Exeter, NH (March 28, 2007)—Phillips Exeter Academy will host Lincoln Caplan ’68, managing partner of SeaChange Capital Partners, in its yearlong celebration of Harkness on April 1–3, 2007. SeaChange Capital Partners is a new, nonprofit finance firm that aims to match outstanding nonprofit organizations involved in youth education and development with generous donors engaged in innovative philanthropy. Caplan is also a visiting fellow at the Whitney Humanities Center of Yale University. As the Academy’s 12th Harkness Fellow, he will address the student assembly on the intersection of public service and Harkness. He will also visit with history, English and combined Law and American Society classes, and discuss the history of constitutional law. These events are not open to the public.

Caplan graduated from Exeter in 1968, and earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College in 1972. He attended Cambridge University in England as a Harvard Scholar, and earned a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1976.

His work has focused on public affairs and how the different sectors in our society—public, private and nonprofit—address the most pressing American concerns. After law school, he clerked for the chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, worked as a management consultant for The Boston Consulting Group, Inc., and served as a White House Fellow. From 1980 until last year, he worked as an author, journalist and teacher.

Caplan is the author of five books: Up Against the Law: Affirmative Action and the Supreme Court; Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire; An Open Adoption; The Tenth Justice: The Solicitor General and the Rule of Law; and The Insanity Defense and the Trial of John W. Hinckley, Jr.

He has also been a staff writer for The New Yorker and for The New Republic, and has written for many other newspapers and magazines. In addition to legal issues, he has also reported on architecture, business, economics, jazz, philanthropy, sports and other topics. He has also been an editor at U.S. News & World Report, where he supervised U.S. News Online and the magazine’s special projects about education and other topics.

From 1998–2006, Caplan was the Knight Senior Journalist at Yale Law School. He taught nonfiction writing there and in the English Department of Yale University. He was also the founding editor and president of Legal Affairs magazine. It was launched in 2002 and was published six times a year until 2006, when it was a finalist for two National Magazine Awards—for general excellence and for public interest. The magazine maintains its archives as a website at http://www.legalaffairs.org/.

Caplan’s writing has earned a range of awards: a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative ability in the arts; a Pope Foundation Award for outstanding accomplishments in investigative journalism; and a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for outstanding public service, among others. He is on the editorial board of The American Scholar, and on the advisory board of the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Washington, D.C. He is also a trustee of Hopkins School in New Haven, CT, and a fellow of Yale’s Davenport College.
                                                                            
Harkness teaching and learning began 75 years ago with an educational experiment that placed 12 students and one teacher around an oval table, and remains the hallmark of Exeter’s educational philosophy to this day. Philanthropist Edward Harkness, Principal Lewis Perry and a group of senior faculty together transformed almost every aspect of school life and influenced secondary school education throughout the country. The Harkness plan offers a generous opportunity for dialogue and the ability to hear the voice of each student. The Harkness table places students at the center of the learning process and encourages them to learn from one another.

For the rest of the school year, lectures, exhibitions and visits from a distinguished group of Harkness Fellows will be a part of the celebration for this historic Harkness milestone. Many of the featured guests are alumni/ae, who will each spend several days on campus attending classes, meeting with students and faculty, and giving talks.

For more information, please call Rick Schubart at (603) 777-3589. For directions to Phillips Exeter Academy, call (603) 777-4330. For more information on other events, contact the Phillips Exeter Academy public events line at (603) 777-4309, or visit the Academy website at http://www.exeter.edu/.

Learn more about other events associated with the Harkness 75th Anniversary Celebration

Phillips Exeter Academy is a coeducational, independent preparatory school that was founded in 1781 and originated the system of instruction known as Harkness teaching in 1931. In the spirit of its charter to foster both goodness and knowledge, students come from a wide variety of geographic, economic, racial and religious backgrounds. The diverse student body comes from approximately 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and 26 foreign countries.