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| Staff |
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| The faculty is diverse in background and highly qualified—more than two thirds hold advanced degrees. Members of the arts faculty are practicing professionals who perform and exhibit in the community. The Upper School is fortunate to attract and retain individuals who are deeply committed to teaching as an art and as a profession, passionate |
The teachers are top-notch, and they are teaching subjects they are passionate about, which makes me excited about the subject.
a 2 nd -year student |
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| about their intellectual disciplines, and devoted to nurturing young people for a lifetime of learning, leadership, and service. |
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Amelia B. Shull teaches a variety of Art Classes in the US: Art With Purpose, Studio Art History, Experimental Photography, Drawing and Pain ting. Since she was small, Amelia has been creatively pursuing almost every art form. A working photographer and teacher, she studied Art History, Photography and Sculpture at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Eastern European Art History, Culture, Politics and Sociology at the University of Wroclaw, Poland in 1996. After school she moved to New York and worked at Christie's Art Auction House assisting with exhibits in Soho at the ArtistSpace on the weekends. In the winter of 1999, she volunteered at Creativity Explored in San Francisco, a working art studio for adults with developmental disabilities, and has participated in |
| Arts for All workshops locally. Since coming back to North Carolina (to stay) in 1999, Amelia has worked at Southeastern Camera in Carrboro, coordinated Children's Visual Art Classes at the Durham Arts Council, and fallen in love with teaching Photography and Art to all ages through jobs at the Carrboro Arts Center, Durham Technical Community College, Durham Arts Council, and the Duke Center for Documentary Studies' Literacy Through Photography program. Professionally, Amelia incorporates her skills in fine art media, dance, music and theater with 19th Century and Modern Photography techniques. Particularly fond of exploring new places, she loves to travel, and enjoys playing drums, singing, sewing, cooking and gardening. |
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Annie Dwyer |
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Bob Druhan |
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Bryce Little has been teaching in the Upper School for almost 16 years now. He came to CFS by the usual serendipitous route, growing up in the far-distant St. Lawrence Valley next to Canada and finding out about the School by friendship in Philadelphia with one of the members of the founding Klopfer family. His original background is in archaeology and Native American studies. He has found the opportunity in the Upper School to explore every aspect of social studies, from anthropology to political science to European, Asian, African-American, and American history, and also chances to dance, coordinate a student play production on Vietnam, photograph buffalo on the great Plains, and provide drum accompaniment to dance performances. His outside interests include blues |
| music, the movies of Cary Grant, travel, and anything Italian. |
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Carrie Huff, Upper School Head Teacher, joined the Language Arts department in 1992, having just moved to Durham from the great state of Maine where she had taught in public junior high and high schools for 12 years. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and English from DePauw University. In addition to classes in Language Arts and Acting, Carrie has also taught social studies, French, science, and chorus. She co-directs our annual spring theatre production—some favorites include The Wiz , West Side Story , and Godspell . Carrie is married to Greg Huff, and is the proud mother of David, Kristie, and Sam. Her favorite hobbies are singing and Yoga. She remains personally grounded by singing in the Mt. Sinai |
| Missionary Baptist Church Gospel Choir. |
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Dave Worden is in his fourth year at CFS, and teaches a variety of math courses. Dave received both his undergraduate degree (1977) and master's degree (2002) from Colgate University in upstate New York. In his previous life, Dave was a self-employed residential contractor. He currently works with the CFS cross-country team. |
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Drew Lile has been performing professionally since the age of 15 and has played guitar, banjo, mandolin, and bass in a variety of musical situations, including the North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra, the Gregg Gelb Swing Band, the North Carolina Symphony, the Duke Children's Classic, public television educational programs, the North Carolina Theatre, Theatre in the Park, the Carter Minor Blues Band, the Powerhitters, the Paul Jeffrey Octet and Quartet. He's also performed as a leader or sideman in numerous other free-lance jazz, blues, rock, bluegrass, and orchestral projects. He's performed or recorded with Luciano Pavarotti, Michael Feinstein, Sarah and Arlo Guthrie, Little Anthony and the Imperials, the Platters, the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, Patti Page, |
| Pat Boone, Larry Gatlin, Margaret Whiting, trumpeter Clark Terry, saxophonist Jessie Davis, the Ellis Brothers, and others. He performed on banjo in the December 1996 CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame movie The Summer of Ben Tyler , starring James Woods and Elizabeth McGovern. Drew had been featured on several jazz and rock recordings; his own band, House Arrest, released a self-titled CD last year. He's been teaching privately since 1987, and in 1994 became a Staff Associate teaching jazz guitar at Duke University. Drew has been the music teacher in the Upper School since 1999. |
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Dylan Pendergrast |
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Elise London grew up at a small pre-school directed by her family in northern Vermont. After acquiring a bachelor's degree in Political Theory from Williams College and completing unrelated coursework at the University of Vermont, she decided that it was time to give in to the family business and get involved in education full-time. Elise earned a Master's in Education at Harvard University, and while in Boston became involved in public school consulting. After one too many New England winters, she decided to head south. Four years ago, Elise was delighted to find a job at Carolina Friends School where the philosophy of education so closely mimics her own. She is the math department coordinator and teaches first- |
year language arts along with a number of elective classes (including those on the ropes course). Elise is very proud of the HIV education curriculum she developed with components of social studies and service learning. Outside of the classroom, Elise sits on her deck, and plans adventures. |
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Frances Brindle |
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Jamie Hysjulien, Ph.D., teaches language arts and social studies. His course offerings include a series of senior courses in Romanticism, Modernism and Postmodernism as well as creative writing, world literature, Dante, African American Literature and African history. Jamie has a BA in Classical Greek from the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis, a master's degree in History from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and a doctorate in Literature from Duke University. His dissertation, directed by Fredric Jameson, dealt with the relationships between politics and modern American poetry and focused on the works of Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams. His own poetry has appeared in national publications and he was |
| a runner up in the 2002 Independent Poetry contest. In 2000, he co-directed the award-winning documentary Shine On: Richard Trice and the Bull City Blues . The video was funded by the North Carolina HumanitiesCouncil and tells the story of the last surviving blues musician from the heyday of the Durham blues scene in the 1930's. This video grew out of a class he taught at Carolina Friends School on local music history. In the summer of 2003, he attended the National Humanities Center institute for high school teachers: The Making of African American Identity: 1865-1915 . As a consultant to the Center for the Study of Medical Ethics and Humanities at Duke University Medical Center, Jamie helped to plan a national conference on poetry and medicine that was held in the spring of 2004. |
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Jon Lepofsky |
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Ken Mitchell is the Upper School French teacher. His experience in independent school teaching began in 1989 at Indian Springs School, near his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, and includes tenure at Heritage Hall School in Oklahoma City, Durham Academy, and Lowcountry Day School in Pawley’s Island, SC. He worked for a short time at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and at Birmingham-Southern College before moving to independent school education. Ken’s love for languages began during childhood, when he would try to decipher his father’s college textbooks. But it wasn’t until his studies at Auburn University, in Auburn, AL, where he earned an undergraduate and a graduate degree in French, that he was able to |
satisfy his craving for languages. Ken’s hands-on experience with French language and culture includes Graduate Teaching at Auburn and at the University of Illinois (while doing a year of doctoral-level coursework in Second Language Acquisition); a summer abroad program in Clermont-Ferrand (Auvergne); and a 5-month stay in Caen (Normandy), where he participated in a Graduate Exchange Program. Ken gained valuable hands-on experience in French and Spanish while working with the French resort group Club Med, completing three six-month tours of duty in Copper Mountain, CO; on Eleuthera Island, Bahamas; and in Cancun, Mexico.
Beyond his love of teaching, Ken enjoys spending time with his wife Kanista; caring for their three Basset Hounds; auto mechanics and performance driving (only on track); tennis; and playing fingerstyle acoustic guitar. |
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Leslie Smith |
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Matthew Jessee grew up in Chapel Hill. He has a degree in Philosophy from Western Carolina University and a Master's in Education from Southwest Texas State (Austin, TX). Matt teaches Chemistry, Introduction to Physical Science and Applied Physical Science. He has also coached the JV Boys Basketball tea. Matt was once a river guide and ski instructor in western North Carolina. |
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Pam Mayer |
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Rob Dubose |
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Rob Lavelle |
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Sherri Moore-Mott |
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When Susan Kincaid first began teaching at Carolina Friends School, her youngest daughter was three years old. She is now a third year student in the Upper School! Susan graduated cum laude from Smith College in 1975, where she studied French history, language, and literature. After teaching for a year in a private Catholic school in Colorado, Susan moved to New York City where she pursued an acting career. She took classes at HB Studio and later studied under Bill Esper. She also worked closely with Lloyd Williamson and the Actor's Movement Studio. When not taking acting, voice, signing, and dance classes, or waiting on tables, Susan managed to perform in some off-off-Broadway productions. The most |
| memorable was a magic and mime show in a theater that only sat 50 people. In the years between New York City and CFS, Susan worked in advertising, had two children, began a writing career, and even taught swimming to babies and aerobics to senior citizens. At CFS Susan wears many hats. She currently teaches Language Arts, Women's History, and Theater. What she appreciates most about CFS is the opportunity it has given her over the years to teach the subjects about which she is most passionate. Susan also teaches in the CFS Summer program, where she helps a new generation of actors and playwrights to bring their ideas to life. |
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Terry Pendergrast has been at Carolina Friends School for thirty-three years. For twenty-six years he was a staff member and taught PE classes, ran the community service program, coached baseball, and helped take care of the buildings and grounds. Now he just teaches woodworking and helps John McGovern with facility maintenance. A native of Durham, North Carolina, his two kids both attended Carolina Friends School and his son Dylan is currently a member of the Upper School Staff. Before he worked at Carolina Friends School, Terry was a contractor who built houses. |
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Tim O'Hara teaches Math and Physics in the Upper School. His prior teaching experience includes teaching high school Math in Houston, TX and Guatemala City, Guatemala and teaching middle school math and science in Ankara, Turkey. Tim has degrees in Science, Business and Education and a diploma in Computer Programming. Besides anything mathematical, Tim is passionate about comics and has been collecting them for 22 years. |
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Wilhelmina (Willy) Rotella was born in Amsterdam, Holland and came to the US at the age of ten. After receiving a degree in early childhood education at SUNY-Cobleskill, NY, she taught preschoolers on Long Island followed by teaching at Duke's Education Improvement Program (EIP) as lead teacher of the infant program before starting a lengthy relationship at Carolina Friends School in 1970. She first taught at the Durham Early School and in 1981 began work at the Upper School where she's known as “cruise director.” In addition to her work at CFS, Willy spent four years at the National HIV/AIDS hotline in the Research Triangle. Willy holds down the main office in the Upper School, teaches two courses per term (i.e., child development, yearbook, basket |
| weaving, and adolescent health issues), and serves as advisor. She's the mother of two adult daughters, Jennifer and Danielle. When not working at CFS, Willy enjoys gardening, basket weaving, other crafty endeavors, and hanging out with her family. |
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