We want to facilitate community outreach to foster amicable relationships with townspeople and local businesses. By delving into discussion regarding the PEA community and how we can positively represent the academy, we hope to nurture mutual camaraderie and further rapport. Townspeople are sometimes wary of the PEA student body, and through Exeter's commitment to encouraging respect and amity, we hope to use this CVP to bring together ideas and create change in our community.
The goal of this project is to provide students the opportunity to expand their knowledge of software development, collaborate and learn from their fellow students, and create an application that has a real impact on the Exeter community. We will teach project participants about the concepts necessary to build applications from scratch. This project brings knowledge to all, regardless of background, and ensures equality in education.
In past years in the Economics for Empowerment CVP, we have analyzed case studies of both developing and developed nations to bring light to various economic issues. Some example topics have included brain drain, the gender pay gap, financial access, wealth inequality, public debt, and aging populations. With each topic, we look at potential policy solutions that can empower marginalized communities toward economic independence. These topics fit well with Exeter's core values, particularly of non sibi, because we are taking aspects of traditional economics curricula and rather than leaving them at theory, finding ways to put them into practice to positively impact the lives of those who are often left behind by today's economic systems. By focusing on actionable solutions, we aim to bridge the gap between economic theory and real-world impact, fostering a sense of responsibility and purpose among students while equipping them with the tools to drive meaningful progress in their communities and beyond.
How can we fully embrace Exeter's value of including youth from every quarter? Exonians for Campus Accessibility seeks to make the Exeter experience more equitable through conversations about accessibility and inaccessibility on campus. Campus accessibility is something that affects all Academy members, so we hope you will join us. We want to hear your experiences and ideas!
Experiencing Loss While at Exeter will be a place where students can talk about how the Exeter community can better support students who experience a significant loss and how to articulate that what they are experiencing to the adults in our community.
Our project focuses on time management and how it can help students navigate Exeter’s demanding environment by balancing academics, extracurriculars, and personal well-being. We know how challenging it can be to stay on top of everything, so we want to share practical strategies for prioritizing tasks, setting goals, and managing stress. In doing so, we would ensure that all students have access to tools that support their success. It also reflects Exeter’s values of respect and balance by fostering a community that supports each other’s growth and well-being. We want to create a space where students can learn from one another and share tips that actually work in day-to-day life. By doing so, we hope to help everyone feel more in control of their time.
Our project idea is to lead a group centered around prioritizing healthy outlets. More specifically, utilizing music to calm yourself, help improve focus, memory, mindfulness, mood, and stress relief. We will focus on different types of music and how they can benefit you in these ways. This is a super fun and important topic that we think could be beneficial to present about. Additionally, a lot of people resonate really well with music so we think this could be applicable and grab attention. For me personally, once I discovered a certain type of concentration music, I now use it every day and I am way more productive.
My project idea is a Lord of The Rings-themed CVP that intends to analyze and fully grasp the vast meaning behind the world of Tolkien's Middle-earth. Tolkien's works, in my opinion, tie in very heavily with the core values of knowledge and goodness behind Exeter's mission. A central theme to Tolkien's works is the triumph of good over evil and the ability of even the smallest actions to make all the difference - lessons that could definitely be applied to our lives today. Additionally, the breadth of Tolkien's works (he even made his own language) are an amazing case study in linguistics, creativity, and modern worldbuilding in literature. As such, I believe that a CVP that intends to focus on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, beyond even just the Lord of the Rings, would be a great one.
Minecraft for Others aims to encourage teamwork, democracy, and selflessness. Split into random teams, Exonians will be encouraged to interact with other members of the community they might've not yet met. We will provide an objective during the CVP each week, where each team must collaborate upon to achieve. Before opening Minecraft, we will announce objectives of the time and let students openly discuss their plans around the Harkness table. These objectives (perhaps a collaborative construction, creativity, and resourcefulness event, etc.) will give each team an opportunity to come up with an approach before having to work together in order to work as effectively as possible together.
Continue My Music & Memory project for those struggling with the disability of dementia and alzheimers, but extend to the local community in terms of project based support and service. We will support community members who are also in the aging demographic. It's proven that this cross-generational connection with also provides benefits to mental health and general well-being.
While many are aware of the current advances in the medical field, the history of oppression that often accompanies them is frequently overlooked. Throughout history, countless individuals have endured persecution and mistreatment in the name of "research." In the 20th century the eugenics movement led to the forced sterilization and abortion of those deemed "unfit" for society. By acknowledging these past injustices, we not only honor the memories of their victims but also raise awareness about the potential for ongoing oppression in the present. Through these discussions, we aim to cultivate a community committed to combating injustice, aligning ourselves with Exeter's core values of knowledge and goodness. This CVP will facilitate the empowering of students with the knowledge necessary to promote positive change.
Our CVP will explore the journey of microplastics from human usage into the ocean and the profound impacts they have on marine ecosystems. We will draw from interactive discussions, visual presentations, documentaries, and successful case studies to examine how microplastics enter waterways. This will focus on consumer products and waste mismanagement, the environmental damage microplastics cause to marine life, how these effects ripple into human health, and what tools exist for us to address this issue from land. In our CVP, we will uncover ways that Exonians can make meaningful change to stop the cycle of microplastic waste becoming sea-bound and gain new perspectives about the large-scale issue of this specific form of pollution in the ocean.
I plan to research and learn with fellow students the implications and challenges of dementia and utilize the knowledge to raise awareness, not only in the Phillips Exeter community but also in the Exeter vicinity. The struggle of losing one’s memories is followed with often terrible consequences in mental, emotional, and relationship health, and this CVP intends to help people realize early signs of dementia and act accordingly to minimize the damage of the condition.
According to a CDC study, over ⅔ of high school students don’t get enough sleep, and Exeter certainly does its part to contribute to that number. We’ve already had an assembly this year about the importance of sleep and how most of us just aren’t getting enough of it. The American Association of Sleep Medicine (AASM) recommends teens get between 8-10 hours of sleep, and I think I can say for certain that most Exonians don’t fall within that range. The goal of this CVP would be to promote rest and help students build better habits that allow them to get the sleep they need. Last year, the CVP ‘Rest is Resistance’ filled this place by providing students a space to avoid anything productive. The facilitators argued that by not working, not only did it provide students the space to get some well-deserved rest but it also fought against the norms of society that determined a person’s value by their productivity. The founder of the movement, Tricia Hersey, describes rest as a way to fight back against the exploitation and dehumanization of specifically black women, marginalized groups, and all others in the workforce. To my knowledge, I don’t believe ‘Rest is Resistance’ will be continuing this term. The goal of this CVP would be to continue the legacy of our predecessor while also encouraging students to get some sleep. This might manifest as a 20-minute nap (which has proven to be most effective), sleep surveys/ research amongst the members of our CVP group, or even making posters to hang up in dorms encouraging people to go to bed earlier. We would also include the Nap Ministry in the thought behind our CVP and make it clear our intentions behind using rest as a movement for social justice.
Kaylee, Ayana and I (Gianna) were inspired to host the CVP, Students for Sustainable Fashion (SFSF), because of the vast negative impacts that the fast fashion industry has on the environment and society, including microplastic pollution, landfill waste build-up, carbon emissions, labor exploitation, and overconsumption. I initially researched this problem for a project in my Social Innovation class this term, where my group members and I studied fast fashion and investigated solutions to reduce the negative environmental and societal impacts of fast fashion. One of these solutions is the engagement in sustainable fashion, which includes thrifting, donating, upcycling, and recycling to promote a circular economy.
We intend to share our knowledge of fast fashion and sustainable fashion practices by spreading awareness of the harmful impacts of fast fashion, along with ways in which PEA students can engage in sustainable fashion. Realizing that we can’t eliminate fast fashion from our society, we have planned a set of activities associated with sustainable fashion for students to participate in, with the belief that every little effort to protect our environment matters. Activities will include clothing swaps; upcycling activities; DIY activities; informational sessions; and casual conversations about thrifting, sustainable brands and the Exeter Exchange, among other topics. We aim to inspire students to be eco-conscious individuals and provide them with the resources to integrate these practices into their daily lives.
Our idea is called “Surfing for Sanity,” where we watch surfing clips and learn about the sport and how it has changed peoples’ lives. This includes how important athlete mental health is in general as well. This fits into Exeter’s values of learning how to balance extracurriculars with student life, and we will talk about how staying active during the busyness of Exeter is important for mental health.
We plan on working on a project re-exploring a topic from our previous year's CVP, integrating "recipes from home" to create simple, nostalgic dishes that students may miss from their homeland. We hope to celebrate "Youth from Every Quarter," inviting students from all over the world to find a piece of their home in our exploration of different cultural dishes and practices. We hope to facilitate a conversation sharing, discussing, and making connections between student's nostalgic dishes in the first meeting, and bringing our ideas together to create those dishes in our second meeting.
Our CVP will explore the representation of minorities in elite academic settings, such as in this academy and elite colleges, its roots in history, the impact of the actions currently being taken, and how we can address it moving forward. We will use statistics and other evidence to discover why the representation in those settings is as it is now. The information distributed will be prepared by the CVP facilitators, and the CVP members will not have to prepare for discussions. Aside from talking about and discovering these facts, we plan to take action on them. Beyond our discussions, we hope to create a publication that will be distributed among the members of the school featuring discoveries and opinions from the students, including advice columns and general feedback students have on the topic of representation in elite academics. Through this publication, we plan to inspire and empower students who are underrepresented in these environments and allow other people to voice their struggles and thoughts on the topic. The members of our CVP will be able to choose their level of involvement in the publication while staying engaged in the conversations that take place and exploring the matters at hand. We hope that this CVP will not only spread awareness but shine light on the role of every individual in making change.
Our project idea is to learn about the culture of surfing while also having fun with it! We plan on meeting to discuss how surfing came to be and to recognize those who founded it and helped it become a popular hobby/lifestyle! This project aligns with Exeter’s Community Values by fostering an inclusive, respectful, and globally conscious mindset. We will discuss how it encourages empathy and understanding through the lens of surfing culture, while challenging norms and striving for positive change. By engaging with diverse voices and perspectives from the surfing community, we will promote an environment where everyone feels welcome to participate, learn, and grow, which is central to Exeter's core mission of creating a respectful and supportive environment for all. We also hope for this CVP to be just as relaxing for students to come and learn as it is to actually surf!
Our Core Values project emphasizes giving back to our oceans, and subsequently our world. We will stay current on ocean related subjects, while referencing the research of ocean conservation organizations, such as Oceana. Additionally, we will help explain the process of Scuba certification to students interested in attaining that goal. Through open-ended discussion, together we will develop a deeper understanding of the importance of protecting our ocean and it's wildlife. Whether it be through guest speakers, beach-clean up trips, or educational videos, members of The Ocean Gratitude Project will expand their understanding of why it is so important to protect our oceans.
We will continue to work creatively to design changes and reforms to the school schedule. In this endeavor, we unite knowledge and goodness by finding ways to reduce stress, increase quality of learning, create more free time for intellectual pursuits outside of class, all while working collaboratively and prioritizing compromise through discussions.
This CVP encourages Exonians to reflect on the experiences of women of color within the academy. Our goal is to provide a space for students to share their hardships and successes that are related to their identities. Through discussions, we hope to empower the women here at Exeter and give them the confidence to pursue their academic endeavors.
This Core Values Project focuses on the importance of activity and balance in the development of the youth. The project would integrate Exeter's Community Values and commitment to anti-oppression by being a project focused on conversation that can be useful and inclusive for any teenager, as well as being a topic of conversation and learning that promotes knowledge, goodness, development, balance, and excellence for the youth, which is the important period.
