A Centennial Celebration for All

CA’s Centennial celebrations illuminate our history, honor our mission, and celebrate the values and traditions that have animated our school for 100 years. We hope these experiences will bring together members of our community from every era, and that alongside CA’s students, alums, parents, faculty, staff, and friends, you will engage in ways that bring you meaning and joy.

Centennial Gatherings

Alums of Color Reunion
March 31 – April 2, 2023

All alums of color are invited to campus to reconnect, reminisce and enjoy a fun-filled weekend back in Concord. There will be several opportunities throughout the weekend to connect with current students of color, network with fellow alums, and talk with school leadership about the school today. This event is family-friendly so feel free to bring your partners and children and make a trip out of it! 

If you identify as a person of color, please register today. Click here to learn more about the event.

A special thank you to the Centennial Alums of Color Reunion planning committee.

Alums of Color Reunion Planning Committee

Trelane Clark ’92, P’22
Adam Geer ’99
Karen McAlmon ’75
Anthony Neal ’77
Meisha Newman ’94
Shanika Paul ’15
Jocelyn Ronda ’02
Paolo Sanchez ’14
Sharon Shakur ’80
Elly Veloria ’16

CA’s Centennial Celebration
June 9–11, 2023

 

Centennial Events Calendar

Centennial Planning and Advisory Team

The following individuals have given generously of their time and talents, helping to envision and prepare programming that will welcome all to participate in CA’s Centennial celebration.

Alum Advisory Committee

Kitty Fisk Ames ’65, P’95
Former Board President & Life Trustee

Amy Cammann Cholnoky ’73
Former trustee, Centennial Campaign Steering Committee

Jamie Wade Comstock ’82, P’17
Centennial Campaign Steering Committee

Ingrid von Dattan Detweiler ’61, P’95
Former trustee & Alumnae/i Association President

Mike Firestone ’01
Former Trustee

Marion Freeman ’69
Former Board President & Life Trustee

Lara Jordan James ’80
Former trustee & alumnae/i leader

Zahaan Khalid ’21
Young Alumnae/i Leader

Jamie Klickstein ’86, P’15 ’18
Trustee & former Alumnae/i Association President

Michael Lichtenstein ’94
Chair, Class Secretaries Program

Karen McAlmon ’75
Former Alumnae/i Association President & current Trustee

Laura McConaghy ’01
Former Trustee & Alumnae/i Association President

Rebecca Miller ’14
Co-chair, CAYAC Committee

Alex Ocampo ’10
Young Alumnae/i Leader

Katie Pakenham ’88
Former faculty & alumnae/i leader

Miriam Perez-Putnam ’12
Co-chair, CAYAC Committee

Carol Sacknoff P’94
Former staff, alumnae/i guru

Fay Lampert Shutzer ’65
President, Board of Trustees

Lucille Stott
Former faculty member and administrator, centennial book author

Kelsey Stratton ’99
Former Trustee & President of the Alumnae/i Association

Tom Wilcox P’01
Former Head of School

Linden Havemeyer Wise ’70
Former Board President & Life Trustee

Faculty & Staff Planning Committee

Michael Bennett
Performing Arts Department Head

Justin Bull P’25
Interim Dean of Faculty

Renee Coburn
Chief of Staff

Merrill Genoa
Annual Fund and Alumnae/i Programs Officer

Henry Fairfax
Head of School and Dresden Endowed Chair

Max Hall
Science faculty member

Sue Johnson P’20
Director of Athletics

Martha Kennedy
Library Director, archivist

Don Kingman
Director of Campus Planning, Design and Construction

Heidi Koelz
Senior Associate Director of Communications

Wenjun Kuai
Mandarin teacher, house faculty

Rob Munro
Assistant Head for Academics and Equity

Alice Roebuck P’25
Assistant Head for Advancement and Engagement  (co-chair)

Hilary Rouse
Director of Engagement

Heather Sullivan
Director of Marketing and Communications

Sarah Yeh P’24
Associate Head for Teaching, Learning, and Faculty

Centennial News & Stories

For 100 years, Concord Academy has cultivated the creativity to tackle challenges, the resilience to adapt to change, and the drive to make a difference in the world. Over the course of CA’s Centennial year, we will share stories that support CA’s mission and its longstanding values and traditions.

Down Memory Lane

Between 2019 and 2022, former faculty member and author Lucille Stott spoke with more than 300 alums ranging from the class of 1938 to the class of 2025. Her book, Concord Academy at 100: Voices from the First Century, is a testament to the celebration of both individuality and community that guided CA throughout its first century and continues to animate the school today.

Accommodations

We look forward to welcoming you back to Concord for one or all of the upcoming Centennial events! We have reserved room blocks at the following locations for these landmark events:

Alums of Color Reunion

Friday, March 31 &
Saturday, April 1, 2023

Residence Inn Concord
CA discounted rate: $189/per night
*must book by March 1 to receive discounted rate
(978) 341-0003

Centennial Celebration

Friday, June 9 &
Saturday, June 10, 2023

Residence Inn Concord
CA discounted rate: $279/per night
*must book by May 10 to receive discounted rate
(978) 341-0003

Concord’s Colonial Inn
Prescott Queen: $189
Main Inn King: $225
Main Inn Queen: $215
*must book by April 27 to receive discounted rate
(978) 369-9200
Reserve online using the code 2306CONCOR

Service and Sustainability at CA: Highlights from 100 Years

Throughout Concord Academy’s history, our students, faculty, and staff have taken action to care for one another and our earth. In these highlights from CA’s 100 years, we see exemplified a common commitment to service and sustainability.

Service During World War II

During the 1940s, CA students supported war relief efforts by knitting, sending care packages, and staging plays and doing chores to raise funds. They trained as plane spotters on Nashawtuc Hill, practiced first aid, and prepared surgical dressings for local blood banks. Many young alumnae served overseas—Headmistress Wheeler’s scrapbook from 1942 lists 33 in service in the Women’s Army Corps, Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, and the Red Cross. Faculty also served in the Red Cross, including English teachers Doreen Young and Mary Manso, who was awarded the Army’s Medal of Freedom. This commemorative painting hangs in the J. Josephine Tucker library.

Good Citizens

In CA’s early years, a coveted white jacket—a prize for citizenship—was awarded annually to one senior. Headmistress Elizabeth B. Hall ended the tradition, placing importance on good citizenship for all students. “We need to serve in order to be our whole selves,” she said in an assembly in November 1960. In the following decade, CA’s curriculum began to reflect that. Ruth Scult, a social worker, taught an influential course in community service, taking students on field trips to the Framingham Women’s prison and what was then called the Fernald State School, where they interacted with children with disabilities. Illustration by Elizabeth M. Corey ’59.

Environmental Conference & Earth Day

Several months before the first national Earth Day, CA students organized an Environmental Crisis Conference. Held in December 1969, the gathering welcomed 230 representatives from 20 public and private schools, along with elected officials and environmental professionals. A few months later, CA celebrated the first Earth Day in 1970 by setting up information-exhibit booths at several locations in downtown Concord. Along with students from Xavier, Concord-Carlisle High School, and Middlesex, they showed their concern about the environmental crisis with exhibits highlighting pollution in the Concord area and urged townspeople to take public transportation.

Joan Shaw Herman Award

In 1976, the Alumnae/i Association established the Joan Shaw Herman Award for Distinguished Service. The only award given by Concord Academy, it was established to honor the life of Joan Shaw Herman ’46. Despite being stricken with polio and often confined to an iron lung, Herman dedicated her life to improving the well-being of others with disabilities. Since it was first given to her posthumously, over 40 alumnae/i have received this award in recognition of their service—they have exemplified generosity and have shared with our community their own visions of a better world.

Winterfest

Decemberfest, the precursor to today’s Winterfest, began in 1982 as a means of raising money for A Better Chance, a nonprofit organization that works to recruit and develop leaders among young people of color in the U.S. Since then, students have continued to organize the fundraising event for financial aid at CA, then in most recent years, for an organization of their choosing. In February 2022, students hosted Winterfest to raise money for the Loveland Foundation, which brings opportunity and healing to communities of color, especially to Black women and girls.

Volunteerism Reinvigorated

The 1990s saw a renewed interest in service at CA. A Centipede article from 1989 acknowledged the influence of Jen Quest-Stern ’90 and Catherine Moellering ’90 in revitalizing the Volunteers in Action (VIA) club, whose members served in soup kitchens, visited area nursing homes, and spent time with disabled adults at Minute Man Arc. In 1993, the club took a different name, United for the Community (UFC), organizing weekly trips to after-school programs for elementary school students, among other activities. From the sale of ceramics to benefit Rosie’s Place to the Needle Arts Club’s knitting of hats for premature infants, CA students used their time and talents to benefit their communities.

Environmental Science Reimagined

A new Environmental Science course introduced at CA in 1993 built on teaching that fostered practical,applied, and experimental learning—getting students out into rivers, fields, and forests as well as the laboratory. The spring 1994 issue of CA Magazine says it “began with a few basic intentions: to place students at the heart of scientific inquiry, sharing with them the wonder and excitement of scientific discovery; to engage students in hands-on work, making them active participants and critical thinkers rather than passive learners; and, to encourage advance study in the sciences, preparing students for the enormous challenges ahead in the 21st century.”

Hurricane Katrina Support

After Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005, the CA community channeled empathy into action, raising more than $15,000 for relief efforts through a blues concert, Concord Academy Students in Action (CASA) bake sales, and, most importantly, canceling the annual advisor-advisee dinner and reallocating those funds. CA also welcomed two brothers from Louisiana who had been displaced by the hurricane. In June 2007, a large group of students and faculty headed to the Gulf Coast to help rebuild homes and engage in other relief efforts, and additional groups did the same over the next several summers.

Polar Plunge

In December 2007, several CA students and Academic Dean John Drew braved a frigid Walden Pond in the name of the fight to reduce global warming. The Polar Plunge was part of protests organized worldwide to coincide with the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali. Environmental actions on campus became sustained during this decade. The year before, CA’s Green Club began a composting program in the dining hall that continues to this day.

CA Service Trips

The first of a series of CA-sponsored service trips began in 2007. Within the U.S., students traveled to help local communities in Kiln, Miss., and New Orleans; Washington, D.C.; West Virginia; South Dakota; and Vermont. Environmental and education-focused trips also brought CA students to Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua. Over seven trips between 2009 and 2016, math teacher and former Peace Corps volunteer George Larivee accompanied a total of 89 CA students who built libraries in small Nicaraguan communities and taught in local primary schools.

Environmental Activism

In 2019, young CA alumnae/i such as Audrey Lin ’19 began taking leadership roles in the Sunrise Movement of young people fighting for climate action in the U.S. That spring, CA students succeeded in urging the Town of Concord’s Select Board to approve a resolution supporting a Green New Deal. On September 30, 2019, some 300 members of the CA campus community protested in Boston during a Global Climate Strike. And CA’s Environmental Symposium—begun decades ago as a local consortium—continues today as a fall-semester course that connects students with climate activists and alumnae/i and experts in environmental science.

CA's Sustainability Plan

In 2019, Concord Academy became one of the first independent schools in the Northeast to release a comprehensive sustainability plan. The plan’s goals include dedicating faculty/staff time to sustainability efforts and reducing campus greenhouse emissions and food and energy waste. Learn more.