Mimi Rafferty Retires after 28 Years as English Teacher Mimi Rafferty graded her last English paper and has embarked on an adventurous and well-planned retirement that includes world travel, tutoring the children of migrant workers, cultural trips to New York City and leisurely walks with her husband and grandchildren. Mrs. Rafferty taught English at Convent of the Sacred Heart under three heads of school and leaves behind many friends and memories. In a special chapel for the Upper School, she reflected on her retirement and life at Sacred Heart. The following is an excerpt.
Any transition in life is accompanied by mixed feelings—regret at the thought of not seeing the people you have grown to know and love, some anxiety at letting go of accustomed routines (not entirely—not having to get up at 6:30 every morning of the week will be a welcome change). I will miss Mr. Allison’s smile as I run up the walk with all my bags every morning, hoping to arrive at Morning Meeting before the door closes. But I will leave with such fond memories of all that I have experienced at Sacred Heart. What a privilege it has
I remember very primitive attempts to create videos for History Day on a computer in the library. Now, under Ms. Ellyn Stewart’s expert guidance, students in broadcast journalism have been recognized nationally for their documentaries and locally for their creative insights in film. I remember when Perspectives and the King Street Chronicle were rather primitive attempts at photocopying and stapling. Now in Perspectives we are so lucky to have our own in-house photo design specialist and book maker, Ms. Kev Filmore
regret at the thought of not seeing the people you have grown to know and love, some anxiety at letting go of accustomed routines...” been to see this School grow. I remember when the Upper School had less than a hundred students. Now it has close to 300. I remember when the English Department had only two teachers. Sister Cherry and I had to do all that we could. I had the ninth and tenth grades. She had eleventh and twelfth. Now, we are fortunate to have six or more colleagues [in the Upper School] to bring new ideas and new energy to the different disciplines. The effects of this growth are very visible. Dr. Mottolese [English Department chair William Mottolese] re-imagined the Great Thinkers humanities course, which I used to teach. Now this is a capstone course for all the seniors, combining philosophy, theology and literature, with more speakers from within the Sacred Heart academic community and the outside world in many different disciplines, coming to lecture on various subjects and social justice.
[Upper School photography teacher], who has made our literary magazine truly a student-run production that combines creative writing, photography and art work, in a professional layout that consistently wins gold and silver medals from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. And next year, under the innovative direction of Ms. Larson and Mr. Haeseler [Matilde Larson teaches journalism in Upper School and Karl Haeseler is director of education technology], the newspaper is going digital, with updates every two weeks or so. With all of the above, I leave the English Department very well indeed and moving forward at an exponential pace…And I will be back next year to see all the remodeling of the classrooms and every once in a while to substitute. One cannot stay away from Sacred Heart for long.
Convent of the Sacred Heart 37