To Wait and See

Principal Hassan is retiring, we are searching for the 15th principal in 230+ years, and students are not giving their opinions to what the qualities of the next principal should be. At Exonian writer’s meetings, the writers are hesitant to take articles and op-eds about the principal and the principal search committee—the editors remind us every week how revolutionary and important this change is, how much we want to be a part of this chapter in Exeter’s history. But in thinking about the new principal, I really don’t have an opinion, and judging from the tiny number of students attending the search committee meetings, neither do many other Exonians. But I have also realized this—I don’t know what the principal does.The principal’s change in campus life is not something I am able to observe; I couldn’t tell you what he’s doing, what the people on his staff are doing. I know that he gives us ice cream for free sometimes, and that he did little about the decision to make students buy iPads despite negative reactions of faculty and students, but other than that, his work is behind the scenes of student life. I am not aware of the decisions he makes or of what exactly he is in charge.So, I don’t really know what I want the new principal to do for our campus, because I don’t know what the principal does for our campus. Now, I could be the only student on campus who has no idea what the principal’s job is, but the majority of students I have talked to don’t seem to know either. The only exceptions are of the students who go to StuCo and the students whose parent(s) work with the principal directly. How are we supposed to know what we want from the principal and meet with the committee with our ideas if we aren’t sure what those ideas should even be about?I have some very vague ideas of what I want in the principal, but these are really just things I think Exeter needs to work on in general. The first is that I think the principal should be more open to arts and following the lead of Andover and Governor’s in expanding our arts program. Second, I think the Principal should be able to better represent the minority groups and women on campus. But these ideas are not fleshed out enough for me to bring them to the committee, and on top of that I don’t think I would be able to find time to do it. Exeter provides us with demanding schedules, and it is very hard anyways to squeeze extra things in.As much as it should be, the new principal is not very high on my priorities list.All of this is not to say that students should not be involved in the search, that we should not be thinking about it or that it is not a significant or important part of Exeter. This decision will change a lot of aspects of Exeter and Exonians’ lives, I just think that Exonians do not have the knowledge or time to be large contributors in this change. Of course, at Exeter we seem to always be trying out the hard and challenging, and hopefully more of us will attempt to take this challenge under our wing along with our physics homework, history papers, debate club preparations and adventures to the faraway land of Las Olas. Maybe all we can do is wait and see.