Over a year since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, many Andover students say they are still seeking more education about conflicts in the Middle East.
Since Frank Tipton’s “Israel-Palestine 101” presentation in December 2023, there have not been any all-school events about the issue. According to the 2024 State of the Academy, released last May, 76.1 percent of students do not believe the school has provided adequate education on Israel and Palestine.
Head of School Raynard Kington said that the school has been focusing more specifically on offering programming for and supporting student organizations connected to the Middle East.
“Our goals have been to honor our inclusive community and to recognize diverse views regarding conflicts in the Middle East and across the globe. After Frank Tipton’s visit, we chose to focus on the needs of students most affected by the conflict. We partnered effectively with leadership in the Muslim Student Association, the Jewish Student Union, and Southwest Asian and North African Society to identify and serve students. Related to initiatives with these groups and across the campus community, we have worked collaboratively to hold conversations across differences. These efforts are never perfect. We always do our best in these difficult moments. In the case of the Middle East crisis, we learned how important it is to forge effective partnerships between students and the administration,” said Kington.
Most recently, the College Counseling Office worked with the Jewish Student Union (JSU) to support Jewish students in the college admissions process. This opportunity was previously mentioned by Kington in an article published in The Phillipian in May 2024, though it was described to be for a larger audience. In a recent email to The Phillipian, Kington explained the shift in the opportunity for Seniors to discuss protests on college campuses and the impact this might have on college admissions.
“The initial plan was that College Counseling would host an informational session for all Seniors. Instead the focus shifted to working directly with those students who expressed interest in this programming. At the request of a member of the Jewish Student Union, the College Counseling team organized a session in early October to discuss the college search process in general, and specifically, how Jewish students might think about their options. They covered a range of topics, from campus culture and diversity to school size and support for students. The idea was to give our students a framework for evaluating schools of interest to them,” wrote Kington in an email to The Phillipian.
JSU President Ella Kowal ’25 stressed that education is important for students who are closely connected to the issue, but equally important for those who are less educated about the topic to combat misinformation and disinformation.
“I found [students feeling uninformed] to be a really big issue because you have students who don’t know enough about the conflict but still are concluding what should happen in the conflict even though they clearly don’t have enough information, and that’s dangerous. The school should talk about the dangers of following what you see on social media and what you’re hearing around you about having appropriate information,” said Kowal.
Kowal continued, “When we are talking about education, it should be looking to those people who are uninformed about the conflict. The education shouldn’t try to target those students who already feel very closely connected, as obviously they are going to have a particular family background that is difficult to change and affect.”
Sami Tokat ’26, Co-President of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and the Southwest Asian and North African Society (SWANA), shared positive trends he observed in student conversations around Israel-Palestine this year. He noticed discourse has become less focused on taking a stance and more focused on constructive, open conversation.
“I’ve heard [about] it most in conversations relating to the election. For example, in different common rooms, I think almost every common room of every dorm had the presidential debate [on TV]. There were certain times where the topic of the conflict in Israel and Palestine was brought up… Students are less focused on whichever sort of side you fall on, whichever branch, but rather how we should go about taking the next steps, how as a country, as a community, we should look at the conflict of Israel-Palestine, and bring our own individual humanities into it… [But as] an academic institution, [we’re] going to have to struggle to talk about these topics later on, that we are implicated in having platforms and discussions. There definitely could be more effort to try to organize and take in the student opinions on what we should do to have these discussions,” said Tokat.
Reflecting on the Andover administration’s actions in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict, Keren Song ’26 said that efforts to educate students on the subject have been minimal and ineffective, using speakers that come in to discuss these topics with students as an example. Song explained that the lack of education on the subject has led to indifference among members of the Andover community.
“They’ve done, overall, a terrible job. As in, last year there was some discourse going on. There was [a] speaker one Wednesday evening that came into the [Cochran] Chapel, and a bunch of people went, even though it was optional, showing that we are willing to learn more about it. But he presented things we could find out with a quick Google search, and not the facts that there are disputes over or any emotional connection that people may have. And then this year, with the [new] civil discourse policy, there’s been zero communication from [Andover] or speakers that the school brings in about the conflict. And because faculty are supposed to stay neutral because of the new policy, we’re just getting less and less input. Therefore people either don’t have an opinion or are starting to lean into indifference, which is the worst-case scenario that can happen in a community like this,” said Song.
Song continued, “Rather than asking these speakers that come in to take a neutral stance and water down what they usually talk about in other panels or speeches or talks that they give at other schools or other environments, the school should educate us on their backgrounds and biases that they could have on certain controversial topics and then let the speakers show what they actually feel or think about a certain topic so that we can ask students after the talk, share a discussion together about the biases that the school delivered us on and what the stances that the speaker presented was during the talk.”
Rabbi Joshua Greenberg, the Jewish Chaplain, said that the school offers multiple interfaith opportunities, such as the recent chaplaincy-sponsored pumpkin carving. Greenberg shared how those events along with faculty training help the school community tackle global issues better.
“Everyone’s thinking about issues domestically: faculty, students, adults, minors, everybody in between. Strategies to not shy away from discourse, dialogue, and even debate are things that we’ve been thinking about as a faculty and as a school community. We certainly were well-equipped last year to address those issues [as a faculty], but within the last several months, we’ve received even more resources, even more material, even more perspectives, and training on how to facilitate such conversations,” said Greenberg.
According to Kington, the administration has directed its efforts this year to provide platforms for learning about the presidential election in response to requests from the Andover community. Kington mentioned a potential return to conversations about the Middle East in the future.
“This fall we pivoted to focus on the election, as requested by students, faculty, and staff. The great thing is that we can be nimble in our approach, depending on students’ needs — and that civil discourse helps us navigate a range of both election-specific and geopolitical issues. I look forward to continuing this practice of engaging diverse viewpoints when we return to Middle East-specific programs,” wrote Kington.
