5 | The Bell May 2017
On Campus
Departing Faculty of Suffield Academy Nick Vardakas ’18 and Bell Advisors
Ms. Massa Ms. Massa teaches Spanish at Suffield and has been here for two years. Her favorite memories on campus happened on the volleyball court. She says the best moment for her was “when we beat Loomis for the first time in Suffield’s history.” Upon the close of this school year, Ms. Massa will be attending graduate school at Simmons College to pursue a career as a Family Nurse Practitioner. She says that she “will miss Suffield and all of the wonderful people here, but I will definitely be back to visit soon!” The Suffield Academy community wishes Ms. Massa the best of luck in her future endeavors as a Nurse Practitioner! Ms. Kim Ms. Kim is a Hong Kong native who came to the United States to attend boarding school at St. Paul’s School. After graduating, Ms. Kim practiced law in New York City for several years before coming to work at Suffield. She has been at Suffield for three years, serving as a college counselor, SOLO faculty, and a dorm parent. Her favorite activities on campus including walking to work every morning “knowing that I’ll get to spend the next nine hours working with students and getting to know them more.” Ms. Kim will, unfortunately, be leaving us to work in the college counseling office at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. This is a reunion, in a way, as both she and her husband attended the school as students. When asked if there was anything she would like to say to the Suffield community upon her departure, she said, “Thank you for an incredible three years. I will miss everyone!” The Suffield Academy community wishes Ms. Kim good luck in her future endeavors! Mr. and Mrs. Depelteau Mr. Depelteau grew up in western Massachusetts and attended Suffield as a post-graduate. He attended Wheaton College and majored in English. Coming back to Suffield Academy 10 years ago, Mr. Depelteau worked in the admissions office for the first six years before moving over to the college counseling office for the past four years. Additionally, Mr. Depelteau has led the boys’ varsity basketball team to impressive victories for the past nine years. Mrs. Depelteau grew up in Georgia and attended Presbyterian College for her undergraduate degree in English and political science. Mrs. Depelteau has worked at Suffield for the past eight years where she has spent time working in the English department and in the Academic office. Together they have been the dorm heads in Nathena Fuller House for six years and Spencer Hall for the past two. After leaving Suffield at the close of the school year, Mr. and Mrs. Depelteau will be moving to Asheville, North Carolina to work at the Christ School, an independent boarding and day school for boys. Mrs. Depelteau will be the Academic Dean at the school, and Mr. Depelteau will be the Associate Director of College Counseling. When Mrs. Depelteau thinks about what she will miss at Suffield, she immediately comes to the sense of community that Suffield has and just how loving and friendly Suffield is. She says, “When I came to Suffield I was newly married, and now I’m leaving with a family. Suffield will always be the first place that Jeff and I, together, called a home and the first home that my children ever knew.” She shares a moment of realization in the past week where her son Max was playing hide-and-seek with Griffin Kornaker ’17, where they lost Max and
Photo by Molly Gotwals
As another school year is coming to a close, the Suffield community is saying goodbye to a few faculty members. ended up finding him in a hammock on the quad with Meg Varney ’17 and Lauren Henzy ’17, hanging out and enjoying themselves. She looked to Mr. Depelteau and said “This. I’m going to miss this.” Many of Mr. Depelteau’s favorite memories include long bus rides to games and also locker room celebrations with all the teams that he has coached. He says “all of my fondest memories at Suffield have something to do with my work with students.” Mr. Depelteau says that Suffield “will always feel like home to me. From my time as a student to my first ten years of being an adult, I’ve literally grown up on this campus and started a family here. Suffield is a special place, and while my time working here is done, I’m lucky that I’ll always be an alum, and I look forward to coming back to visit because, as Mr. Cahn says at Commencement, ‘You have to take me back!’” Mr. and Mrs. Depelteau will be missed dearly and we wish them a fantastic future! Ms. Andrysiak Ms. Andrysiak is the English Chair at Suffield who arrived in 2005 as the Assistant Academic Dean. Over the past twelve years, she has been a dorm associate in six different dorms, an assistant swim coach, the advisor to an arts magazine, the advisor to the Bell, and the co-advisor to the Kent-Davis competition. Prior to Suffield, she worked as a public school teacher and as a teacher at an international school in Quito, Ecuador. She also helped start an innercity charter school in Boston and then moved into the administration of an allgirls day school in Boston. She says “Suffield is the first boarding school I’ve experienced, and I think 12 years of dorm duty and Saturday classes is enough!” Ms. Andrysiak will move to Charlotte, North Carolina where she will be the Upper School Dean of Studies at Charlotte Country Day School. As Ms. Andrysiak has worked at Suffield for an extended period of time, it is hard to come up with one single favorite memory. She has “teared up” as individuals broke records in the pool and was proud when the coaches were forced to swim, fully clothed, with the team after Suffield’s many New England victories. She loves having great conversations with students in class and in the dorms, and she feels pride when a student makes her see something in a new way. From her involvement with the faculty community to her connection with the students in her classes, teams, and dorms, she feels the departure is bitter-sweet. She promises to come back often for visits “since the people here have been my community for over a decade – they’re a part of who I am.” As she finishes writing this chapter of her life and moves on to the next, Ms. Andrysiak “encourages everyone to step outside of their group or clique and get to know each other—that’s both faculty and students.” She says, “there are amazing people here, and if I had just spent time with the few people I see most often in the day, I never would have had this rich experience.” As Ms. Andrysiak is one of the faculty leaders of The Bell, each staff member of The Bell will sincerely miss her presence at each meeting and the hard work she does for the newspaper. The Suffield Academy community, and especially staff members of The Bell wish Ms. Andrysiak good luck with her future plans and we hope to see her back at Suffield soon!