Bulldog News

Hillside welcomes new faculty

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

This fall, Hillside is pleased to bring three new faculty members to campus. In welcoming these professionals to our school, Headmaster David Z. Beecher commented: “All three will bring a strong combination of enthusiasm and dedication to their classrooms and will be wonderful additions to our teaching community.”

The following paragraphs briefly introduce these newest staff members of Hillside School:

• Lauren Gremelspacher. Lauren will be serving as our new fifth grade teacher. Having recently completed her masters degree in elementary education from Lesley University, Lauren comes to Hillside with an extensive classroom background. Last fall, she served as an assistant teacher at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols (BBN) School in Cambridge where she co-taught, designed and implemented age appropriate curriculum units. As both a third grade and fifth grade assistant teacher at BBN, Lauren taught math and English and also helped develop social studies units about Africa, ancient Egypt and colonial America. She earned her undergraduate degree at Colby College in Maine, where she was the women’s ice hockey captain during the 2002-2003 season, and is a graduate of Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut. In her application to Hillside, Lauren stated her conviction that “children are always learning and need a positive role model to whom they can emulate and respect. Through my past experiences … I believe that I can be the inspiring teacher who compels students to want to learn.”

• Kathleen Marshall. During the summer, Kathleen settled nicely into her new position as assistant to Hillside’s headmaster, David Z. Beecher. Her other role will involve teaching science to Hillside students. A recent graduate of Hamilton College, Kathleen earned a double major in neuroscience and mathematics from that prestigious upstate New York college. She brings to our school a wealth of practical science experience which will undoubtedly serve both her and her students well in the classroom. Her background includes positions as a neurophysiology research assistant at Dartmouth Medical School, where she helped further research focused on brainstem abnormalities, and as a fundraising assistant for the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Hanover, NH. In applying for a teaching position with Hillside, Kathleen indicated that she “truly enjoyed working with children and my strong background in a wide breath of sciences and mathematics makes me a strong teaching candidate.”

• Patrick Sedney. Patrick will be teaching upper level science at Hillside starting this fall. Having earned his bachelor of science degree in Biology from Middlebury College in Vermont, Patrick gained important teaching experience as a faculty intern and teacher intern specializing in science, first at Middlebury Union Middle School and later at Culver Academies in Indiana. He also served as a research assistant in Middlebury College’s biology department where he did field research and data collection on bumble bee foraging habits. Outside of lab and classroom settings, Patrick has been both a camp counselor and assistant track coach. An important aspect of Patrick’s educational philosophy is a strong belief that students, as he puts it, “ought not only master content and concepts specific to each discipline, but also the ability to work independently as well as part of a group to solve problems. They will discover new information and learn to apply knowledge from the classroom to the outside world on both a personal and global scale.”

Again, a heartfelt and sincere welcome to these teachers – we wish them all the best as they begin their Hillside teaching careers!