By Meredith Lanning

The Albrights at Collegiate’s annual welcome ceremony, Convocation. Photo credit: Allie Albright.

Upper School math teacher and former track and field coach Karen Albright has been a part of the Collegiate community for 28 years. She has taught math to every grade level in the Upper School, is the current math department chair, and currently coaches Cub volleyball. Her son Timmy graduated from Collegiate in 2011, and Karen’s daughter Allie Albright (‘09) teaches math in the Middle School, as well as coaching varsity soccer for both boys and girls. Allie’s son Bodhi (‘36) is also now a Cougar in Kindergarten. Allie and Karen have tremendously impacted Collegiate over the years through learning, teaching, coaching, and leading.

Karen attended a public high school in Vermont, where an influential teacher taught her math; she had this teacher all four years of high school. (Coincidentally, the teacher’s name was also Karen.) She described this teacher as being able to “make math fun, and she also really wanted to get to know us as students.” Karen took this teacher’s outlook on teaching and has applied it to her classes and how she teaches. After Karen graduated high school, this same teacher asked her if she was interested in student teaching at her high school. She jumped at the opportunity, because she had already found a passion for teaching. This was when her career began. 

Karen assisting a student with homework. Photo courtesy of The Torch.

After graduating from University of Vermont in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics, she went on to receive her Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Vermont in 1988. In 1996, she moved from Vermont to Richmond, initially teaching a Middle School math class at Collegiate. Along with teaching, Karen was dedicating to coaching the track and field team. Her passion for coaching track and field began long before her time at Collegiate, as she had also coached the sport back in Vermont. This deep-rooted connection to track and field stemmed from her own experiences as a high school and college athlete, where she developed a profound love for the sport.

Karen explained how Allie’s and her own teaching roles are intertwined now, saying, “Allie teaches Intro to Algebra to 8th Grade, and then I teach Algebra I for 9th Grade, and then I get them the next year… I feel like I get to know them, because I will go and visit her class.” Karen enjoys “getting to see [Allie] more.” She says she finds joy in the little things about working together, and that many other mothers with adult children don’t get to see each other as much as Karen and Allie do. 

Allie as a Senior at the 2008 Convocation with her Kindergarten buddy. Photo credit: Allie Albright.

Allie, a relatively new Collegiate teacher, hadn’t initially planned to follow in her mother’s footsteps. During her college years, her interests diverged, including aspirations to join the Peace Corps and a semester abroad at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. However, after graduating from the University of Richmond in 2013, she found herself drawn back to the classroom, primarily due to her fascination with teaching and what it did for her. Before entering the teaching profession, she briefly worked at an interior design firm, based on her deep-rooted passion for art and creativity. Yet she soon realized that the lack of interpersonal interaction left her unfulfilled, saying, “I missed being around kids, I missed the interaction and the community.” This rediscovery of her passion for teaching ultimately set her on her current path.

After she realized her path was teaching, she went back to school and worked different teaching and coaching jobs, such as cross country, before she was ultimately led back to Richmond and Collegiate. She said the plan was “never ever, ever, ever to go back to Collegiate… But being a teacher and moving back to Richmond, there’s no better place to work.” Because she was so hesitant about coming back, she wanted to have a conversation with Tung Trinh, the Middle School Head at the time and now Dean of Faculty, about what it would mean if she came back. She said, “I was a really big proponent, and still continue to be, of change at this school and addressing a lot of inequalities and a lot injustices that have happened at this school over time, and part of me coming back was wanting to continue to be an agent for change and not a complacent part of the status quo of where Collegiate is.” 

The Albrights on a family trip. Photo credit: Karen Albright.

Allie is using her voice and her power at this school to help develop issues that must be addressed. She believes that issues such as race, gender, and religion need to be addressed, and she hopes to “come back to Collegiate to help be an agent of progress in the effort to make our community more inclusive and to help create a better sense of belonging amongst all members within our community.”

Mother and daughter share numerous similarities, yet they’ve each crafted their own legacies at Collegiate. Karen aptly notes that despite their similarities, they’re distinct individuals, each recognized for who they are, rather than solely as the mother or daughter of the other. Neither feels overshadowed, and both share a mutual enjoyment of working together at the same school, relishing the opportunity to cross paths during the day.