ESSO Board Announced

The Exeter Student Service Organization (ESSO) Board Turnover Committee announced the eight students who will lead ESSO in the coming year on Monday, Feb. 20. The committee selected uppers Jackson Parell and Emmett Shell as the board’s new co-presidents. In addition, lower Jenny Yang and upper Andrew Hong will serve as the new on-campus and off-campus coordinators, respectively, and lower Grace Gray and upper Sara Kopunova will take over as the new children’s club coordinators. Finally, uppers Lucas Schroeder and Maya Kim will act as the new co-directors of communication.

“We want a diverse group that is able to think outside the box and reshape the way ESSO is seen on campus. The students must have leadership experience and a demonstrated passion for ESSO programming.”

The ESSO Board Turnover Committee, which is comprised of three students and four faculty members, announced these results after requiring an extensive application process of each candidate. Over thirty students applied, and the ESSO Board Turnover Committee narrowed this pool of applicants down down to fifteen people who were interviewed before making their final decisions.Director of Service Learning, Elizabeth Reyes, who acted as one of the faculty members on the ESSO Board Turnover Committee, described the qualities the Committee looked for in prospective candidates. “We want a diverse group that is able to think outside the box and reshape the way ESSO is seen on campus,” she said. “The students must have leadership experience and a demonstrated passion for ESSO programming.”According to senior Connie Cai, who served as co-president of last year’s ESSO board and as one of three students on the ESSO Board Turnover Committee, the collaborative potential of the applicants was also taken into consideration. “This year, we had a pool of extremely talented and dedicated applicants, and it was tough to make the final decisions,” she said. “While many people were qualified for these positions, this board is the one that we thought would work together the best and complement each other's skills.”Reyes also explained that the Committee thought about the long-term nature of ESSO as they made their decisions. “The ESSO Board Turnover Committee mapped out what we thought success for ESSO would look like next year and in five years,” she said. “We took a look at the overall goals and matched the skill sets of the candidates to help us meet those goals.”She went on, describing the need for strong leaders to fill the various ESSO positions. “They must be able to work together in a team and manage a group of students in their charge,” she said. “This is a year about rebranding and remarketing, and we needed a team to help take us there.”In fact, Schroeder, who was one of the last ESSO Board’s directors of communication, has already begun planning the rebranding and remarketing of ESSO that Reyes referenced. “The dotted ESSO logo, the green shirts and our social media platforms will be totally scrapped and started from a blank slate,” he explained. “It’s important to have a brand that garners positive publicity and attention in the community.”Cai agreed, saying,  “We want ESSO to grow, to constantly get better each and every year, so we are always on the lookout for new ideas and fresh perspectives.”Many of the new board members expressed excitement for the year ahead. Both Parell, who is the former on-campus and global coordinator for the ESSO Board, and Shell, the former Children’s Coordinator, are already planning for the future of ESSO.For Parrell, serving as co-president entails more than just planning for the next year. “As co-president you can look beyond just the regular workings of ESSO and instead look to the future and see how ESSO can make an impact in the long run,” he said. “Both Emmett and I will be working on identifying long-term goals for ESSO and seeing how they can be accomplished in the coming year.”Shell expressed similar sentiments about how he plans to act as co-president, saying that he hopes to involve more low-income families with ESSO and help co-heads keep their clubs running well. “A big part of ESSO every year is just working with all the ESSO clubs to make sure they run smoothly, so that's a big goal of mine for this year’s board.”Gray also expressed strong hope for the upcoming year. “I'm excited to work with my fellow board members this year and to put our ideas together to further integrate ESSO into our campus and into our surrounding town,” she said.Speaking about the short-term goals of the ESSO Board, Parell explained that he hopes to see unity throughout the board. “The next step, now, is to talk to the different people on the board and see what we want to accomplish as a group because we’ll each be coming with our own ideas of what ESSO should be like, but we want to make sure our aims are together,” he said.He continued, expanding on his hopes for ESSO in the coming year, saying, “We are in a crucial point in Exeter’s progression, in that there a lot changes that are happening, and I want to see that ESSO is a part of those changes so that it can be more a part of students’ daily lives and the Exeter fabric, both as an extracurricular and also maybe even as a class.”Gray also shared a desire to involve more community members in ESSO. “I would love to continue ESSO's recent goal of bringing ESSO to everyone in our greater community, regardless of economical or situational disadvantages,” she said.According to Cai, these new ESSO board members have assumed not just a big responsibility to the Academy, but to the town of Exeter as well. “Being on the ESSO board is a major commitment, and it shows serious dedication to not just ESSO clubs, but to the community at large,” she said. “The overarching goal of ESSO is to serve and educate the community, and the coordinators [and] co-presidents are the ones working to maximize the impact that ESSO can have.”