Campus Copes with September Heat Wave

Image courtesy of accuweather.com

By Erin Han, Maya Shah, Hugo Shinn, Kevin Thant, and Jade Yoo

During the first week of classes, temperatures reached highs of 93 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity was extreme as well. Students were crammed into a steaming Assembly Hall for multiple meetings, and with no air conditioning to cool the building, many resorted to fanning themselves with paper programs or wiping sweat on their clothes. Numerous students stated that the temperatures made for an uncomfortable experience. 

“I remember the discomfort everybody was feeling with the intense heat and lack of AC,” prep Artur Ferreira said. “Everybody was doing anything possible to cool down, and we were just waiting for the end of the meeting.” 

“I am used to New York getting hot, but the humidity here was terrible,” prep Shiloh French said. 

Many students were unsatisfied with how the administration handled the extreme heat and had suggestions on how the Academy could prevent future reoccurrences. “[There should be] more fans in the Assembly Hall,” lower Anne Wang said. “I think [the administration] could put fans in the Academy Building because some classrooms don’t have it.” 

French echoed Wang’s suggestions. “I feel that a better alternative is to have ceiling fans [installed] or more [actual] fans around the students. This would be less distracting than the [makeshift] paper fans.” 

Outside of the Assembly Hall and academic buildings, students reflected on the heat’s influence on residential spaces. Upper and Dunbar Hall resident Maya Clowes described a moment from the first week of classes: “I remember on the hottest day of that week I couldn’t fall asleep because it was so hot. I remember waking up the next morning in a hot fog. I was so disoriented that I was even late to class.” 

In response to the heat, the administration changed the schedule for the first two days of classes. Sports tryouts, opening assembly, and breakfast started earlier in the morning, when temperatures were slightly lower, and advisory scavenger hunts were canceled. Simultaneously, students and faculty have taken various steps to cope with the heat. “[I’ve] been wearing lots of summer clothes,” French said.

Lower Tamar Moskovich said she purchased mini fans at the school bookstore and attached them to her bag as an accessible device to help her deal with the temperatures. 

Other students have been making changes to their dorm rooms and daily habits as well. For instance, lower Clare McCann said, “My roommate and I put a fan in our room [and always make sure] to keep the window shades closed. We also got a fridge in our room, and we keep a lot of cool drinks in there.” 

“Sometimes we’ll just take the bottles out at night and just [put them] on our necks [to cool off],” McCann added. 

Other students, like Clowes, found taking multiple showers a day was a helpful strategy. 

Wang said she and her roommate “originally had one fan in [their] room but had to get two more right after [they] moved in” due to the heat. To maximize the use of his fans, Ferreira also shared a useful strategy he took up: “I open[ed] the window and put a fan in front of it. This allowed the cooler air at night to flow into the room. I also kept another fan on throughout the entire day.” 

Faculty also shared their methods to cope with the heat. “The classrooms were pretty toasty. We deployed some extra fans, which helped a little, but we found the most effective remedy was to not think about it,” Mathew Hartnett, Chair of the Department of Classical Languages, said. 

These are the ways that the Exeter community has dealt with the heat thus far, but none are permanent solutions to complications created by temperatures in the hotter months of the year. 

Johnny Griffith, Dean of Student Health and Wellness, acknowledged the issue and stated that the Academy made its best efforts to make the community comfortable. “The school did what it could,” he said. “We have old buildings that aren’t air-conditioned, and the heat and climate change have impacted us.” 

When asked whether renovations will soon come to the Assembly Hall, Dean Griffith said, “The school plans to add air conditioning for that space. It’s a very expensive project and is long in planning.” 

The unseasonably warm weather during the first week of classes reflects the untraditional weather patterns plaguing the East Coast amidst growing climate change. As Mr. Hartnett said, “It [really] is hard to know what is typical anymore.”