So when Principal Ty Tingley arrived at Exeter in 1997, says Steve Kushner, one thing he kept hearing from faculty members was that the time for a major review of the curriculum had come. Explains Ellen Wolff, "And given the extent to which the world had changed since 1985, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to reflect deliberately on the work we do with our students."

Preparations for the Curriculum Review project began in the winter of 2000 when the Curriculum Committee (a standing faculty committee distinct from the Curriculum Review Committee) began work on "A Design for the Review of the Curriculum." This design deliberately, and significantly, transformed the faculty into students. It was important, the Curriculum Committee felt, for the faculty to learn together, as a community, to open up questions it might wish to consider and address.

The Curriculum Review Committee and its study groups were appointed in the spring of 2001, and spent the balance of that school year establishing their working protocols and immersing themselves in an ambitious reading list, including such works as Schools That Learn, by Peter Senge; Horace's School, by Theodore Sizer; and The Disciplined Mind, by Howard Gardner.

During the 2001-02 school year, the committee-far from sequestering itself in a remote corner of the campus-organized five conversations about teaching and learning for the entire faculty that built on assigned readings. One faculty meeting, for example, focused on a chapter entitled "The Industrial Age System of Education," from Senge's Schools That Learn. In it, Senge, a professor at MIT, argues that "school may be the starkest example in modern society of an institution modeled after the assembly line," from its structural organization to the standardization of process and product. Other meetings addressed such topics as recent neuroscientific findings, including research on optimal learning states; John Dewey's distinction between progressive and traditional education; and the impact of technology and globalization on education.

Following these presentations, faculty members gathered in small groups to discuss what they had read and to relate it to the Exeter educational experience. Each session closed with"end-writes," in which teachers summarized their own thinking about the topic and explored the implications of their discussions. These end-writes were returned to the Curriculum Review Committee, which read and digested them, and then summarized them in reports delivered back to the faculty. This process of reading, discussing and writing, Wolff explains, gives the committee a window onto "what faculty members are thinking about the issue at hand. In this way, each faculty member is helping to determine the areas of inquiry we explore and to define the questions we ask once we get there. We're trying to make this an inclusive and collaborative endeavor."

The Curriculum Review Committee Guiding the Curriculum Review are committee members (left to right) Kathy Nekton, Tom Ramsey (seated), Ellen Wolff, Sarah Ream '75, Mark Delaney, Brad Robinson (seated), Steve Kushner, Elena Eguia (seated). Missing: Ron Kim. Behind every successful curriculum review is a hard-working committee up to its eyebrows in facts, figures and findings, and Exeter's current Curriculum Review Committee is no exception. Appointed during the winter of 2001 by Principal Ty Tingley and Director of Studies Steve Kushner (in consultation with Dean of Faculty Barbara Eggers), the nine-member committee has spent the past two years, including summers, living and breathing the review process. Drawn from eight different academic departments, the committee includes: . Ellen Wolff, the Academy's Eleanor Gwin Ellis Instructor who is serving as the committee's chair. Wolff joined the English department in 1995, and is resident faculty in Dunbar Hall. . Steve Kushner, the Michael V. Forrestal '45 Professor and the Academy's director of studies. He has been a member of the music department since 1987. . Mark Delaney, a member of the English department since 1987 and dorm head of Main Street South. . Elena Eguia, a member of the modern languages department since 1999 and resident faculty in Wentworth Hall. . Ron Kim, the Charles and Mary Chase Stone Instructor in the Humanities and a member of the history department since 1994, as well as dorm head of Ewald Hall South. . Kathy Nekton, a member of the physical education department since 1973 and a past director of athletics. . Tom Ramsey, a member of the religion department since 1998 and dorm head of Hoyt Hall. . Sarah Ream '75, acting chair of the drama department and dorm head of Knight House, who joined the PEA faculty in 1997. . Brad Robinson, a member of the science department since 1988. During the summer of 2003, following two years of faculty-wide research and discussion, the committee will draft a preliminary report that the faculty will consider during the fall of 2003. The committee will then incorporate findings from the faculty and write a final report affirming the present curriculum's strengths and articulating proposals for change. The faculty will vote on any proposed changes during the spring of 2004, with implementation of the next curriculum scheduled for the fall of 2005.