I guess it’s official. The group we referred to last spring as the “rising seniors” are now firmly rooted in their official senior shoes. The prefect meetings are becoming routine, the new classes are starting to feel old hat, and, the icing on the cake… The Senior Exhibition process has begun. We started things off this year with a Sr.Ex. Speed-dating session — the brainchild of Mike and Susannah McGowan last year. On four separate occasions this week, a group of faculty will meet with a section of the senior class in five minute intervals to discuss the kids’ ideas for Senior Exhibition topics. The topics range from the black holes and Molecular Gastronomy to a study of Pablo Escobar’s rise to power in Colombia in the ’80’s to the Ebola virus, with many other options in between. In each of these sessions, the atmosphere is electric.

The exchange of ideas generates an energy that permeates the room, and there isn’t one single second of silence for the full 30 minutes of the exercise. The back and forth between the pairs of teacher and students establishes a wonderful foundation for the type of partnership between advisor and student in each of these projects. This is just the first step in an extensive process, but, I must say, as far as I can tell, we’re all moving in the right direction.