Alumni News Mark Julien, ‘95, Receives $25,000 Top Teacher Award Mark Julien got the surprise of his career on October 1, 2013.
player in high school, Mark captained the 1994 football team that won the CHSL Central Division and the District Championship. He went on to Michigan State University, majoring in English and minoring in History, and picking up a teaching endorsement.
At a school-wide assembly at Henry Ford II High School in Sterling Heights, where he is an English teacher, Mark learned he was one of Mark Julien the recipients of the 2013 Milken Educator Award, a $25,000 cash prize awarded Mark credits his DLS teachers with his to 40 teachers around the country. decision to enter teaching. Teacher Magazine calls the award the “I was a blue-collar kid from Sterling “Oscar of Teaching.” Heights. My teachers were some of my Mark was the only Michigan recipient.
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Begun by the Milken Family Foundation in 1987 “to honor excellence in teaching,” the cash awards are given to teachers who have “demonstrated effective teaching practices and results for students.” In 2010, one of Mark’s students was named a Presidential Scholar, one of only 140 students in the nation to receive the award. The student named Mark as her most influential teacher, and he traveled to Washington DC with her for the ceremonies at the White House with President Obama. DLS teacher Mr. Michael Karas, and Ben Van Berkum, ’10, the only other Michigan student to win the prestigious honor, were part of the same ceremony. A four-year football and baseball
only college-educated professional role models. They had a huge impact on my life.” Mark notes that he and his brothers, Matt, ‘93, his oldest brother Mike (Bishop Gallagher, ‘89), and sister Loree (Bishop Gallagher, ‘90), are the first generation in his family to attend college. Mark cites two of his DLS English teachers as memorable. “Mr. (David) Kirck showed me you could be male, and be into literature, and not be ‘hokey,’ and still be a family man. “I was very competitive and when I didn’t know something, I wanted to learn it. In freshman year, I had Mrs. (Vicki) Granger for English. My knowledge of grammar wasn’t very good. She joked with me that I was a ‘grammar moron,’ and she spent time
helping me learn my grammar after school, free time, whenever. A lot of teachers at La Salle go the extra mile, and help students when they need help.” Mark was also influenced by the late Tony De Santis and by Mike Szatkowski. “I didn’t have either as a teacher. They were my football coaches. I saw that they were teachers first, and that they considered teaching their first priority. They showed you that you could be outstanding in both and compromised in neither.” Mark began his teaching career at DLS in 2002, and taught English for two years. He coached JV baseball for two years, and was head coach for JV, and then Freshmen Football. He was offensive coordinator of the varsity football team from 2006 – 2009. He joined the Utica Community Schools in 2004, as a teacher at Ford II. He has taught Advanced Placement English, Literature and Composition, for the last four years at the school, along with a variety of other English classes. He coached JV baseball for four years, and is now a varsity assistant. Mark and his wife Julie live in Grosse Pointe Woods, and intend to put some of the $25,000 into a college fund for their three daughters – Annabelle, a third-grader, Charlotte, a first-grader, and Phoebe, a two-year old. “Maybe we’ll take a vacation, too,” said Mark.
