“Tim Acker had the most profoundly positive impact on me intellectually of any teacher that I had at Hotchkiss, Yale or Harvard Business School." – Craig L. Kennedy ’87
“every year there were interesting people, and every year there were interesting things happening.” He says he loved the camaraderie and kinship with fellow teachers, and grew to appreciate the countryside. Mentors and work friends over his time included Jeff Kosak, former instructor in French, and his first department head, Alban Barker. “He had a big influence on me, and he had such a tremendous sense for people and for working with students,” he said. “I’ve also learned more about Spain from Angela Janelli (a department colleague) than I have ever learned from books and literature.”
P H OTO G R A P H S : ( TO P ) W E N DY C A R L S O N ; T H E M I S C H I A N Z A
A Jokester, with a Quick Wit
Tim has always been known as somewhat of a jokester, with a quick wit. “I remember there was a kid who used to fall asleep in class occasionally. And it was kind of a standing joke with the class. So one day, he fell asleep in class,” he recalls. “So I told the kids to be quiet and we all sort of sneaked out and turned off the lights and closed the door behind us. We just let him sleep. Ten minutes into the next period or something, he woke up and realized he was alone in the classroom and everyone was gone.” Over his 37 years at Hotchkiss, Acker taught hundreds of preps first-year Spanish, which he enjoyed because he could see so much progress (hopefully). “The kids would start with nothing, and then by the end of the year they would seem to know a fair amount, and you felt as if you’ve really accomplished something.” But his favorite course to teach was AP Spanish Literature. “When the kids get to the AP literature
level, you can actually discuss literature and themes and ideas and style with kids whose language skills are good enough that you can really have Pascal-level discussions in the language. And that’s just a lot of fun.” Besides teaching, Acker has helped the School and students in myriad ways. For many years, he ran the Saturday night movies in the auditorium before the era of DVDs and laptops. He was also the faculty advisor to a weekly Hotchkiss video news program called “The Weekend Review.” He advised the Spanish Club and the Whipping Post and served on and off the Disciplinary Committee for a dozen years. On the field, he coached sports including junior varsity girls lacrosse, Thirds soccer, and baseball, but Tim admits he started out as “a terrible coach. But when I first came to Hotchkiss, everybody had to be a coach. Thirds baseball was always an adventure. It was just a bad-news bears. You always considered yourself lucky when you got through a day, and nobody got hit in the head with a ball.” He’s also famous for walking his dogs around campus and bringing them to sports games. After his last day, he has to figure out where he wants to live, since he has both a house in Falls Village and one in Wisconsin. He also wants to travel around a bit and visit friends he’s lost touch with. “I’m sure that by next year this time I’ll be asking myself, ‘how did you ever have time to work.’” Daniel Lippman ’08, an Acker advisee, is a reporter for Politico in Washington, DC.
The prankster gets pranked!
Singing his h eart out in 19 80
Acker and friends S u m m e r
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