News

Mark your calendar and join fellow CA parents for a private tour of Mount Auburn Cemetery’s grounds and monuments with Meg Winslow P ’17 ’21, curator of historical collections. A reception will follow in the newly renovated and historic Bigelow Chapel. Keep your eye out for a formal invitation later this summer!

Why do we give attention to people who are coming out as trans or LGBTQ? How does doing so either normalize or sensationalize their existence? These are some of the candid, hard-to-frame questions that Concord Academy students had the opportunity to ask on May 16 of visiting speaker Schuyler Bailar, the first openly transgender athlete to compete on a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 men’s team.

On May 15, acclaimed poet Claudia Rankine brought to life the experience of Citizen: An American Lyric, an award-winning, genre-defying book of reflection, art, and cultural criticism, and a required text in Concord Academy’s sophomore English curriculum. Through essay, image, and poetry, Rankine strives in Citizen to reveal and make palpable implicit bias and the mechanisms of everyday racism. In her presentation during the school day, she illuminated some of the book’s most memorable passages and artworks for CA students. Rankine graciously signed books afterward for a long line of students and faculty, as she did again later that evening for a sizable audience of CA parents, alumnae/i, and friends. With parents, Rankine read from her upcoming book, Just Us: An American Conversation, an exploration of whiteness in American culture, and spoke about the creative actions of The Racial Imaginary Institute (TRII), a collective of writers and artists that she co-founded to capture, as the group says, “the enduring truth of race: it is an invented concept that nevertheless operates with extraordinary force in our daily lives, limiting our movements and imaginations.” Read more about her visit.

The Spring Art Show will take place on Thursday, May 23, at 1 p.m in the MAC. The Visual Arts Department is proud to present the work from students enrolled in spring semester visual arts electives and departmental studies.

We invite parents to attend the all-community assembly on Wednesday, May 22, at 2:25 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center to view some of the works made during the spring semester by CA filmmakers. We also invite parents to join us for the premiere of Deerstalker, CA’s fourth feature film production, on Friday, May 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the P.A.C., complete with a red carpet event!

The on-site textbook buyback program will occur on Wednesday, May 29, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Thursday, May 31, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the SHAC atrium. Please encourage your student to participate. Students should bring all textbooks they wish to sell (all years) to the SHAC during the buyback period. MBS personnel will calculate their buyback credit. (Note: many, but not all titles, are eligible for buyback credit.) The total value of the student’s buyback credit will be refunded via check (if books were originally paid with a credit card) or a credit to their activities account (if books were originally paid with financial aid voucher). Refunds will be issued within 4 to 6 weeks after the buyback. By participating in the textbook buyback, CA is able to build an inventory of lower cost “used” books for next year. If you have any additional questions about the buyback process, please contact Robin Comley at robin_comley@concordacademy.org.

We invite the entire CA community to join us for the following spring performing arts events. Details and ticket information are listed below. For ticket reservations, please contact Jessica_Cloutier-Plasse@concordacademy.org.