Exeter to Hire Coordinators For Next Year

After encouragement from students and faculty, Exeter opened to faculty members the opportunity to fill part-time positions of LGBTQ+ Program Coordinator, Asian Student Program Coordinator and 9th Grade Program Coordinator for the 2018-19 school year.

Although the official job description for the LGBTQ+ Program Coordinator position will be released in a week, many community members have already expressed enthusiasm for the new position’s potential. “As one of the adults involved with Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA), I look forward to the possibilities that a focused position like this will bring for our LGBTQ+ students,” Reverend Heidi Heath said.

She believed that although LGBTQ+ students have “wonderful resources on campus,” there is still room for improvement. “I would identify a lack of LGBTQ+ adults of color on campus as a place for improvement, for example,” she said.

Lower Justin Li shared similar sentiments and hoped that the new coordinator will emphasize the numerous support options for LGBTQ+ students on campus. “The support is extensive, but it isn’t well advertised,” he said. “I don’t think that the school pushes these support systems to the students. I had to try very hard to find support systems for myself.”

Li added that this position would have a significant role for the community. “It’s necessary for the school to provide someone to be a liaison between the school and students. They can mentor them about LGBTQ+ life and the school specifically,” he said. 

Senior Katie Goyette hopes to see more administrative support for LGBTQ+ groups. “[I] don’t feel like the support we get is official. Ms. Lembo and other GSA advisers don’t get compensated for the additional work they do to support us,” they said. Considering the fact that not all parents are supportive of their child’s non-binary gender expression, Goyette also thinks that having an adviser to act as “a liaison to parents” is important. 

English Instructor Mercy Carbonell noted that although Exeter has made strides towards inclusion, “it is still a dominantly heteronormative institution.”

She added, “As one of only a very few Out adults, I can speak to how much our LGBTQ+ students want and need support. I have heard some say that this position shows that we still have so far to go in our acceptance of LGBTQ+ youth and people in our community.”

Lower Sam Park noted how having contact with the administration through a coordinator would strengthen ongoing efforts. “My efforts to improve gender-neutral spaces in athletic and academic buildings would be bolstered strongly by someone in the administration who would be able to present information and requests at a level that I as a student simply don’t have the access to,” she said. “We as students need to work with this great opportunity given to us to truly generate sustainable systemic change within campus life.”

An Asian Student Program Coordinator (ASC) will accompany the incoming LGBTQ+ Coordinator. In an email sent out to all faculty members, Dean of Students Melissa Mischke said the ASC will “promote understanding and awareness through co-curricular programming, engagement opportunities, leadership development and competency training for the experiences of Asian students.”

She added that the person selected for this position would “assist the Dean of Multicultural Affairs to ensure that [the] entire spectrum of Asian-identifying students are supported equitably by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and institutionally by Phillips Exeter Academy.”

The ASC will achieve this endeavor by serving as a faculty adviser to Asian heritage clubs on campus, along with organizing Asian celebrations and coordinating with the Associate Dean of Multicultural Affairs Hadley Camilus and the International Student Coordinator Jennifer Smith.

According to Camilus, “I don’t know who prompted this development...I know that Asian students have advocated for this position, especially those who are part of the affinity group Asian Voices (AV), and we talked about it in OMA. AV helped me understand what issues Asian students are facing so I could bring them to the table at OMA,” he explained.

In considering these new positions, the Principal’s Leadership Team first discussed the logistics. Then, Dean of Multicultural Affairs Sami Atif gathered faculty input for the specific job description. “I hope this person will be able to help our administrative team understand issues Asian students go through,” Camilus said.

English Instructor and Asian Advisory Board Instructor Wei-Ling Woo sees a lack of affirmation when it comes to Asian students’ experiences, which “manifests itself in all sorts of ways, big and small—from not seeing their experiences reflected in our curriculum to recognizing that Asian students, diverse as this population may be, have specific needs.”

Woo also recognized a problem in how current programming for Asian Students is managed by faculty, who are juggling many other responsibilities. “The creation of this role will allow someone to focus more on serving the needs of Asian students specifically, to interface more closely with OMA and to dedicate more time and resources to programming,” Woo said.

She also hopes that the coordinator will bring to campus the Asian American Footsteps Conference, a gathering for Asian American students who attend New England independent schools.

Mathematics Instructor Brandon Hew hopes that this new coordinator will serve as an advocate and “push the conversation in new ways,” by introducing new programming. “To bring it all under the same coordinator will, I think, help give a new focus and attention to this,” he said.

Sharing a similar perspective, lower Jasmine Liao is grateful that there will be someone to coordinate more activities that pertain to the Asian community, or incorporate Asian voices into existing events like MLK Day. “I think it is really beneficial to have one just so we can have a voice to be heard and have more of a presence on campus,” she said.

Araya Sornwanee, a postgraduate from Thailand, brought up the idea of implementing ALES’s model for an Asian society under the new coordinator’s guidance. “The adviser should also be able to lead discussions similarly to the ALES,” she said. “I hope the adviser would be able to connect with students, especially ‘new internationals.’ ”

Sornwanee elaborated on what she felt was a lack of support for students from predominantly Asian communities to transition to Exeter. “I believe that I need more support from the school to feel more included in this community...I sometimes feel that the CCO and the health center view Asian kids as academically talented but socially awkward,” she said.

Although the Academy has been trying to be more racially inclusive, Sornwanee expressed disappointment at how “the resources for creating that inclusive community seem to be limited to certain ethnicities.”

Lower Mia Kuromaru also voiced that an Asian student adviser is a crucial position on campus. She described her own difficulty with facing the stereotypical Asian image on campus. “The common misconception is that Asian or Asian American students are excelling in academics and therefore doing fine in school. An Asian student coordinator would understand our experiences and take them into account when advising us,” she said.

President of the 51st ALES Board and upper Rose Martin acknowledged the existence of “stigmas against Asian students and the debate about, whether they’re people of color or not,” which may have discouraged Asian Exonians from utilizing support from OMA.

Some community members, however, feel that the new ASC position would be hypocritical given the proposed position of Director of Equity and Inclusion (DEI). “I wish [the Asian student coordinator] position didn’t have to exist,” upper Daniel Kang said. “The need for that separate position indicates a deep, underlying disconnect between what the position of the DEI is supposed to do and what they will do.”

Camilus emphasized that hiring an Asian student coordinator does not mean that other OMA members are “passing the buck.” “It’s about satisfying needs as quickly as possible,” he said. “Students appreciate seeing a face in OMA who understands. This new person will open the doors to Asian students so they feel welcomed to use [OMA] as a resource,” he said.

At this time, details on the ninth grade coordinator were not available, but are expected to be released soon.