The two senior teachers of the English department, Dr. Julia Bucci and Mr. Fred Lindstrom, are in their final year at Dana Hall. Dr. Bucci has spent the past 20 years teaching here at Dana Hall and 13 of those years she served as department chair. Mr Lindstrom’s been at Dana Hall for 21 years.
Dr. Bucci has accomplished many things she’s been proud of in her time here. She’s hired and helped to hire most of the English teachers and worked with the rest of the English department to bring more “diversity, inclusion and belonging into their classes”. Dr Bucci reflected on her pride in helping students in their writing throughout her time here. One of her students, Cevianna Depina ’27 says “Dr Bucci is a teacher who pushes you to become someone who you thought you would never be. She pushed me out of my comfort zone and believed in my writing”. Even in the pandemic, she found lots of joy in helping students individually over zoom. She has also been an advisor in her time at Dana and says “I carry my students in my heart long after they’ve graduated”.
Going forward, Dr Bucci plans to do more one-on-one work with writers. She’s excited to continue her tutoring business and working with students on their writing from college essays to writing contests and other things that come up. While she enjoys working with students, she looks forward to teaching life writing to adults. Additionally she plans to make her screenplay into a novel. She says, “I’m scared but excited at the prospect of writing a novel, something I’ve never done before”. She and her husband will also be moving to Groton, where she is excited to be in a small friendly community and get the chance to partake in “ardent political activism” and enjoy spending time with her family and beloved dog.
Mr. Lindstrom has also made great contributions to the Dana Hall community. In the Literature and Composition classes, he has used The Odyssey to stress the roles of the outsider and the leader. This has led to valuable lessons in leadership and Mr Lindstrom has continued to emphasize the importance of these ideas in other classes. Cevianna also had Mr Lindstrom and states “Mr Lindstrom was very enthusiastic about teaching. His classroom was like a family, everyone in there was heard and seen”. He played a large role in moving the English Department away from a final exam, and more towards projects such as the Presentation of Mastery. The Presentation of Mastery is the ninth grade English final, and a chance for ninth graders to put together a portfolio of everything they’ve worked on over the course of the year. Additionally, he has helped Dana to fully embrace World Literature as well as designing a women’s literature course. Mr Lindstrom said, “when I first taught here, world literature was what’s by British people, Irish people, French people and maybe like German”. Mr. Lindstrom has introduced Chinese, Japanese, and Korean literature, and he created a database of some of these writers to share with teachers across the nation. In the athletics department, Mr. Lindstrom coached Cross Country for three years. He also was able to get the rock climbing wall approved and has taught climbing for many years, adding and rebuilding routes to make it more interesting for climbers.
In the future, Mr Lindstrom plans on continuing his extensive work in East Asian Literature. He wants to do something education-related as well. He is looking forward to working on his gardening. Mr. Lindstrom loved watching his daughters grow up at Dana, from their walks to school in the morning and seeing them throughout the day, and he looks forward to watching them in their futures beyond Dana.