Claudia Thomas Kairoff

By Susan R. Wente
Feb. 15, 2024

Today we honor a cherished educator, mentor and administrator whose joyous Pro Humanitate spirit and extraordinary intellect have enriched the lives of Wake Forest students and colleagues for 36 years. She is an exemplary teacher-scholar and a model citizen of our campus community, and she has brought insightful intelligence, contagious humor and inspiring energy to every facet of her work at Wake Forest. I am pleased to recognize Professor Emerita of English Claudia Thomas Kairoff as a 2024 recipient of the Medallion of Merit.

A native of Baltimore, Dr. Kairoff earned a bachelor’s degree at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and a master’s degree at the University of Virginia. Prior to receiving her doctorate at Brandeis University, Dr. Kairoff was an English instructor at prominent prep schools, including Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts. She taught at Brandeis University and the University of Michigan before joining the faculty of Wake Forest in 1986.

For nearly four decades until her retirement in 2022, Dr. Kairoff immersed herself in all things Wake Forest. She taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses, served as chair of the English department and interim chair of the departments of theatre and art, assumed faculty leadership roles including eight years as associate dean, joined numerous administrative and academic committees, launched a junior faculty mentorship program and led the charge for onsite childcare for University employees. Throughout her tenure, Dr. Kairoff’s positive impact on every dimension of her work – along with her signature laugh – has made our community a better place.

Dr. Kairoff contributed to the global academic community as well through significant scholarly books and dozens of articles, essays and book chapters. Her astonishingly thorough work as co-editor of two volumes on British 18th-century poet Anne Finch has been heralded as “one of the landmark pieces of scholarship of the century.” Prior to the 2019 and 2021 Finch publications, which were funded in part by a major NEH grant, she produced groundbreaking research on Alexander Pope and the reader response of contemporary women. In 2012, Dr. Kairoff’s comprehensive critical analysis of Anna Seward’s work prompted renewed academic interest in a stellar yet understudied woman poet of the late 18th century.

As an avid researcher, Dr. Kairoff cultivated in her students a passion for intellectual discovery, especially in the largely unexplored field of women’s poetry. She also instilled a love for literature and encouraged critical thinking and clarity of thought for generations of appreciative students. For her talents as an instructor, she was awarded the 1993 Reid-Doyle Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Beyond the Reynolda Campus, she mentored students on the Euro Tour and as resident director of Casa Artom in Venice and Worrell House in London.

In gratitude for her 36 years as a gifted and inspiring teacher-scholar, a pioneering and internationally recognized academic, and a model servant-leader of the University who made Wake Forest a better place to teach, learn and live, Wake Forest confers its highest honor, the Medallion of Merit, on Professor Emerita Claudia Thomas Kairoff on this fifteenth day of February, two thousand twenty-four.