Seniors Present Projects During “Exeter Speaks”
Six four-year seniors presented their research and reflected on their time at the Academy during the first annual Exeter Speaks event on Friday night in the Assembly Hall. Hosted by uppers Carissa Chen and Aivant Goyal, the TED talk inspired night presented an opportunity for seniors Jade Moses, Meena Jagadeesan, David Shepley, Peter Duff, Peter Luff and Ariel Kim to speak on various topics. In addition to the speeches, seniors Jeff Mellen and Henry Scott performed songs and award-winning entrepreneur and LGBTQ plus activist poet Peter LaBerge gave a reading.
An admirer of TED talks, Chen wanted to bring something similar to campus. “Thinking about how fascinating and inspiring many of the seniors are, I thought it’d be a great idea to learn from the graduating class before they left,” she said. “I wanted the opportunity to hear about the amazing things they’ve learned and worked on throughout their time at Exeter, and a TED-style conference seemed like a really cool way for the community to share and honor them.”
“I felt like everything was a bit of an overview. It ended up going longer than expected causing some of the crowd to trickle away.”
Along with Chen and Goyal, lower Emily Green and upper Divya Bade, members of Exeter’s Ethics Forum, which originally planned to host the event, sent out an application to all the members of the senior class and selected from those who applied. “We picked seniors who were eloquent with ideas [but] who aren’t always in the limelight,” Green explained. “The goal was to honor the class of 2016,” Goyal said. “It provides a place for a few of the seniors to share their stories and research.”
The night began with Mellen singing and playing “The Crane Wife 3” by The Decemberists on hisguitar. He said he wanted to be a part of the event after hearing about the idealogy behind it. “I really like the idea of Exeter Speaks because there are a lot of really remarkable people at this school with very powerful stories to tell, and a lot of the time we don’t get to hear them,” he said.
Mellen’s performance was followed by Moses’ project, titled “Roots.” She spoke of growing up in America as a black girl and how that affected her identity as a black woman. Senior Joyce Tseng described Moses’ talk as memorable, as it powerfully highlighted many “important issues” such as beauty, confidence, race and self-acceptance. “I’ve admired Jade as a friend and student for a long time and I remembered when she presented this idea back in the fall [I was] interested to see how she had developed her narrative and research since then,” Tseng said.
Following “Roots” was a presentation by Jagadeesan. She had conducted math research outside of school and wanted to share her passion and work with the community. She hoped that younger students were inspired to make time to work on projects outside of the classroom. “At Exeter, with our busy schedule, it’s sometimes tempting to just focus on classes, leading a couple of clubs and doing our homework—all of this is, of course, important, but my most valuable experiences during high school have been what I’ve learned from exploring my passions outside the traditional curriculum through independent research projects,” Jagadeesan said.
She also hoped that the audience realized the significance that math can have in other work fields and that the abstract structures in math are approachable and linked to many fields of science. She said it is a “misconception” that “pure math” is detached from everyday life.
The visiting poet, Laberge, then read several poems. Chen knew about LaBerge from his online work and through her contacts in the poetry community. She had previously worked with “The Adroit Journal,” an online poetry journal that LaBerge founded in 2010, and decided to reach out to him and try to bring him to campus.
Senior Alex Zhang came to Exeter Speaks primarily to see Laberge, who he had known of through the poetry community. “I’ve read his poetry online and tried to imagine it being read aloud, but being able to see him standing right in front of me reading was more amazing than I could have ever imagined,” Zhang said. “Hearing a poet read their own work helps you see the piece in a whole new light.”
Shepley then gave a speech titled “Connecting Community with Conservation.” He appreciated that the planning committee asked him to speak about his work studying community based conservation as one of the selected topics. “It felt rewarding to be able to share my testimony of making the most of my passions and to inspire other Exonians to follow theirs,” Shepley said.
Like Jagadeesan, he hoped that the audience left feeling empowered to pursue their passions beyond Exeter and that they wouldn’t feel afraid to explore different opportunities. “I wanted the audience to take away one of my main points that finding success when working with people especially of different backgrounds requires empathy, patience and the ability to compromise.”
Scott then played an excerpt from “Ein Heldenleben” and “Romance” by Reinhold Gliere on the french horn. Every Sunday since his prep year, Scott has practiced individually, and partook in a youth orchestra and Exeter’s symphony orchestra. “I never play by myself in any sort of events, so I thought it would be cool and fun,” he said.
After the music was a speech by Luff titled, “The Power of the Executive,” then Kim’s speech “Ark’s Foundation: Creating a Home for Children with Disabilities.” The final speech was by Duff titled, “On Anxiety, Curiosity, and the Environment.” Kim hoped to inform the audience about the Ark’s Palace, a home for children with physical and mental disabilities in Ghana. She spoke about meeting Mr. Ark, the founder of the home, and how he was shunned by his society because he lost his right arm in a car accident. She founded Ark’s Foundation, a non-profit organization whose goal is to raise awareness of the children’s plight and to fundraise the money that will build a school for them. “There are really incredible children with disabilities in Ghana trying to beat the odds, and if we can help them, we should,” she said.
There were many other events going on at the same time as Exeter Speaks, and most of the audience only consisted of friends and fellow dorm members supporting the speakers. Senior Peace Kabari said she came to listen to Moses and had to leave after Kim’s talk. Although lower Pradyumn Dayal also had to leave early, he attended in the first place because he wanted to hear about the research and projects that the seniors had worked on. Prep Catherine Griffin went to support the people she knew who were speaking and hopes there will be another similar event that more people can attend. Another issue was the length of the event.
Upper Julia Friberg, who also left early, felt that the speakers didn’t have enough time to delve into their topics. “I felt like everything was a bit of an overview,” she said. Shepley felt that the event should’ve been shortened. “It ended up going longer than expected causing some of the crowd to trickle away,” he said. “Perhaps focusing on fewer speakers and scheduling a series might help.” However, Shepley thinks that more events like this would be beneficial to the community. He recalled a time his prep year when one student spoke about her research in Antarctica. He said at the time he felt intimidated and thought he’d never experience anything similar. “I realize that discovering unique opportunities is rather easy with what Exeter inspires and subsequently narrowing in on that passion leads to more, deeper experiences,” Shepley said. “Don’t dismiss or feel intimidated by these stories. Use them to consider the possibilities for you. Some day they will be real.”