FACULTY

Faculty

Virginia is a graduate of Nottingham University with joint degrees in Chemistry and Biochemistry and a Masters of Education with a Waldorf Certificate from Antioch New England in Keene, New Hampshire. She worked for many years as an elementary school teacher at the Cape Ann Waldorf School in Beverly, MA, where she also held the positions of Faculty Chair and College Chair and worked extensively with Educational Support and Professional Development. She came to Hartsbrook in 2008, first to take over as a class teacher, and then, after graduating her class from 8th grade, to bring a new leadership to the Hartsbrook High School as Pedagogical Chair. She is a member of AWSNA’s Teacher Education Network, where she is professional adviser to the Great Lakes, Arcturus, and Sunbridge College Teacher Training Institutes. Virginia has also been an adjunct faculty member at Antioch New England Graduate School, where, among other responsibilities, she reviewed Master’s Thesis work in Waldorf Education. She is a member of the Leadership Council of the Anthroposophical Society of North America. Virginia points to a turning point in her recent life when she spent her sabbatical teaching students and mentoring teachers in South Africa. “It was extremely inspiring to experience the incredible dedication and determination to create Waldorf Education with next to nothing for students who had nothing.”

Tony grew up in England, where he attended Cambridge University, earning an M.A. degree in English Literature. After working in provincial journalism, he moved to the United States in 1977 to study creative writing and Tibetan buddhism at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Subsequently he published four espionage novels which have been translated into five languages and became bestsellers in England and Italy. After teaching writing at Yale University and Bard College he moved to Amherst where his children attended Hartsbrook’s elementary school. In 2000 he joined the parental group studying Waldorf pedagogy with Roberto Trostli, who became lead teacher of the first high school class in 2002. Tony has taught English and History full-time at the school since 2007.

Steve was an actuarial mathematics major at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and worked as a student actuary in the private sector. He also holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and a Master’s in Education through the Creativity Program from the University of Massachusetts. Steve completed his Waldorf teacher training through the San Francisco extension program of the Rudolf Steiner College while working as a class teacher at Willow Wood Waldorf School and at SunRidge Waldorf Methods Charter School in Sebastopol, California. He continued class teaching and music specialty teaching in England at the Acorn School and Wynstones Steiner School, and was a house parent for students with autism and Asperger’s syndrome at Ruskin Mill College.

Thomas received his B.A. in History with honors from the University of Massachusetts and did his high school teacher training at the Center for Anthroposophy in Wilton, New Hampshire. He has worked for human rights and civil liberties in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Korea, and has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He has been teaching, in one capacity or another, for the last twenty years, and has also guided travel tours with high school students in Europe and Japan. He and his family returned to the United States in 1999 after living in Japan for several years so that his two children could attend Hartsbrook. His son, Casay, graduated in the class of 2011 and his daughter, Nora, is a member of the class of 2014.

Cherrie completed her B.A. in English and French at The State University of New York at Albany and at the University of Nice, France, and completed her M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing on a fellowship to Iowa State University, where she taught Freshman Composition and Creative Non-Fiction for several years. She became a member of the Hartsbrook community when her daughter, Lucie, entered Cricket on the Hearth in 1996, and began teaching French and Literature in the High School at its inception in 2002. Between degrees, she worked as a freelance writer and editor while living in New York City for 15 years, and has published poetry and essays. She did her Waldorf Foundations Studies with Roberto Trostli and other Hartsbrook High School faculty in 2002, and has trained with a wide variety of master Waldorf teachers all over the Northeast. Lucie is a member of the class of 2014.

Rosemary joined the Hartsbrook faculty in 2010, where she teaches physics and math. She has taught physics and astrophysics at the college level at the University of Toronto, Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA), Smith College and University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She received bachelor’s degrees from MIT in 1997 in Physics and Humanities and Science with a focus on Music and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. She did her graduate work at the University of Toronto in Astronomy and Astrophysics. In spring 2013 she will be completing the Foundation Studies course offered by the Center for Anthroposophy. She has also trained as an operatic mezzo-soprano, and is an accredited breastfeeding peer support counselor. She lives in a co-housing community in Florence with her husband and two children, both of whom attend Hartsbrook in the classes of 2023 and 2025.

Jan Kees earned his B.A. the Netherlands in English at the University of Groningen and an M.A. in English from the University of Utrecht, with post-graduate study in Child Psychology and Art History. He was born in Amsterdam just six years after the Second World War. He had what you call a “classical” high school education: seven years of Latin and Greek every day, plus three other languages. He loved speaking them, but not German especially… at the time. Love of German awoke later on, when he lived in Germany, studying Speech Formation in the Novalis Schule. He taught English at the Zeister Vrije School in Holland, worked on a farm in Norway (where he learned for the first time about Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf education), taught classical guitar at the Musikschule and Dutch at the Volkshochschule in Stuttgart, and enjoys cooking and making furniture. A full life, and he is still working hard to get the hang of teaching, inspired by the amazing students he finds Hartsbrook. He says, “They make it fun!” At our opening day ceremony, when asked what he brings to our school, he said: “I am serious about humor,” and he is.

Chip holds B.S. and M.A. degrees from Oregon State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, all in Computer Science, with an emphasis on Computer Engineering. As an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at University of Massachusetts, he conducts research in high performance computer architectures and parallel algorithms, with work in the area of machine vision, and has written 24 introductory computer science textbooks. At Hartsbrook, alongside his classes in Computer and Earth Sciences—Geology, Meteorology, and Astronomy—he often teaches electives in Photography and Stone Sculpture, as well as the concluding block of senior year on Child Development and Waldorf Education. He spent two years in Waldorf Foundation Studies prior to becoming a founding member of the High School faculty, and regularly attends workshops for Waldorf science teachers at the Nature Institute as part of a broader, ongoing program of professional development. Having been an avid photographer since he was eight years old, he can also be seen taking pictures at numerous Hartsbrook events for use in the yearbook and Bulletin. He has also served as webmaster, stewardship chair, and senior deacon at the North Congregational Church in Amherst, and as Scoutmaster of BSA Troop 504, leading the western Massachusetts contingent to the national jamboree in 2005. His children were students at Hartsbrook, his daughter from kindergarten through 8th grade, and his son from 4th through his graduation in the senior class of 2008.

Alex has a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in teaching from Smith College. He is a graduate of the Kimberton Waldorf School and has worked as a research associate in Cancer Therapy and Neurodevelopment at Penn Medical School and Smith College. 2013-2014 was his first year teaching at Hartsbrook. Previously, he student-taught at Greenfield High School. Alex is a soccer and guitar enthusiast and has two children, Ella and Nicholas, who participate in the early childhood program at Hartsbrook.

Adjunct Faculty