Even after setting up rules and expectations in the dorm, enforcing all the rules all the time is not always practical or even possible. Says history instructor Ron Kim, dorm head in Ewald South, "I rely tremendously on the students to do the right thing. Most of the time they do, and I don't think I'm naïve in thinking that's what they do. But I couldn't do this job otherwise."

Hitting the books at Webster Hall Jeffrey Ho '02, Bill Truelove '02, Max Cohen '02

Dorm proctors can face similar issues. "The role of proctor is an extremely difficult one," says Kim, "and students underestimate how hard it will be. Proctors have to balance being friends and authority figures, and there can be a social price for erring on the side of being an authority." But, he adds, "proctors can be very influential in ways that we, as faculty, aren't always aware of." Weatherspoon has been working to expand and improve the training available for proctors in the dorms. In addition to the standard workshops at the beginning of the year, the dean's office has added a spring gathering to talk in broad terms about the responsibilities of the position and small-group sessions once a term throughout the coming year. "The goal," Weatherspoon says, "is to build a larger proctor community, so that individuals can see themselves as being among others with similar responsibilities, stresses and questions."

But everyone agrees that the most difficult times in the dorm revolve around discipline. "Good kids and good faculty don't necessarily mean there won't be problems in your dorm," says Shapiro. Keeble says running a dorm means constantly letting the students know what the limits are and encouraging them not to put themselves at risk. "When someone breaks a major rule, your whole life changes for a week," she says. "It's stressful time for everyone." This is when dorm staff need adequate support. Says Weatherspoon, "It's important to help the people who are helping people."

Day Students-The Only Coed Dorm

Of course, Exeter is not exclusively a boarding community. Day Student Program Coordinator Jan Trueman like to say that "day students live in the largest and only coed dorm on campus." Trueman is in charge of, among other things, organizing special day student events such as a Saturday brunch in the fall, a holiday ice cream party and Yankee swap, a "beat the midwinter blues" pizza party and a spring "dorm" cookout.

The 199 day students who make up nearly 20 percent of the student body (and who spend up to 14 hours a day on campus) are "housed" in two locations in the Davis Student Center-the basement "prep pit" and the central common area (lowers)-and on the second floor of the library (uppers and seniors). In fact, there is no space large enough for all the day students to congregate, a problem that will be addressed by the proposed Academy Center, and each of the current locations has its problems: space, noise, and librarians bent on keeping order just when students are ready to take a break. Nevertheless, senior class president Christen Decker '03, says, "Although the prep pit is infamous for rusty pipes, old furniture and general cavelike feeling, I think the small space forced us to really bond. And although it is difficult to be quiet all of the time, we found ways to make the library our home and refuge from the rest of campus."

Snow angels Sarah Long '03, Jocelyn Potthoff '03, Mary Harding '03, Liz McKee '03

Student council president Tyler Goodspeed '03, a day student who lives fairly close to campus, likes knowing he has a quiet home to go to and a stocked refrigerator, but he chooses to stay on campus during his free time, including on weekends. When he came to the Academy with 10 or 12 other new preps from the Exeter school system, Goodspeed imagined that they would be a tight group for their four years here, but things have turned out otherwise. While he has day student friends, many of his closest friends over the years have been boarders. "I think it is the nature of the Academy to stimulate reaching out," he says, "in the dorms, in the classrooms, through extracurricular activities." This is the first year that both the student council president and the president of the senior class are day students.

Without the dorm as a common living space, it can be harder for day students to connect with faculty outside the classroom. "It wasn't until I became both the parent of day students and the day student coordinator-after leaving the dorm-that I realized the extent to which it's possible for day students to get lost in the shuffle," says Lawrence Smith. Lacking the practical advantage of living in the dorm with advisees who must check in at certain hour, he and other day student advisers have lunch with their advisees in the dining hall every other week as a way to touch base and let the students know that someone is keeping an eye on them. Smith also joins other day student advisers and their advisees for Residential Life Day so the students can bond with a more substantial group. While conceding that the day student experience can't exactly emulate the whole boarding experience, Smith would like to see more opportunities for the kind of group bonding experiences that boarding students have.

Beginnings and Endings

What Exeter students learn in the dorm can inspire them to give the best of themselves coming into new situations and to leave the best of themselves when they go. Flora MacIvor '03 wrote the following just before the start of school: "One day last winter, when I passed a friend on the path, she asked me where I was going. Without a second thought I told her I was going 'home.' She gave me a very confused look, and I realized that she assumed I meant I was going to Ohio, back to my parents. This had never even occurred to me; to me, Bancroft is home in every sense of the word. This is where I spend the majority of my year, where I can stay up all night on Saturday watching DVD's in the TV room with 13 other girls, where I can share clothes and laundry detergent and advice. I am looking forward to becoming a proctor in Bancroft, and I see this as an opportunity to take a bigger role in my home, to help out, to connect the faculty and the students. There is nothing that I would like to do more than that."

Micheal Somersel '03, on the other hand, looks toward the end of the year to "the final and most meaningful Cilley dorm experience. The night before the last school day, we all gather at 11 p.m. to walk to the stadium, where we group together in the darkness that stretches into the woods. Finding warmth in each other, we come closer around the only light in the stadium, a flame from a white candle. Slowly, amidst the pensive silence, the seniors rise one by one, taking up the candle from its holder on the ground. Candle in hand, each senior gives to the returning students his final words of wisdom. These are words of encouragement, words born out of concern, love and the hope that those returning may experience Exeter to some greater capacity than they had been capable of attaining. This distinguishing ritual is something that we all look forward to participating in our senior year. However, we look forward hesitantly, knowing that this marks the end of a chapter of our lives."

Religion instructor Betsey Farnham left Wentworth last year after 13 years of dorm service. She has lots of memories, but she especially loves it when a student who graduated two, three, 10 years ago, who just "happened to be in Exeter," drops by to say hello. "I was very afraid that would happen after we left the dorm and we wouldn't be there," she says. "So I put up a little sign next to our old door announcing that we had moved to 74 Front Street-just in case somebody came along and didn't know. I wouldn't want to miss any of them."

A past member of the Bulletin staff, Laura Chisholm has written cover stories on Hammy Bissell (Spring 2001) and the Concert Choir (Summer 2000).