EBI Senior Devika Hajarnavis ’26 teaching to lowerclassmen.
This Fall, students have gathered in dorms, advisory groups, and class meetings for Andover’s Empathy, Balance, and Inclusion (EBI) program. This marks a shift away from the previous EBI structure, which met weekly in classrooms during students’ lunch breaks.
According to Brigitte Leschhorn, Transitional Director of the EBI program, students pushed for the schedule revision to ensure an uninterrupted lunch period. She explained that the adjustment was also aimed to better integrate social-emotional learning.
“It makes sense for us to be building, as a school, on social emotional skills and community skills in places like the dorm, advisory, day-student mentor meetings, and class meetings. Those are the natural places where it makes sense to do that. It doesn’t make sense to take away the junior and lower lunch period once a week where they can [instead] use it to relax, do their homework, or socialize, which is what we want,” said Leschhorn.
Students have appreciated the logistical shifts made to EBI this year for a range of reasons. Alex Lin ’28 highlighted several positive impacts that the change to EBI has created, noting how student reception towards EBI has improved.
“I, and the people I’ve been talking to, like it a lot more, mostly because it is no longer eating out of our own free time. Our lunch block is our free time, whereas [in] dorm meetings and ASM blocks and advisory, we all plan to not do anything at that time. So, even if EBI is there and people don’t like the content, they’re like, ‘Oh, at least it’s not taking up my lunch time anymore’,” said Lin.
She added, “In the advisory [group], people talk much less because they combine two advisories, [so] we’re familiar with around half the people, but not everybody. People talk a lot less than in the dorm, for example, where everyone is a lot closer.”
In addition to granting students open lunch breaks, the change to the EBI program has also allowed students to open up and fully participate, according to Eliza Francis ’26, an EBI Senior. Drawing from her experiences this term, she highlighted the benefits of hosting EBI classes in a more familiar environment, such as a dorm.
“Something about previous EBI spaces was that [they] were completely random and that discouraged some students from feeling comfortable enough to fully participate and let their voices be heard. In their dorm setting where they often know their dormmates, or even if they’re new lowers, they’re at least more comfortable in what is their home on campus. People are more inclined to speak freely and similarly in advisories,” said Francis.
Despite noting the decreased time commitment that the new schedule has brought, Ronal Dominguez-Hernandez ’28 still voiced frustration with the EBI structure. Reflecting on the class meeting for Lowers on September 26, he urged that the curriculum be further revised to be more effective.
“[My experience with EBI this year] has downgraded a little bit. Even though it’s less time consuming, it seems to be a bigger waste of time. Especially with the situation with the gym today, it was just a bunch of classes together. I personally didn’t get anything out of it. It wasn’t because the EBI seniors aren’t executing it properly, the activities themselves were pretty ineffective. Generally speaking, compared to last year, it’s not as good even though we’re spending less time. It should be totally changed,” said Dominguez-Hernandez.
Miklosh Frusztajer ’26, another EBI Senior, had similar reflections to Dominguez-Hernandez ’28. He described how the compressed schedule of EBI, though beneficial for most people, tends to sacrifice some of the curriculum’s content.
“From what I can ascertain in our meetings on Tuesday nights, the EBI Senior meetings, there’s been pretty good reception to the new curriculum. People are happy with the format. People are happy with the lesser time commitment. At the same time, I have heard also that there is at times a little less substance to these EBI sessions compared to the last ones. Perhaps it’s a trade-off,’ said Frusztajer.
Frusztajer reflected on some of the issues he encountered in the first few EBI sessions, particularly the lack of a rigid time and place for instruction. He noted how the shift to a more casual environment has affected student engagement during EBI meetings.
“There was this sense of distraction or unseriousness because people felt so comfortable around each other that they didn’t feel they had to respect the EBI seniors necessarily. I heard a lot of bad experiences about that… We don’t get 50 uninterrupted minutes to lecture the EBI students anymore. Thus, it will feel a little less serious at times. The burden definitely falls heavily on the younger EBI students to keep things running, to keep things substantive even in this compressed period.”
Leschhorn described that the restructuring of EBI is an ongoing process that will be responsive to student feedback at the end of every term and year.
“There’s definitely going to be adjustments because this is our first time running this model. There’s going to be adjustments even for winter term. By that, I mean we may have dorm meetings look a certain way or topics appear in a certain way. I might adjust how [those] look. There might be small adjustments. At the end of the year, we’ll come together and [ask], ‘Are there things we want to shift?’, and have larger conversations with student leaders,” said Leschhorn.
