Meet the Faculty

by Caitlin O’Brien

Graduation doesn’t always mark the end of a journey at Lawrence Academy. There are currently 14 faculty members who were once students on the elm tree–shaded hillside.

The alumni faculty who call LA home represent several areas of academics, athletics, and administration. They are all part of the day-to-day lives of our students, and their perspectives as alumni help guide their work. We caught up with ten of them.

When Ben Rogers ’02 was a student at LA, he always had a feeling that he’d be back as an employee. Now, as director of alumni advancement, Ben feels just as much at home on campus as he always did.

Erica Hager ’88 agrees with Ben: “It’s a great place to be,” she says of Lawrence. “It’s something very special to come back and contribute to the place that gave you so much at such a fragile, changeable time in your life.”

Emily Pratt ’16 never imagined she’d be back on campus as an adult. “Little did I know then that life has its own way of surprising us,” she reflects, “and sometimes the paths we least expect to take lead us exactly where we’re meant to be.” But Shelby Guinard ’19 was voted Most Likely to Work at LA by her classmates, even though she was “adamant that I would never be a high school teacher.”

The alumni faculty note the many differences between their experiences at LA and those of current students, including facilities improvements, curricular and programmatic changes — including the NGP and CSC — dress code, and technology. Val Templeton ’89 points out, “We had no phones, so there was a lot more playing games on the Quad and enjoying each other’s company.”

Like Val, Michelle Ruby ’98 sees a cultural difference because of the prevalence of technology in today’s world. “I am also so glad that social media and cell phones weren’t a thing back then,” she says. “My moments of stupidity are funny stories, not videos that will follow me forever, plus I could more easily be present where I was. If I was having any sort of social challenge at school, I could set it aside at home, and vice versa.”

Jarred Gagnon ’03 feels that the school’s changes have been positive. “We’ve taken steps to make LA a more welcoming and friendly community. Not that it was bad then, but we have explicitly taken steps to improve the experience,” he says. “We have embraced new technologies and have made adjustments to the schedule and mission of the school.”

Sara Gillis’s ’10 experiences at LA as a student inspired her to return to campus to work in admissions. “As a student, I always felt cared for. Yet, as a faculty member, I am blown away by the lengths to which the faculty go to support our students,” she says. “Seeing the ‘behind the scenes’ of supporting our students has been really inspiring to witness, and it makes me so grateful that I got to attend a school like Lawrence Academy.”

For Sean Sheehan ’87, what makes LA special has remained unchanged: He appreciates the school’s steadfast commitment to “helping each kid figure out who they are and helping them become the best versions of themselves.” That commitment also resonates with Jen McAleer ’03: “I have always wanted to help students become the best versions of themselves in my career,” she says. “Reading LA’s mission and recognizing how they truly live it made me reconsider my own experience at LA. I grew the most as a student and human on this campus, and the faculty here supported me along the way. They truly knew me as a person and only wanted to push me to become the best version of myself. I decided that this aligns with my view on educating students and is a perfect place to return to. Hopefully, I can provide the same experience that I had for students at LA.”

For graduates who are interested in working at Lawrence Academy, the advice from our current group of alumni faculty is unanimous: Go for it; you belong here.