8:00 a.m. classes aren’t easy. They’re especially difficult in the middle of the winter, when your clothes are soaked with snow, dripping on the stairs as you trudge to the fourth floor of Phillips Hall. Yet, as students make their way into one classroom in particular, the smell of freshly baked banana bread wafts through the seams of the door. A warmly lit room welcomes them, the dark wood of the Harkness table cooling the mood. On the other end sits Instructor in Modern Languages Katherine “Kitty” Fair, her familiar face bringing an end to the shivers and fatigue of the morning. This year, Fair has announced her retirement from the Academy, leaving a bittersweet gap in the hearts of Exonians across campus.

Squash might seem like an individual sport. It’s just a player and their opponent, standing trapped within the confines of four walls. Yet, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The PEA boys’ and girls’ squash teams might function as singular players in matches, but they operate as a compact unit that marches together. Each of those 10 courts in the Fisher Squash Center contains four walls streaked with black residue and slicked with sweat. This sport takes blood, sweat, and tears, but they get through it together.

Wealth and wisdom—grace and glamor—bravery and beauty. Yet man, bar the bells and whistles, is only mortal. No matter how famous or rich, timid or poor, “the young and the old, and the low and the high, / Shall molder to dust, and together shall lie.” So when death is imminent, and our lives are insignificant—“Oh, why should the spirit of man be proud?”

When the Class of 2020 left Exeter for spring break in their senior year, they packed light with a few books, some clothes, and plans to enjoy their short vacation. No one expected that the goodbyes would be permanent. Not their teachers, not themselves, not even Principal Bill Rawson. They never came back.

On April 8, Phillips Exeter Academy and its Student Council announced a new and reformed version of the dress code that drops nearly all formal guidelines that were once standardized by the school administration. It entrusts students with the discretion to interpret what is appropriate and acceptable in any given scenario at school.

On Friday, Feb. 7, following the Student Council’s presidential debate, Phillips Exeter Academy’s 16th principal, Bill K. Rawson, walked onto the stage. The lingering chatter of faculty and students dissecting the heated moments of the debate faltered into uneasy silence. As shoulders stiffened and eyes tracked his every step, the school was held in anticipation — no one knew it yet, but everything was about to change.

Springtime at Exeter brings relief as the flowers bloom, the sky turns bluer, the days get longer, and summer streches closer. After a grueling school year, students can’t wait to pack their things, hop on their flights home, and enjoy the sunny beaches of their cities. One would think such a feeling would bring relaxation, but in typical Exeter fashion, the Academy can never get its mind off the future. With the annual course registration from April 17 to 21 this year, students have already begun thinking about next fall.

By  ARYAN AGARWAL, MARVIN SHIM, KEVIN THANT, and ANDREW YANG Climate change is one of the

By ARYAN AGARWAL, SAM ALTMAN, HANNA WEI, and FORREST ZENG The new spring term pilot schedule, an

By  ARYAN AGARWAL, MARVIN SHIM, KEVIN THANT, and ANDREW YANG Climate change is one of the