Making Your Mark

Two places this ’95er knows for a fact his name still endures. One, a deep slashing carving on Ms. Carbonell’s Harkness table, which my nephew accidentally found a few years back while sitting in my old seat, and which I’ve personally verified. Then another, in Sharpie, inside a desk drawer that formerly lived on the second floor of Webster but is now in the basement of Phillips Hall, discovered accidentally by my own son, now a lower, just this past year.
John Tsien ’95

English class. Mr. Kane’s Harkness table was COVERED with carvings. It was magnificent. The one that always caught my attention (it was like the John Hancock of that table): Citizen Kane.
David Nitzschke ’93

The rafters of Fisher Theater. 😔 Also, if my memory is correct, John Kane encouraged us to sign his Harkness table.
Anne Pinard ’99

I have a pic of my name carved into a pull-out desk that I found at our last reunion, but I know that I carved it into many desks, on many tables across many buildings, at least one next to my brother Tim’s ’79. I guess I was a secret vandal! 🤣
Libby Nunez Houghton ’93

It was fun to see my name (along with my crewmates’) up in the rafters of the Saltonstall Boathouse when we returned for our 25th reunion in 2023. Making hype banners and posters was a highlight of racing season and was one of the many things that made us feel like we were part of a larger and longer tradition.
Katie Edwards ’98

My roommate and I wrote our names in glow-in-the-dark nail polish in our prep year dorm room. You could only see them when the lights were off. Leah Kotok ’97

So many initials were carved in the branches of that magnificent tree that once stood in front of the library. It was fondly known as the FacBrat Tree, since generations of facbrats had climbed it and left their mark.
Brian Morgan ’88 (Hon.)

Fisher Theater’s stairwell! I can’t post a photo in the comments, but that’s the one I’ll remember the most.
Stephanie Wachter ’12

Responses originally shared via email or on social media.

From the Editor
Exonians have long been challenged to leave their mark at the Academy — and some have taken that charge more literally than others. When contractors tore down walls and pulled up floors during the Academy Building’s current renovation, they found that dozens of students from the 1960s had scrawled their names or initials on support beams during an earlier makeover.

A beloved European beech tree on the library lawn — cut down in 2017 — bore hundreds of initials of those who spent a century climbing its trunk and limbs. For those courageous Exonians who owned up for this article, thank you. The Dean of Students office would like a word.