A6 News
The Chronicle
New Faces on Campus
Aug. 28, 2019
Meet the twelve new faculty members who will be on campus during the 2019-2020 school year.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EVIE DE RUBERTIS
Elizabeth Bergman: History By Siobhan Harms
HANNAH HAN/CHRONICLE
Elizabeth Bergman joined the Upper School History Department to teach Advanced Placement United States History, United States History and the World and Europe II. Bergman recently worked at Stuart Country Day School in New Jersey and has also
taught American Studies at Princeton University. Bergman received a bachelor’s from Columbia University and a doctorate from Yale University. Bergman said that she initially became interested in the school because of its reputation. “[Harvard-Westlake] is one of, if not the best school,”
Bergman said. “My family and I were also looking at Los Angeles, and it was an amazing opportunity.” Bergman said the structure of the departments remind her of teaching at a college. “It feels very much like being back at a university,” Bergman said. “It’s amazing to have a department of eleven
colleagues, which was larger than my department at Princeton.” Bergman said that she is enjoying the school’s sense of community. “It has been really nice to have such exciting and enriching intellectual conversations,” Bergman said. “I am thrilled. It’s truly amazing [to be here].”
her love of sharing the French language with others. Her passion for culture also draws her to travel and swing dance in her free time, Bruno said. As a member of the faculty, Bruno said she hopes to learn new teaching strategies, communicate well with her team and create strong bonds with students. She views the lan-
guage laboratory as a valuable tool and looks forward to using it with her students, she said. “I was very attracted to Harvard-Westlake because of its excellence, the importance placed on academics and the strength of the education,” Bruno said. “It reminds me of the traditional French high school structure.”
SOPHIA MUSANTE/CHRONICLE
high schools, including the Episcopal School of Los Angeles, where she taught writing, rhetoric and composition. She said her interests in literature naturally led her to teaching. “My mom is a teacher, so it’s like the family business,” Foushee said. “I’ve always loved school and English was by far my favorite subject.”
However, she became more interested in teaching during college, Foushee said. “I went to Sarah Lawrence [College], which is really strong in the humanities, and I had a lot of really wonderful literature teachers there [who inspired me],” Foushee said. Foushee said she hopes to use the skills she learned in
school to create an exciting, but informative classroom environment. “I’m really looking forward to getting to know all of my students in the classroom, and I hope to find some ways to form relationships with students outside of the classroom through extracurriculars,” Foushee said.
Pugh said the addition of Fox will allow the department to produce the best results for the community. “Nate is going to be a great help to our already spectacular technical director, Aaron Martin, as he will take some of the work off of [Martin’s] shoulders and allow our department to perform to the best of our
ability,” Pugh said. Pugh said that Fox’s knowledge of performance technology will aid the department by ensuring that the acoustics will be top tier. “Nate is a very valuable addition, as he allows us to devote more time and energy to each aspect of each performance,” Pugh said.
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF NATE FOX
“At the same time, I’m looking forward to working with my students together to explore more approaches for language studying and enjoy the moment that they use the language to resolve realistic problems.” In the past, He has worked for the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Insti-
tute School of Language Studies in Washington D.C., where he was a Chinese language instructor, teaching multiple levels of the language to diplomats and foreign service officers. He also spent four years as a middle-school Chinese instructor at the Affiliated High School of Qinghai Normal University in China.
He earned both his bachelor’s degree in Chinese Language and Literature, as well as his master’s degree in Chinese Language Teaching from the Beijing Normal University. “In the future, I hope I can support all of my students succeed both in learning the language and being a global citizen,” He said.
Karine Bruno: French By Sophia Musante French teacher Karine Bruno joined the upper school world languages department, bringing 20 years of teaching experience to the classroom. Bruno will teach French II, French II Honors and French III to upperclassmen. Bruno attended Nice Uni-
versity in the south of France, received certification in Paris and gained seven years of teaching experience in France. In 2006, Bruno moved to the United States, where she taught at Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles and Holy Family High School. Bruno said that her passion for teaching stems from
Amanda Foushee: English By Marina Nascimento
MARINA NASCIMENTO/CHRONICLE
Amanda Foushee recently joined the English Department to teach English II and Advanced Placement English Literature: Good Grief to sophomores and seniors, respectively. Previously, Foushee worked at various colleges and
Nate Fox: Performing Arts By Julian Andreone Nate Fox joined the Performing Arts Department as an Assistant Technical Director this year after working as a technical director at Northern Arizona University. Fox said he is excited to help set up the light and sound requirements for on-
campus events such as choral and dance performances. “The position of Assistant Technological Director is [one] that we have always hoped to create and fill as it will better our ability to put on schoolwide events that live up to the standard that Harvard-Westlake expects,” performing arts teacher Rees Pugh said.
Bin He: Chinese By Melody Tang
MELODY TANG/CHRONICLE
Bin He will join the Upper School World Languages department this August. He will teach Chinese II, Chinese IV and Post-AP Chinese during the upcoming year. “I’m so glad that I can work with so many highly engaged students together,” He said.