Community Responds to New Assembly Attendance Protocol

By: Phineas Gibbs, Minseo Kim

After a year of virtual gatherings, students are filing back into the assembly hall and other buildings to hear weekly speakers and performances. As COVID regulations have eased, the assembly protocol has moved to assigned seating based on dorm, with attendance taken by proctors. The new system also calls for a different grade each week to watch Assembly asynchronously from The Forum and Grainger Auditorium.

Dean of Students Russell Weatherspoon explained the reasoning for the current seating and attendance protocol as well as how it echoes past assemblies. “The assembly seating and class rotations are an experiment as well as a return to the past,” Weatherspoon said. “Asking one grade each time to view the program from The Forum or Grainger Auditorium is inspired by the waning pandemic. Having proctors take attendance has been done before, decades ago, even when Principal Rawson was a student.”

Weatherspoon also noted how the Assembly system will be open to student and faculty feedback. “Later in the year we’ll ask how well this initiative has been working. After several more programs we will begin to have a sense. For those who recall assembly, like most other things, on Zoom, being together is better.”

Students and faculty shared their opinions on the current Assembly system. Gould House dorm head and Mathematics Instructor Diana Davis supported the dorm-based seating. “It's nice that each student who comes to Assembly has a natural group to sit with, and doesn't have to worry about finding someone they know. Yes, I like it that the students of Gould House all sit together. It's a nice time to just silently be together with no pressure.”

Wentworth Hall dorm head and Computer Science Instructor Sean Campbell noted the benefits of proctors taking attendance. “Having more than one person assisting with attendance is important for getting it done efficiently,” Campbell said.

Merrill Hall dorm head and History instructor Troy Samuels explained how the familiarity in dorm groups can be welcoming. “I like it for purely selfish reasons because I'm still pretty new here and I don't know a lot of people,” Samuels explained. “So it's nice to know, like if I walked into the Assembly Hall, that I will know everybody… I think those small moments of being around each other, getting to speak with one another, is super great. I don't think there has to be a boundary between dorm and class at all, but I think that [dorm seating] is a nice thing.”

Senior Eric Yang shared his thoughts on the assembly changes. “The rotating system is an improvement over when they had all four classes in the same room; it is less of a fire hazard and evacuation times are significantly decreased,” he said. “Although, when COVID is over, I am sure that they will switch back to the normal system.”

Upper Amy Benson compared the current in-person assembly to Zoom assemblies from last year. “Zoom didn’t feel very personal and was just awkward in general, especially compared to now when we can actually have a face-to-face interaction with the speaker,” Benson said.

Some students who have attended assemblies prior to the pandemic compared the different systems. “Proctors checking people in will make sure that people will come [to Assembly more] because it's a smaller group to pay attention to,” Bancroft proctor and senior Catherine Uwakwe said. “But also I miss the class seating. I could’ve been [someone in Assembly who says, ‘I’ve been here for four years!’. But then COVID hit, and I can't be in the front snapping section.”

Hoyt Hall day student proctor and senior Alana Reale appreciated the Academy’s efforts to create a system despite pandemic restrictions. “I do like the proctor system better than some previous systems, like when we used Sched to check people in,” Reale said. 

At the same time, Reale also liked students being seated by class rather than dorm. “Maybe it was because I was so used to being seated by class, but I definitely preferred that because it was easier to sit with your friends and get where you needed to be,” Reale said. “Now it’s more of an effort to get to your dorm.”

Similarly, Dutch House proctor and senior Liza McMahan supported the previous class-based seating. “Let friends sit together and mingle. The tradition of seniors sitting on the bottom front, uppers in the bottom back, and lowerclassmen in the balcony is tarnished with this policy, too, and that's something I've been looking forward to during my time here as a 3-year Exonian.” 

Community members also noted some challenges of the new attendance system. “I find that it takes a good 5-10 minutes into assembly to find everybody and count them in as a proctor, which takes my attention away from the speaker,” McMahan said.

Uwakwe commented on the possibility of proctors checking in students who do not attend Assembly. “I think it happens fairly often, but not like a lot. [It depends] on every dorm and if they have that tight-knit community,” Uwakwe said. Probably like [in] Dunbar it doesn't happen as much because there’s so many people. [But I think] it definitely does happen because these are your peers.”

Langdell dorm head and History Instructor Donna Richardson explained some initial difficulties that came with taking attendance. “It didn’t work well for us in the first weeks and was really overwhelming for my proctors. This was mostly because they didn’t know people yet, everyone was masked, and they had other obligations to do during assembly, like take part,” Richardson said. “Last week, I decided to have the proctors just pass around a signature sheet which seemed to be a much more efficient and less stressful way of doing it.”

Richardson also provided a suggestion that the Academy could make attendance-taking easier. “I’d like to see the Academy invest in a LionCard scanning attendance system that would make attendance very easy. Most colleges and universities have student ID scanners to track attendance to such events. You just touch your ID to the RFID scanner on your way into the room, the same way you would to enter a building, eliminating the need for any individuals to be responsible for counting heads,” Richardson said.

Samuels also spoke on ways to streamline the attendance-taking process. “We have the technology. It's about figuring out how to use it creatively… I know when I had to take 150 on student attendance in lecture classes at universities, we had an app that geolocates, and you have to enter a specific code… I think there could be a digital way to do it, I would support that as long as we make it equitable… that everyone has access to the technology. That's just something I keep wondering why we haven't thought of using yet.” 

In the future, the Academy plans to expand the Assembly Hall and Academy Building. “That will be one of the key objectives of the major renovation of the Academy Building,” Weatherspoon said. “That project will begin during the next decade, we hope!” 

Main Street Dorm Head Tyler Caldwell voiced the necessity of an expansion. “It would be great to have a space that fits the entire school so we could all be together for assembly.” 

Samuels voiced his enthusiasm for the upcoming renovation as well as hopes for retaining historical aspects of the building. “As an archeologist, I think keeping some elements would be really wonderful, at least to echo what it looks like now, but also I think that can be done while maintaining a little more space,” he said.

Davis explained the plans to maintain historic features of the building. “The master plan color-codes each area of the Academy Building based on its historical importance. For example, the Assembly Hall and the marble entry have high historical importance, and the basement bathrooms have low historical importance. It is my understanding that any modification to the building will preserve the important parts as much as possible,” Davis said. The Master Plan can be found on Exeter Connect’s Facilities Website, with the Academy Building high-level concept expansion plan found on pages 62-73.

School architect and planner Heather Taylor expounded on the details of the expansion plan. “The idea would be to “flip” the stage and create a corridor that connects the east and west sides of the building to improve circulation. The views from this corridor would look over the Academy Lawn.  Inside the Assembly Hall a new stage would be at the base of the tower and the seating would extend into an expanded Academy Building.  There would be a mezzanine and the goal is to accommodate 1300-1400 people.  The expansion concept was carefully developed to preserves the proportion and scale of the building and the ever important, marble stairs,” Taylor said.

Students also suggested ways to improve the Assembly system. Bancroft proctor and senior Lila Busser commented on alternative ways of taking attendance. “Taking attendance during Assembly [should be more like] how check-in works, where if you're late a few times by a few minutes or if you need late lights consistently, then [a conversation happens]. If you are consistently skipping assembly, make that a conversation,” Busser said. “But if you miss one assembly, you shouldn't be dicked for that.”

Reale also believed Assembly should not be mandatory. “I still stand by the idea that Assembly should not be required because the people that go will actually be interested,” Reale said. “There will be more engagement, and teachers won’t have to monitor so much.”

Williams House resident and senior Shalom Headly agreed. “If they were like, ‘Choose 10 assemblies you’d want to go through per term’ instead of making us go to every one, maybe it’d be better.”

In regards to the class rotation, Benson hopes to see a full community at the assembly. “From a person who’s never gone to a true assembly before, I wish I could see everyone in there together instead of being separated like we are now.”

Uwakwe proposed the return of a past attendance system. “[I remember] that other randomized [attendance check before COVID] where [Mr. Coole] would [walk on stage and be like] ‘OK, if you’re born in [this month, you are being checked]--I thought it was one way to be like, ‘Oh, who's getting dicked right now?’, but also, I think it was a funny moment.”

Taylor emphasized the significance of in-person assemblies after a virtual school year. “To me, one of the most poignant photos during COVID was the cover of the Summer 2020 Exeter Bulletin with Principal Rawson on stage in the Assembly Hall, all alone, being video-cast out to our community across the globe. We were apart and yet together. What we learned from COVID is how important it is to be together. The energy in an assembly cannot be recreated on Zoom. If nothing else the pandemic reinforced the importance of making a place in the cultural and literal heart of the campus where the students and faculty can come together for Assembly and these shared experiences,” Taylor said. “The energy of all the students and faculty together and the ritual of Assembly is something that has been, is, and I am sure will continue to be an important part of the Exeter experience for generations to come.”