Dr. Sewitch returned to campus during the winter term to give a presentation to students at Assembly. At Exeter, steps have been taken in recent years to help encourage boarding students, and by extension the faculty living in the dorms with them, to get the rest they need. Success in the Harkness classroom depends on many things, not the least of which is a well-rested and attentive student body. The hotly contested nine o'clock rule, which prohibits visitors in the dormitory after 9 p.m., was instituted in 1995 in an effort to make the atmosphere in the dormitory more conducive to quiet study and rest earlier in the evening. Teenagers seem to be biologically programmed to stay awake later than adults.
People carry poor sleep habits developed early in life into college and beyond.
There is a general lack of awareness in this country about the human body's real need for sleep. Our best defense is education. The Friday following Dr. Sewitch's Assembly, advisers and advisees got together to talk about sleep and survey approaches the Academy might take to identify and eliminate the barriers to getting enough rest. Student responses to the survey offered some creative solutions for easing the daily time crunch in order to fit in more shut eye. Not surprisingly eliminating Saturday classes and starting classes later and ending them earlier in the day were popular suggestions, as was cutting back the amount of homework.