Dear Exeter

By Maxine Park, Evan Gonzalez, Manan Mendiratta

Dear Exeter,

We are very excited to introduce Dear Exeter, a series created by The Exonian’s Opinion Editors and inspired by previous research conducted by Exeter’s Sheth Participatory Action Research Collaborative (SPARC). In this weekly series, students from all backgrounds in our community will share personal reflections on how their complex identities inform their experience at the Academy. 

SPARC is a research consortium organized by the University of Pensylvania’s Graduate School of Education in collaboration with independent schools across the US, which seeks to inspire cultural and policy change through research-based student action. The past few years, the Exeter SPARC teams have chosen to study the presence, impact, and causes of the burden of representation at the Academy.

The burden of representation, as defined by the 2018-2019 SPARC team, “is a pressure one feels to represent a whole group simply because they share an identity.” Analysis of the 2018-2019 data reveals that the burden of representation, while it manifests differently across different disciplines, is a deeply-ingrained aspect of Exeter Harkness culture. The research suggests that this burden is not only a source of stress to students, but also forces students to feel the need to “cover” their identities, or “tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream.” This cultural issue was found to be further exacerbated by the fact that “boundaries are porous between in-class and out-of-class spaces and relationships.” 

Through Dear Exeter, we seek to address the cultural origins of the burden of representation outside the classroom. We believe that the burden of representation can only begin to diminish once our community acknowledges its raw, unfiltered reality. Critically, this acknowledgment must extend beyond the classroom with the recognition that our community is both academic and residential. 

Each week, we will elevate student perspectives that will illuminate critical issues of identity at the Academy. They will share reflections on their identity and how this identity has affected and shaped their Exeter experience. Through their pieces, these writers seek to alleviate the burden of representation by speaking about it directly and indirectly, sharing their perspective and experiences to help the community become more proximate with different identities. As the research suggests, this proximity may help dismantle the cultural stereotypes outside of the classroom from which the burden of representation emerges in the classroom.

It is critical to recognize, however, that these students do not represent the groups of which they are a part. Each shared identity is colored by the unique experiences of each individual; this series seeks to shed light on this color by elevating individual experiences with the recognition that each identity is complex, multi-faceted and evolving. 

We appreciate these students’ courage to speak authentically and vulnerably about their identity and experiences. We hope their reflections will inspire introspection, curiosity and compassion. Ultimately, our community must learn to embrace its differences without allowing those differences to divide us.

—The Exonian Opinion Editors;

Maxine Park, Evan Gonzalez, Manan Mendiratta

If you would like to learn more about this series or are interested in sharing your story, please contact Maxine Park (mpark@exeter.edu).