A Privilege, Not a Right

Assembly Hall was near-empty on Tuesday. It would be cockamamy to call this an abnormality; over the course of the year, attendance at one of the Academy’s longest-standing traditions has only decreased. We must change what has become a systemic antagonism towards the hand that feeds—and has indeed fed—the student body.

Amongst eager prospective students, current Exonians did not hesitate to cut off Dr. Khalid Shah with mocking chuckles and splatters of slipshod applause as he began to wrap up his talk. To dick Assembly is one thing; to be actively rowdy during a potentially alluring event of Experience Exeter week is another one entirely. As a student body, we have incessantly demonstrated an un-Exonian, blatant lack of respect, both for speakers on stage and for any visitors who have taken days or weeks out of their schedules to travel here.

We are lucky enough already to attend an institution that invests time and money to bring educated and interesting individuals to our high school campus. And yet, many members of our community think it fit to squander the opportunity. Speakers introduce to us new topics, information and experiences to which we would otherwise have no access.

To attend Assembly is a privilege, not a right. To dismiss that privilege is to waste the enormous resources that the Academy allots to pay for these qualified, experienced speakers.

“Senioritis” and homework are unacceptable excuses to dick assembly. The ongoing dip in attendance does not appear to be unique to any particular grade: a shame, as upperclassmen should take it upon themselves to set a good example for their younger counterparts. Empty seats are in abundance both downstairs and on the balconies.

Those of you who were here last school year—and actually attended Assembly—may remember the 2014 John Phillips Award ceremony. At one point in his heartful, redolent speech, Milton Heath Jr. ’45 suffered from a memory lapse. He repeated his words in song, and was met with badly-suppressed laughter from his alma mater.

Time after time, speakers are rewarded with dangling legs, texting students, prematurely-zipped bags. These are abuses proportional to no conceivable action on the part of our visitors, all of whom demonstrate goodwill by coming to our campus. Retrospectively, their messages have been received and appreciated. Exeter alumni have continually testified the experiential utility of their Assembly attendances.

It is to the student body to realize the veritable council that is Assembly, a council in the advisorial sense. It is not, as some students have deluded, the responsibility of our school to incentivize these occasions. Attendance is its own incentive, a fact many of us have failed to understand. And doubly offensive is the justification maintained by a particularly un-incentivized group of students, that by virtue of Assembly not entertaining them, it should warrant their disrespect.