Kathy Brownback, outgoing dean of students and religion instructor, with Ethan Shapiro, incoming dean of students and modern languages instructor.

Kathy Brownback, outgoing dean of students, knows (really knows) what it's like to be part of an independent secondary school community. Not only has she lived and worked in the Exeter community for 13 years, she is herself an alumna of a private secondary school-Emma Willard, in Troy, New York. "I am the person I am today because of faculty who challenged me in different conversations and pushed me," Brownback emphasizes in discussing her own experience.

Kathy's personal insight into secondary school communities has been a boon to the Academy Life Task Force, a group of trustees and faculty charged with evaluating and improving faculty and student life outside of the classroom. The group is particularly interested in finding ways to facilitate a greater sense of connection between adults and students in dormitories, on the playing fields and through extracurricular activities. The task force is also studying how students are supported in their intellectual and emotional maturation at the Academy, and ways such growth might be reinforced.

The Human Moment
Kathy is emphatic about the need for quality faculty-student interaction and more of it. "Adults are so significant in the lives of students," she says. "Students look to adults on campus for guidance in ways that they wouldn't necessarily admit and sometimes don't even realize. They have a huge need for time with adults that they respect-a real need to have faculty see them for who they are and who they would like to become. The more we can find time for faculty-student interaction, the more likely we are to call out the best in our students." She adds, "Girls and boys this age want to be a part of teenage culture, but they also want something more."

Commencement 2001

As part of its work, the task force has examined the best practices of 17 peer schools (predominantly residential) of various sizes and styles. The task force studied how schools similar to Exeter are actively encouraging and facilitating connection between students and faculty, including comprehensive orientation programs, faculty "teams" who assist one another in advising the students in their care, all-school outings, and using mealtimes as points of connection.

In addition to looking beyond the Exeter community for ideas, the Academy Life Task Force looked inward, studying student and faculty experiences of Exeter, as well as parents' perspectives on their own and their children's experiences. In order for faculty to be able to connect more frequently and meaningfully with advisees and other students, certain shifts, some subtle and some less so, will need to occur internally at Exeter. The work of the Academy Life Task Force has been to identify and prioritize these shifts.

Creating Time for Connection
A top priority, says Kathy, will be to make faculty more available and accessible to students. She is frank in describing the current situation: "Faculty who teach four courses, coach varsity athletics, supervise dormitories and have families of their own have too much to do." Reviewing best practices at other secondary schools has helped confirm for the Academy Life Task Force that redistributing workloads and improving the advisor/advisee ratio would go a long way toward allowing faculty to dedicate more time and energy to fewer students, thereby creating deeper connections.

Increased student interaction would not be the sole benefit of adjusting faculty workload. Greater faculty-parent communication would also be a positive result. Says Kathy, "Faculty don't have nearly as much history with the kids as their parents do. But we see our students in the context of other students here-in the classroom, in the dormitory, in athletics, music, drama and many other student activities- so we have a lot to share with parents and vice versa."

Taking a breather between classes

Improved Living Spaces
A second major priority distilled by the Academy Life Task Force is the need to enhance or create better faculty and student living spaces. Using the highly successful Cilley renovation as a prototype, recommendations include creating better common areas in each residence hall for congenial gathering, adding game rooms for recreation and renovating residence halls to include small kitchens. Kathy describes it as making the residence halls "more homey." The Cilley renovation, which occurred between June and September of 2000, reduced the number of boys living in that residence hall to a total of 48 from a pre-renovation size of approximately 60.

These renovations would also improve faculty housing, which has been identified by the Academy Life Task Force as an important component of student/faculty interaction. According to Russell Weatherspoon, religion instructor, incoming dean of residential life and former Cilley dorm head, better living spaces will help fight residence hall turnover, which in turn gives students the comfort and continuity of ongoing faculty relationships. Kathy agrees, noting that faculty will be more inclined to stay in one residence from year to year if the apartments are rehabilitated. This, she says, allows faculty to "really get to know their advisees and see them evolve over a four-year period, which is one of the great joys of working with students in this way."

Getting Centered
Another project that is central to improving campus life is the Academy Campus Center. The Center, still in the design phase, will be housed in a renovated Thompson Science Building and is expected to make a huge impact on the community as a central gathering place for disparate activities and people. A revamped Grill will be housed there, as will a relocated Post Office. Day students will have their own lounge and study space. Clubs and organizations will be provided with ample room for meetings and projects. Perhaps most importantly, the Academy Campus Center will be a place for students to connect with one another and with faculty-to let off steam and have fun.

Students enjoy a beautiful day on the quad

Sharing Meals and Ideas
A final goal of the Academy Life Task Force is to improve the Academy's dining halls. As the Academy's population has grown, Elm Street and Wetherell have become stretched to their limits in terms of capacity and efficiency. The crowded entryways and traffic patterns that have come to symbolize the Exeter dining experience are an impediment to connection and will require the Academy to determine how best to accommodate students, faculty and the dining services staff.

Ultimately, it is hoped that the changes proposed by the Academy Life Task Force will make for a stronger community at Exeter, one that encourages student-faculty and student-student connectedness and support. The major challenge, notes Kathy, is the cost associated with this type of cultural shift-including the cost of renovation and the resources it will take if more faculty are hired to redistribute the current workload. As the Academy Life Task Force looks at ways of implementing changes in a cost-effective manner, the community will once again turn outward, to its loyal alumni/ae and parents, to seek the resources that will enhance connections and make life outside the classroom as outstanding as Exeter's academic life.

"The students and faculty most likely to thrive at Exeter are those who are connected to one another. The 'human moment' is often an opportunity to engage in a 'teaching moment.' " -from the Academy Life Task Force report