News - Faculty
02.21.12
Recently we caught up with Sari Rauscher, the College Counseling Director (and Upper School Community Service Advisor) at Waterford. Sari spends her days overseeing essays, helping to coordinate and advise on applications, and soothing frazzled students, when she isn’t off at a conference or visiting colleges. Sari has been a long-time fixture at Waterford: she has been here since 1998, and has worked as Ski Coach and English, History, and PE Teacher. Following are excerpts of our conversation with her. We are lucky to have her.
So what was your own college experience like? Weren’t you at Dartmouth?
Yes!
What was it like being out in the middle of nowhere? [Dartmouth is in Hanover, a small town in southern New Hampshire.]
Well, being from a small Maine town, I loved it; to me, Hanover was a sort of mecca — there was so much going on, art, culture — and so many smart kids from all over, and great discussions, and, of course, the outdoors: rock climbing, hiking, skiing. And I got to race on the Alpine Ski Team.
How was that?
Being an athlete gives you an automatic family at college, though the way I did it made the experience disjointed in a way. I took winter terms off in my first couple of years to train and race on the national level, and then finished my last two years in a more normal fashion. I graduated two years behind my class, so I lost some of the sense of having a class that is so precious at a small college.
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01.12.12
Paula Getz, one of this year’s Educator Prize winners, teaches Class V, and this year heads up the Lower School Robotics program. Paula has been teaching at Waterford since 2001, after a brief stint working on the development of a grammar program at the Waterford Institute. She hails from Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. Recently, we caught up with Paula, to talk about her philosophy of teaching, her experiences teaching in the inner city, and sea-kayaking in Alaska. Following are excerpts from the interview.
So what was your own experience of fifth grade like? Was it wonderful, and you wanted to recreate it for others, or was it horrific, and you wanted to fix it?
I had a pretty dry teacher, named Mrs. Snyder. She was very strict; she wasn’t much of a role model at all. I looked forward to Science, which was much more hands-on, and had a lot more variety; it was a big change from Homeroom.
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01.11.12
The Waterford Educator Prize was created in 1995 to honor members of the Faculty for the quality of their teaching and for their professional contributions to their colleagues and the School. Faculty and Staff submit nominations in the Fall, and the winners are announced in December. Each receives a monetary gift toward the pursuit of an interest or a dream that is important to that individual. The winners are asked to speak at the April All Schools Faculty Meeting, reflecting on their teaching — how they came to it, how they keep it vital, and insights they have acquired along the way.
Congratulations to the 2011 winners, named below. We have included for each a snippet from the tribute by Head of School Nancy Heuston.
Paula Getz: “Generous among her grade-mates and colleagues, witty and quick, never one to draw attention to herself or her accomplishments, Paula is a trusted member of our faculty and an articulate spokesman for the School she calls hers.”
Andrew Cole: “Scrupulous in his attention to each student and to every question, his classroom is a place where young scientists develop tools to probe and to explore.”
Greg Miles: “He cares deeply that every part runs smoothly, so that the School’s resources can be tightly focused on every child learning, every day.”
11.17.11
Here’s a special treat: a visit with our whip-smart, one-of-a-kind English Department Chair (we found her huddled behind a pile of essays).
Mary Powers grew up in New York, mostly in White Plains, a Westchester county suburb. She lived in a 3-generation household, with her parents and maternal grandparents, and attended, as she describes it, “the ominously named Our Lady of Sorrows.” At 15, her family moved to Utah and she did her last 2 years of high school at Judge. She says that she arrived here as a punk rocker, with mini-skirt and combat boots, listening to the Clash, while her peers were listening to Marshall Tucker and Pure Prairie League… After high school, Mary ran back east to Harvard, and earned Bachelor’s degrees in English and American Literature and Language — and — Psychology and Social Relations. This was, as she says, quite possibly the longest if not the most prestigious degree that institution could award.
What kind of work did you do before you came to Waterford?
I worked in residential treatment, then got an M.S.S.W. at Columbia University School of Social Work, and an M.Ed. in Special Education from Bank Street College. I kept doing clinical practice in residential treatment, mostly with teenaged girls, then moved out here with 3 boys under the age of 5 and didn’t work for money for a while.
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10.03.11
We are excited to welcome this group of new faculty, who come to us with diverse and fascinating backgrounds. Here’s your chance to learn a bit about them.
Tim Campbell, Middle and Upper School English
Tim says he is thrilled to join the exceptional faculty at The Waterford School as an English teacher for both Middle and Upper School students. While Tim is new to the faculty, he used to enjoy the wonders of Waterford as a K-12 student. Many of his lifelong pursuits were cultivated by the likes of Mr. Bromley, Mr. Van Arsdell, Mr. Capener and many others. He says he can’t wait to give back to the school while continuing to learn and grow.
After graduating with the class of 2000, Tim earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Colorado College while serving as captain of the men’s soccer team. For the past three years Tim has taught literature and writing courses at The Oakley School, earning the “Educator of the Year” award for 2010-2011. When he’s not in the classroom…
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