Winter 2026
CA’s 2025–26 community theme, “Building the We: Responsibility, Connection, and Growth,” inspired this issue of Concord Academy Magazine. In these pages, students and teachers speak to the practices involved in co-creating community, and alums share their approaches to better communication. We invite you to consider with us all that you’re bringing to—and learning in—your relationships.
In today’s polarized public sphere, it can seem harder than ever to have conversations across differences. What can we learn from people who practice listening to learn and engaging in dialogue rather than debate? Based on research, community-building leadership, and their own lived experiences, Katrina Pugh ’83, Turahn Dorsey ’89, and Eric Nguyen ’00 share their approaches to better communication.
This year, guided by a community theme established by the Council for Community Life, Concord Academy is centering responsibility, connection, and growth—not by overlooking individuality, but by embracing mutual care and accountability. What does a shift from “me” to “we” sound like? In sharing these voices from campus, we invite you to reflect on how you engage in your communities, at CA and beyond.
In her three-person play Fuselage, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2025, actor and director Annie Lareau ’86 reckons with the loss of her closest friends in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. “It’s very difficult to return to that time in my life, but in doing so, I relive the good parts of it as well,” she says.
For Corie Walsh ’12, social change has always meant rolling up her sleeves and getting to work. As a young adult, she moved to Uganda to establish community programs, then to Yemen to implement humanitarian programs. Now working for Mercy Corps, she shares insights from her peacebuilding career for supporting social change locally.
Michael Sandler ’92 and Sara Langelier ’92 have a “CA couple” story fit for a romantic comedy. As Boston-area public high school teachers, they’re also paying forward their CA education. “CA fanned the flames of wanting to learn,” says Sandler, who was recently recognized for excellence in teaching psychology.
When Rayner Ramirez ’88 visited CA in December as the 2025–26 Hall Fellow, he shared his journey from the Philippines to New York to Concord Academy. Reflecting on his career in network news and his current role producing independent documentary films, he also spoke about the journalism industry today. “We need to be as factual and truthful as possible,” he said.
The support of a generous alum allowed CA to offer an eight-week American Sign Language symposium this fall—the result of a spring 2024 senior project by Jenny O’Malley. The evening course drew so much interest that two sections ran simultaneously.
Students in the upper-level environmental science course Water Resources, taught by science teacher and environmental sustainability lead Chris Labosier, got out on Concord’s rivers and connected with local water protectors
In September, filmmaker, screenwriter, and head of CA’s Visual Arts Department Justin Bull P’25 ’28 celebrated the theatrical release of his latest screenwriting project, The Cut. He reflects on the film and his ongoing work with CA students
Last summer, as a John Winthrop Student Fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Anisa Brown ’26 explored the significance of Black churches in Boston during the Civil War. “It’s made me think of history in a more place-based way,” she says.
In November, students in The Making of Modern India, a history course taught by Topi Dasgupta P’22 ’25, participated virtually in a United Nations World Summit and gave feedback on the film Ahimsa.
Last summer, Lily Kim ’27, now junior class president, attended the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Seminar in Massachusetts. She says the training has helped her approach situations at CA this year with greater empathy and understanding.
Mandarin teacher Wenjun Kuai ’27 recently traveled to study the history and culture in West Coast Chinese American communities. In her classes, she says, she aims to “help my students see their own and each other’s stories reflected in our curriculum.”
contact us
Write to the editor:
magazine@concordacademy.org
