Evening Prayer Moved to Friday After Community Input

Interim Principal William Rawson, with input from the Student Council Executive Board, has rescheduled Evening Prayer (EP) to Friday evenings after student backlash and a low turnout at the first Sunday EP on Jan. 13. Going forward, EP will be held at Friday, 9:30 p.m., on most weeks and 8 p.m. on weeks with Saturday classes.

The administration initially moved EP from Tuesday to Sunday due to concerns that the original time interfered with study hours and check-in. Students were upset by this change, however, as several clubs meet on Sunday evenings and, to many, Tuesday EP offers a much-needed break in the middle of a busy week. “[EP] serves as a study break for people to gather their thoughts, reflect, maybe take a much needed break from a major assignment—whatever they’re working on on the previous part of the night—and be together as a community,” senior Dylan Yin said.

Reverend Heidi Heath, the EP officiant, is confident that the Friday time will better accommodate student activities. “I believe that the Friday evening time slot is a much better compromise than the Sunday evening time slot,” she said. “It maintains the integrity of what many students love about EP but conflicts with significantly less clubs and events than Sunday evenings.”

Heath said she is confident the community will be able to recreate the Tuesday EP atmosphere on Fridays. “The Tuesday time slot has a deep history in Exeter tradition,” she said. “I believe we can maintain our connection to EP history across generations of Exonians in its new time on Friday nights.”

Rawson expressed similar hopes. “I hope students will make a success of the Friday time and find that EP can continue in a positive and meaningful way on Fridays,” he said.

Student Council Co-Secretary and upper Audrey Vanderslice explained that the time was chosen to balance student and faculty concerns. “Principal Rawson, specifically, was very responsive...each time we reached out to him,” she said. “It was really helpful for us to see where [the administration was] coming from, and they were very attentive to what we had to say.”

However, Asian Voices (AV) and Afro-Latinx Exonian Society (ALES) members, whose meetings conflict with the new EP time, voiced concerns. “This decision must have been made either without checking what clubs were meeting at that time—which is not responsible—or being aware that the time change conflicted with Asian Voices and thinking that was a worthy sacrifice to make,” AV member and lower JaQ Lai said. “I don’t think either of those situations are acceptable.”

Senior Tara Weil, who organized Evening Performance, a continuation of Tuesday Evening Prayer for seniors, voiced concerns that the Friday time may undermine EP’s popularity. “On Fridays, people are going out to dinner, hanging out with friends, getting V’s until 10,” she said. “And if EP is competing with that, I don’t think it necessarily would win.”

Yin agreed with Weil’s sentiment. “People are naturally looking [forward] to a Friday anyway; it removes the idea that EP is this time to stop in the middle of the week,” he said.

According to Rawson, no future discussions concerning the Friday time are currently planned. “For now, I hope we focus on making Friday EP a success,” he said.