2021–2024 Hammer Chair Wenjun Kuai P’27 Shares Her Love of Chinese Language and Culture
On September 26, 2024, colleagues of Mandarin teacher Wenjun Kuai P’27 gathered in Concord Academy’s dance studio to learn about the work the 2021–2024 Katherine Carton Hammer ’68 Endowed Faculty Chair enabled her to do over the previous three years. Among those joining them were Hammer’s daughter Camilla, trustees, and members of the class of 1968. The occasion honored both Kuai and Hammer for their extraordinary contributions to shaping CA’s culture of learning. The mid-career faculty member to hold the Hammer Chair next was also announced: chemistry teacher Will Tucker.
Opening the speaking program, Head of School Henry Fairfax recognized the generosity of many in making possible the work being celebrated that evening. The Hammer Chair was established in 1998 to honor Katie Carton Hammer ’68 and her long and dedicated service to Concord Academy. Then Board president, Hammer passed away in June 1998 while in service to CA. The loss of her intelligent, insightful, and kind leadership was incredibly difficult for the CA community, Fairfax said, adding that Carton had been “an especially vocal advocate for our faculty.” To honor Hammer’s belief that the recruitment and retention of talented and dedicated teachers was central to CA’s continued excellence as a school, more than 70 of her family members, friends, and colleagues—many of them present on this occasion—contributed to establish an endowed fund to support gifted faculty in their work, recognize their excellence in the classroom, and provide resources and opportunities for them to continue developing their skills at CA.
Former Head of School Tom Wilcox P’01 then took the podium, recalling Hammer’s inclusivity, her “candor about not only our strengths but also our challenges,” and her commitment to “first-rate teaching.” With pride he said that, following 70 years of Board of Trustees leadership by men, Hammer had been one of the first CA alums to usher in an era of women’s leadership at the school.
Fairfax acknowledged the seven previous Hammer Chair recipients: film teacher Marc Fields, English teacher Liz Bedell, mathematics teacher George Larivee, history teacher Kim Frederick, film teacher Justin Bull P’25 ’28, and English teacher Nick Hiebert. Then the audience settled in to listen as Kuai shared the travels and explorations of the cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity in Chinese-speaking regions in Asia she’d been able to undertake thanks to this endowed faculty support.
Over 20 years of teaching, Kuai has been passionate about sharing her love for the language and culture of her homeland. A native Mandarin speaker, she started the Mandarin program at Concord Academy in 2010 and currently teaches language courses of all levels.
Kuai said she’d learned she’d been named the 2021–2024 Hammer Chair on her birthday in 2021. “It was the biggest birthday gift I’d ever received,” she said, expressing gratitude for the trust and support to undertake this “exciting and inspiring” work in order to design travel experiences for CA students.
With humor and warmth, Kuai shared her journey from the Chinese city of Hefei to the United States—and to Concord Academy. Raised during the 1980s as part of the one-child generation, she said she had no car, phone, or television—until her dad built her a TV himself. Since only a one-day weekend was observed and programming aired at limited times on Chinese Central TV, she spent Saturday nights glued to the set. The programming included educational quotes—and even though she was only 6 or 7 at the time, one in particular stuck with her: “You can’t fully understand your own language until you understand another one.” It wasn’t until middle school that English was offered once a week as a subject, but she began studying it as soon as she could.
Wenjun shared another Chinese quote with her audience: “I cannot see the true face of the Mountain Lu, because I am in the mountains myself.” “I walked out of the mountains,” she said. After earning her bachelor’s degree in English literature and international trade at Hefei University of Technology in Anhui, she came to the United States as an international student, following it up with a master’s degree in education with a concentration in curriculum and instruction from Boston College and then completed the Ph.D. coursework in education from the University of Rhode Island/Rhode Island College joint Ph.D. program. She taught Mandarin at Providence College, Moses Brown School, and the Wheeler School before coming to Concord Academy to launch a new program.
Also a beloved house faculty member as well as teacher, Kuai shared an example of how she engages her students: She writes short fictional stories that incorporate familiar elements of CA, tailored to each language level. She has also developed an advanced elective course focused on idioms to expose students to the diversity of colloquial expressions in China. At the same time, Wenjun continued seeking and helping her students seek a “full understanding” and “appreciation” of the Chinese language and culture. She would like to bring them back to the “mountains” for a close look.
Kuai had led CA’s first trip to China in 2012. During a 2018 sabbatical, with generous support from CA, she traveled to the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in southwest China to prepare for a March 2020 student trip—canceled during the pandemic. So she had been eager to return and develop trips to allow students to explore and appreciate the beauty and richness of Chinese culture.
In 2022, as travel restrictions began to be lifted, she flew to Singapore and Malaysia for professional development, visiting various schools and community organizations. In 2023, she traveled to Taiwan with 34 CA Mandarin students and four faculty and staff members, encountering for the first time its unique mix of traditional and modern life.
Finally, in 2024, with her two children, she took a “long overdue” trip back to China, visiting Beijing and the Forbidden City and Great Wall and following the Qinggan Loop through the vast northwest. On this “stunning journey,” she said, they appreciated the beauty of high mountains, vast grasslands, Gobi deserts, and crystal-like lakes. The experience informed a new advanced elective she’s teaching this fall on “Ci” Chinese lyrical poetry. It also prepared her to lead a much-anticipated China trip in March 2025 to Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu, and Shanghai.
At the end of the evening, Kuai concluded her talk, titled “Departure and Recapture, Immersion and Reflection,” by inviting guests to submit questions on Padlet for her students to report about the journey they’ll take and to bring home CA-made postcards from her travels.
