As the global community celebrated Earth Day, the Academy took the day to “pause, step outside and connect” with local ecosystems and our place within them, says Patrick Kelly, an instructor in the Religion, Ethics and Philosophy Department and the school’s sustainability education coordinator. Kelly designed this April’s Climate Action Day programming and urged the student body at a brief assembly to “slow down, recalibrate and reconsider ourselves” as parts of the surrounding natural world.
Before scattering across southern New Hampshire and nearby Massachusetts and Maine, the students were reminded by Principal Bill Rawson ’71 that Climate Action Day is one way the Academy lives up to the goals of its Sustainability and Climate Action Plan. The plan, adopted in 2023, aims in part to “ensure that every student graduates from Exeter with a fun-damental understanding of the principles of sustainability and the issues posed by climate change.”
Split up by advisory groups, some stu-dents took a crash course in aquaponics at the University of New Hampshire or vis-ited a fishermen’s collective in the Boston Seaport. Others fed goats or did plantings to block nutrient runoff from entering the Exeter River. Most simply took a walk in the woods, soaking in the outdoors while dozens of Harkness tables around campus were given the day off.
The Class of 1964 Sustainability Prize
Created and endowed by members of the class of 1964 during their 60th reunion
last spring, this new award is to be given annually to three to four students who
have made outstanding contributions toward achieving the goals set forth in
the Academy’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, or who have otherwise promoted the principles of sustainability and environmental stewardship at the Academy. Xavier Chang ’25, Erin Chen ’25 and Adam Tang ’25 received the inaugural honor at Prize Assembly in June.
