Robert Connor: A Heart Set on Change

Senior Robert Conner has his finger on the pulse of community and justice. During the past four years of his time at Exeter, Conner has shared his irreplaceable sense of energy and confidence with Exonians and has worked tirelessly to spread awareness of the injustices that pervade our society. As the co-head of several clubs, the vice president of Student Council and a friend to countless students, Conner has been an inspiring and admirable member of the Academy.Conner has always been an activist. When he arrived at the Academy, he adjusted to the culture of Exeter immediately and looked for ways to bring about change.Conner took his first opportunity to shape the Exeter community during his prep year when his friends encouraged him to run for prep rep. After a year of service, Connor realized that he and his fellow Student Council members possessed the power to bring about serious change on campus. Since then, he has consistently served as a representative of the class of 2015, developing important leadership qualities.Senior Sabrina Movitz said that she recognized Conner’s ability to lead as soon as she met him. She emphasized Conner’s passion and drive, qualities which are admired by his peers.“Robert is a leader in a lot of ways; he's friendly, he's organized, he's passionate, and he really cares what people around him have to say and listens to them,” Movitz said. “Exeter is really lucky to have him.”His upper spring, Conner decided to take his role in the community one step further. He ran for the Student Council vice president. Despite the competition he faced, Conner successfully won the election. Since the election, Conner said that he has been utilizing this new position to represent all four grades of Exeter and has used his class representative experiences to guide the class reps of every grade.“I chose to run for vice president by making the campaign promise to use my experience as a three year class rep to act as a sort of advisor for all the class reps in all the grades,” Conner said. “That way I would help strengthen the role of class reps so that all Exeter students could be in a class where their class reps would have a source of advice that stemmed from experience while still being able to lead their class in their own and fun original events.”Lower Kelvin Green saw Robert’s strong influence as vice president during the multiple StuCo meetings of the year. Green noted that Conner’s ability to switch from a serious mentality to a humorous one comes naturally to him and is reinforced by his determination.“I can tell that he is very serious during Student Council,” Green said. “Even when I try to look at him and make him laugh, he will tell me that he has to be professional at that moment. He is always very focused in what he is trying to do and what he is trying to accomplish.”Senior class President Stephanie Chen, who served as one of the upper reps with Conner, emphasized that Student Council has been a central aspect of Conner’s Exeter career.“Student Council exemplifies his strive for a better Exeter and the change he would like to see around the world,” Chen said. “Robert can make anyone laugh and he loves to find the best in people. It's characteristics like these that make Robert such a great leader to have at Exeter.”Apart from his work with StuCo on campus, Conner took advantage of the off-campus opportunities StuCo provided. He participated in the StuCo summer fellow program and traveled to Thailand to research the experiences and stories of refugees resettling in Thailand and Myanmar.Science instructor Alison Hobbie said that Conner’s dedication in his project shone through the assembly talk he presented last year. She also added, “every year we have an assembly. Only two speak at assembly and he was one of them. He is running the program this year. He did a beautiful job on both his research and his assembly talk last year. I am glad to be working with him again.”Along with Student Council, Robert is also involved in a variety of other clubs on campus. He has been part of Gender and Sexuality Alliance, Amnesty International, Journalism for Human Rights and the Multi-Racial Exonian Society. As co-head of all these clubs, Conner has not only been reminding the Academy community of the injustices that preside in our society, but has also been working tirelessly to bring actual change with the work he does.“I would describe my extracurricular roles as a person both on and off campus as activities that are all devoted to the ideals of enacting positive change,” Conner said. “On campus, I devote my time to promoting issues of social awareness and embedment of our understand of peoples rights in ways that young people, students can perform actions and become activists.”Religion instructor Tom Simpson, who taught Conner in his Religion and Pop Culture class, advised Conner with his summer fellowship project and led him in various clubs, said that Conner’s passion as an activist was evident in the classroom as well as in Joint-Schools Human Rights Conferences.“He really distinguished himself as an articulate and thoughtful commentator on cultural trends,” Simpson said. “Soon after that, he was a really important—and the youngest—member of a group from Exeter that participated in a human rights conference at Andover.”Simpson added that Conner’s ardor and effort will be pivotal for him as he progresses forward from Exeter.“That curiosity, warmth of spirit and infectious sense of humor will serve him, and the people around him, so well as he goes forward in life.”