An instructor in French on the Ammi Wright Lancashire Teaching Foundation, Natalie Schorr enjoys teaching French language, literature and films. She has recently written Tune Up Your French, a book for adults who want to improve their spoken French, and will be editor of a series including other languages, to be published by McGraw-Hill. She also wrote Le Français par le Journalisme, a guide to producing a French newspaper as a portfolio of student assignments. For use with her Andover students, she co-authored a literary anthology, Tremplins, and edited a collection of French poems that became songs, Poèmes chantés. Her students have performed puppet shows in French at the French Library in Boston and the Bancroft School in Andover.

A 1962 graduate of Abbot Academy, Schorr received a B.A. degree from McGill University and an M.A. degree in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania, where she served as François Mitterand’s interpreter during his visit to Philadelphia. She received a D.E.S. (diplôme d’études supérieures) from L’Université d’Aix-Marseille, then served as a lectrice at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Fontenay-aux-Roses in France. Joining the Andover faculty in 1974, she has served as chair of the French department and director of foreign languages. She was instrumental in introducing Japanese into the curriculum and in developing plans for the Language Learning Center. She has studied yoga for many years and leads yoga classes fall and winter terms.

Henry B. Wilmer Jr. '63
Director, Language Learning Center
Instructor in French

Phone: 978-749-4201
Email: hwilmer@andover.edu

At Andover since 1970, Henry Wilmer has served as a teacher, coach, house counselor and administrator. He is currently director of the Language Learning Center and an instructor in French. He also is an instructor in the Search & Rescue Program, coaches crew and serves as a non-resident counselor and adviser in Elbridge Stuart House. A German major at Davidson College, he earned a master’s degree in French at Middlebury College and in Paris.

Presently pursuing the uses of technology in language instruction, Wilmer is experimenting with the ways technology can dramatically improve and refresh learning for students and teaching for teachers. He currently is concentrating on distance learning as a complement to in-class activities and the language lab as a way to increase oral production by each student, both during and outside class.

Lisa Svec recently returned to campus from a yearlong sabbatical in the mountains south of Salzburg, Austria, where she visited classes at the local high school to observe how German literature and language is taught to 9th graders there. She also read extensively, attended plays and lectures, and skied and hiked in the Austrian Alps. Back at Andover, she teaches first through fifth year German, enjoying all her classes “because of the energy, intellect and humor my students bring to class,” she says. “I learn at least as much from them as they do from me.” She also coaches JVII soccer and serves as a complementary house counselor, academic adviser and German club adviser.

It always felt natural to Svec to be a teacher. As a teenager, she taught English as a foreign language, swimming and gymnastics. She loved Spanish and German as a student at Andover and decided to spend an interim year abroad after graduating in 1981. After a year in Germany, she was “hooked” and went on to study German at Dartmouth College. She was encouraged by a professor to become a “Rassias” drill instructor, teaching first and second year German. She loved it, and when offered a teaching fellow position at Andover in 1986, “I didn’t hesitate for a second,” she says. She later earned an M.A. degree in German from Tufts University. Svec and her husband, Victor Svec, instructor in Russian, have two children, ages 11 and 14.

Teaching Latin, Greek, etymology and classical civilization for 36 years at Andover, Nick Kip has advanced the study of classics in numerous ways. He introduced computers to display, manipulate and even interact with texts, exercises, maps, photos and videos of Greco-Roman antiquities. He wrote the Andover Latin Sourcebook to anchor second and third year grammar, vocabulary and readings. He revised Andover’s etymology course to engage a great range of abilities and interests by generating his own text, methodology and online resources, including computerized flash cards and mp3 audio files. He restructured the accelerated first and second year Greek course to attract and challenge 12 to 18 students each year; three of these students later became Rhodes Scholarship finalists. He developed a special intensive two-year Latin sequence to support students with little or no previous success in language learning. He also has directed and produced five Latin plays.

Outside the classroom, Kip spent 15 years as Andover’s head wrestling coach. Now coaching an innovative fitness program he developed, he hopes to draw on the program’s success to coach others, in partnership with his wife, Aggie, school nutritionist/dietician and a certified personal trainer. He also helps run a dormitory and serves as an academic adviser and day student adviser. A 1960 Andover graduate, Kip received a B.A. degree cum laude in classics from Princeton University and an M.A. degree in classics from Trinity College.
Andover Bulletin Fall 1999: On the Intellectual High Road

Peter Merrill is head of the Division of World Languages and chair of the Global Perspectives Group at Phillips Academy. A member of the Andover faculty since 1989 and chair of the Russian Department from 1997–2004, he presently teaches upper levels of Russian and lower levels of German. Ever an active participant in Andover’s athletic program, Merrill has coached girls’ ice hockey and boys’ crew, and now runs the instructional fencing program. He is also a house counselor in a large boys’ dorm.

Merrill recently completed four years as president of the American Council of Teachers of Russian and currently serves on its board of directors. As a member of the Delegate Assembly of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, the advisory board of RussNet (creating on-line delivery of Russian learning materials), and the taskforce developing the new Russian Advanced Placement exam, Merrill is deeply involved in the foreign language field at the national level. He previously served as co-chair of the Task Force on National Standards for Russian; principal author and co-head of the Russian team to develop a national “Language Learning Framework”; and coordinator of Northeast Russian Hub, a regional resource center for secondary school teachers of Russian. In recognition of his work on several of these projects, he was given an award for “Excellence in Teaching at the Secondary Level” by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages in 1995.

During recent summers, Merrill was a facilitator for the Summer Russian AP Seminar at Bryn Mawr College in 2003; group leader of the first Bi-National Seminar in Technology in Culture Education in Moscow and Zvenigorod in 2002; and representative to New Visions in Foreign Language held in Virginia in 2000.  He served as a consultant to language teachers in Tajikistan with Andover’s International Academic Partnership in October 2003.

A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Merrill received an AM degree and a BA degree cum laude in Russian language and literature from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an MA degree in linguistics and a PhD degree in Slavic languages and literatures from the University of California, Los Angeles.  He has authored several articles on Russian linguistics and co-authored a book on the historical development of the Slavic languages.

Victor Svec’s sense of humor shows when he says that after 30 years on the Andover faculty, he still thinks of teaching as his hobby. “My first appointment as a teaching fellow clearly stated this was a one year non-renewable contract. By trade, I’m a master carpenter,” he says. Presently Svec teaches Russian 100, 150, 200 and 300; he spent a sabbatical during 2002-03 in Austria, working on an all-digital first-level Russian textbook. “Each level of Russian has its own challenges,” he says. “Getting off the ground is tough, but it’s also tough to hone one’s knowledge to a fine edge.”

Svec earned a B.A. degree and did graduate work at the University of Washington. At PA since 1979, he coaches volleyball and serves as a complementary dorm counselor and academic adviser. His interests include rock climbing, hiking, technology and travel.

Mark Cutler’s favorite activity is tasting different cuisines when he travels. “Every region of the world has a different flavor,” he says. He began traveling after 7th grade, when he exchanged month-long visits with a boy from Madrid, Spain. Instantly smitten by Spain and travel abroad, Cutler majored in Spanish at St. Lawrence University and then received an M.A. degree in Spanish from Middlebury College. His experience as a college teaching assistant got him hooked on teaching as a career.

On the Andover faculty since 2003, Cutler teaches both beginning and advanced Spanish classes. “I truly enjoy starting students out in language and then seeing them through to the end of their high school career,” he says. In addition to teaching, he is a house counselor for a 9th-grade boys’ dorm, directs the Search & Rescue program and supervises the Andover Snowboarding Society and the Rock Climbing Society. He and his wife love hiking and camping with their dog, an Australian shepherd/border collie mix, which he describes as “very cute and lots of fun to run and play with.”

Shortly after joining the PA faculty in 1987, John Maier gave the first video course in the Spanish department. His interest in developing electronic teaching resources continues today, and he has created a significant archive of materials used in Spanish 200. He is currently working on a structure of materials and Internet links that will allow Spanish 200 students to work independently with a full range of instructional and practice materials.

Maier holds a B.A. degree from Ohio Wesleyan, M.A. degree from the University of Minnesota and Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin/Madison. He previously taught at the University of Wisconsin, Bates College, Bethany College and Bradford College. He has written several published articles about medieval Spanish romance and a monograph edition of a 13th-century romance. He established, along with PA colleagues Hal and Becky McCann, the Destinos program used by first and second year Spanish students, and was co-author of the High School Study Guide that accompanies the Destinos textbook. He says walking the entire 500 miles of Spain’s Camino de Santiago in 35 days during summer 1995 was a significant moment in his personal and professional life. He chaired the Spanish department from 1997-2002 and spent the 2002-03 academic year on sabbatical in Burgos, Spain.

Myriam has given talks at Holy Cross and Boston College about the role of women in rural and urban Spain.  She has also presented various papers in conferences in Spain about social science pedagogy in elementary and secondary schools, several of which have been published.

Myriam is also the founder-director of two languages institutes in Spain: the Instituto Español de Burgos (INESBU) and Instituto Español de Lenguas Modernas (INESLE).

An accomplished writer who has published four poetry collections, a novella, a book of short stories and a children’s book, Emilio Mozo is chair of the Spanish department. His work was featured in Nuevos Contextos: 12 Cuentistas Contemporáneos de Hispanoamerica, published in 2002 by Harcourt Brace Publishers, and his most recent poetry collection, Hotel des Etrangers, was published in 2001 in Salamanca, Spain. He has read his works at bookstores, cultural centers and conferences in the United States, Cuba and Spain.

Mozo received a B.A. degree from Sir George Williams University and an M.A. degree in Spanish language and literature from McGill University. He also received an honorary doctorate of literature from the World Academy of Arts and Culture, issued at the X World Congress of Poets in Bangkok, Thailand. He was a lecturer in Spanish at Vanier College in Montreal before joining the Andover faculty in 1984. At PA, he was also dean of Summer School from 1985-1988. During summer 2000, he attended Shakespeare Summer School at the University of Cambridge in England, where he studied "Shakespeare and the Supernatural."

Mozo's book, Hôtel des Étrangers