Academy Life Day Spurs Discussion of Racism

Alumni and members of the Academy’s Parents Committee returned to campus last weekend for the annual Exeter Leadership Weekend (ELW). The weekend attracted alumni from a wide variety of classes, including those from the classes of 1942 and 2017.

“That Friday night dinner with the senior class is outstanding, and it’s one of the main reasons we come back.”

Class Officers, Regional Association Leadership members, Admission Representatives, General Alumni Association (GAA) Directors and Parents Committee members arrived on campus to “advance the Academy’s strategic goals.” President of the Trustees Tony Downer, along with other alumni, arrived on campus this weekend to attend meetings for Strategic Planning. According to Downer, they also came to engage with parents and other alumni and “to build further the connection between the Exeter community on campus and the Exeter community beyond campus.”

Following Dan Brown ‘82’s assembly, which kicked off the weekend on Friday morning, alumni were given an opportunity to visit classes around campus while the Parents Committee held a meeting. During the afternoon, the visitors were updated about the Academy’s recent progress. This program included a panel about the Academy’s “ongoing commitment to student well-being,” a tour of the Lamont Health and Wellness Center and a tour of unfinished renovations on the South Side of Campus.

On Friday night, the class of 2018 and alumni met for their first Senior-Alumni Dinner of the year. The GAA awarded Monica Shelton Reusch ’77; P’08 and Marty Cannon ’77 with the 2017 General Alumni Association President’s Award.

Dan Lasley ‘78; P ‘05, ‘10 thinks the dinner is important for both alumni and students. “That Friday night dinner with the senior class is outstanding, and it’s one of the main reasons we come back,” he said.

Charlie Nunez ‘57, praised the students and staff, saying, “The kids are just terrific, everybody, teachers, staff, Exeter’s a great place to be.” Nunez expressed his gratitude for what Exeter has contributed to his life, saying, “I went here for three years and always felt that the school gave me a leg up.”

Early Saturday morning, Downer, Principal Lisa MacFarlane ‘66 (Hon.); P ‘09, ‘13 and Chief Financial Officer David Hanson addressed alumni and parents about the current state of the Academy.

Hanson gave a brief overview of the Academy’s finances. This year will be the school’s first year with a budget over 100M. Exeter will draw 56.0M of the 102.7M budget from the endowment. Hanson noted that PEA’s tuition is the lowest of its peer schools at $50,880 with fees included.

Hanson also mentioned that the school has spent about 7M over the past two years due to crisis costs mostly dealing with sexual misconduct cases on campus. He projected that the school will spend slightly over 10M from FY16-FY18 for these cases.

In the same meeting, Downer updated “the Assembly attendees on our thoughts and actions on the sexual misconduct front.” This costly issue has spurred current leadership to shape the future to better deal with this issue, and ELW provided the Trustees a good opportunity to better define the Strategic Plan for the coming years. “We—the on campus and Trustee leadership together—have endeavored to address the episodes of sexual misconduct with the goals of bringing support and closure to the victims, to learning the lessons from our shortcomings, and putting in place the resources—the people, the policies, the programs, the training and the messaging,” Downer said in his speech Saturday. He also added that there would be no place for sexual misconduct, saying, “Exeter is a safe community, a responsive community and a supportive community and that there is unambiguous clarity that there is no room in our Exeter for sexual misconduct.”

The trustees also discussed their strategic plan for the coming years with alumni and parents. In the coming year, the administration intends to have “an abundance of conversations” with both the students and teachers, both on and off campus in order “to infuse the [strategic] plan with a broad set of perspectives.” Downer said that the Strategic Plan is “the definition of Exeter’s values, priorities, programs, offerings and its basis for being relevant and compelling as a secondary school in the decades ahead.”

The trustees’ strategic plan continues the progress made from last year’s extensive work. The plan mainly centers around three core ideals around which which Exeter life is structured: My Exeter, Exeter as a Citizen and Living Harkness. “We want to advance on defining what initiatives will be in the second and third horizons, which ones will call for donor support, and how and when a campaign could come together to seek that donor support,” Downer said. The plan is to “author an answer to the question ‘Why Exeter?’” so that they will be able to “attract extraordinary students and exceptional educators by providing an unmatched secondary school experience.”