Faculty of the Week: Christine Knapp
By Clark Wu and Marco Ko
A born and raised New Hampshirite, English Instructor Christine Knapp grew up as an outdoors enthusiast; even now, runners can often find her skiing in the Exeter winter woodlands, her dog Indigo trailing behind her.
“My father was really interested in organic gardening, and he didn’t want us eating anything with pesticides. So we grew much of our own food when I was a child.” she said.
Her adventurous energy prompted her to travel to Jakarta, Indonesia in 1997, a city “for the passionate.” She taught at Jakarta International School until 2007, when an old college friend of hers encouraged her to apply for a teaching position at Exeter.
During her first years at the Academy, Knapp crafted the position of International Student Coordinator and excelled due to her international awareness. She empathized with her students’ parents. “I would see how nervous the parents were when they would drop off their fourteen-year olds,” she said. “This child is now taking care of themselves—and their passport.”
Knapp was often the first person to call to resolve legal complications for international students, especially regarding lost and stolen passports. Once, she helped a student who lost his passport a few days before the winter break and managed for him to come back just two weeks after break ended. She helped Exonians get approved for student work programs and internships, ensuring that they would comply with American laws. She also created the orientation program that, to this day, allows foreign students to adjust to Exeter’s new environment.
According to Director of Global Initiatives Eimer Page, Knapp “understood the cultures, backgrounds and the intercultural competencies that were needed to work with families who were coming from Asia.” That proved to be one of her greatest strengths and immensely valuable for worrying, overseas families.
Knapp found her transition into English teaching as a “natural shift”, and her students couldn’t agree more. “She struck me as especially thoughtful and charismatic,” upper Nick Chiu said. “She kept motivating us to improve the quality of our Harkness discussions.”
Knapp’s work around the table feels extremely rewarding and fulfilling to her, too. “I think one thing that Exeter has allowed me to do is to continue my own independent education,” she said. “This place encourages me to be innovative. It’s partly because of the writers that we bring in. They inspire me, bring in new perspectives, and I try to make it a goal for myself to teach something every term that I’ve never taught before.”
Driven by the Academy’s autonomy, Knapp created the winter term elective Beyond Korean Cool, a course that studies contemporary Korean literature. Knapp was inspired by a 2016 article in the New Yorker about the collection of contemporary Korean literature that the Dalkey Archive Press had recently translated and published.
“I had a term off and spent that term reading and thinking,” Knapp said. “I put it in a proposal, and I was able to create a senior elective. And that’s the kind of opportunity that I think I wouldn’t have at a lot of other schools.”
During the summer, in preparation for remote learning in the fall term, Knapp and her friends at Exeter came together, and everyone ran their own Zoom “class discussions” for some of the books they read together. “We all got to experience being Zoom students,” she said. “That was really important to me because I wanted to have a better understanding of what my students were going through to try and get the most out of the Zoom experience.”
Knapp’s willingness to reach out, to share and to learn is certainly not limited to the classroom. Physics Instructor Tatiana Waterman noted Knapp’s amazing connection with international students. “While her job was in OMA, and also later as an English teacher, she rescued me every time I needed to help my advisees—be it tips for supporting them emotionally, ideas for a culturally-themed party or visa and travel tangles,” she said.
“She has a sixth sense for easing the challenges of the cultural shell-shock which some of our foreign students experience. Her warmth, tact, compassion and wisdom transfer no matter what post she is in,” Waterman added.
To Waterman, Knapp is a casual and fun presence. “She has a wickedly smart sense of humor, and she makes me laugh at least once every time I meet with her,” she said. “She even put H-mart on the map for me!”
In normal years, the soon-approaching holiday season would be a call for Knapp’s famous parties. “I like hosting the party because then I have a role and a job,” she said. “It seems more natural to me than being a guest and having to mingle.”
Knapp’s parties are like herself. “They’re lovely, she creates this family feel,” Page added. “She’s also the most thoughtful person if anybody’s going through a hard time and is the best at reaching out and checking in on colleagues, making sure that people are okay.”
Whether she is in Jakarta or Exeter, Knapp has used her thoughtfulness, respect and empathy to cultivate close relationships with everyone around her. “I have developed a lot of close friendships at Exeter,” she said. “I think that’s good for me to have friendships that extend beyond my own age group.
“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”
– Walter Mitty from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty