waterman’s Introduction to Physics class, English instructor Lundy Smith’s Novels into Film class, religion instructor Kathleen Brownback’s Mysticism class, English instructor William Perdomo’s Art of Protest class, science instructor Alison Hobbie’s Chemistry of the Environment class and computer science instructor Ranila Haider’s Algorithms and Public Policy classes.

On Friday, members of the class of 1966 will be returning to Brownback’s, Hobbie’s, Haider’s and Simpson’s classes. They will also be joining Brownback’s Ethics of the Marketplace class, history instructor Giorgio Secondi’s Microeconomics classes, English instructor Brooks Moriarty’s Moby Dick class, English instructor Nathaniel Hawkins’ Law and Literature class, Waterman’s other Introductory Physics class, history instructor Leah Merrill’s Genocide in the Modern World classes, history instructor William Jordan’s Law and American Society classes and English instructor Jason BreMiller’s Literature in the Land class.

In addition, BreMiller will be hosting an open Environmental Roundtable during A-format on Thursday covering ways Exeter can reduce its environmental impact. An open conversation on the role of war in the modern age entitled “The World at Peace” will also be held from 8:15 to 9:50 a.m. on Saturday.

BreMiller said that HARKNE’66 will serve as an opportunity both for alums to reconnect with the school and for students to interact with those who have followed a path they may be interested in.“It would be a way for his classmates to be able to find out what’s happening in the school, but also, a way for our students to interact with alums who have a vested interest in that discipline,” BreMiller said.

Hobbie noted the benefits that would come with having an audience that is typically absent from the Harkness table present at discussions. “There will be a different kind of diversity around this discussion and that should make for an excellent conversation,” she said.

Looking onwards to future years, Gardiner hopes that the HARKNE’66 program will serve as a model for events at upcoming 50th reunions. “Ideally, I’d like to think that this first conversations program is just that, a precedent setting program, and that the faculty will be able to think now and plan ahead for coming years and coming 50th reunions,” he said.