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REGINA COELI ACADEMY FACULTY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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REGINA COELI ACADEMY FACULTY
Father Stephen Torraco Chaplain of RCA; Instructor: Theology and Confirmation
B.A. St. Francis de Sales College; M.A. Boston College; M. Div., Harvard University Divinity School; Ph.D. Boston College.
Father Torraco currently teaches at Assumption College, Worcester, Massachussetts. He is also the author of various books and articles in moral theology, medical ethics, the social teaching of the Catholic Church, and the spiritual life. Father Torraco has been chaplain and theology instructor for RCA since the academy's inception in 1994 and is also a member of the Experts' Forum of the EWTN web site, where he answers questions in moral theology on a daily basis.
Sister Margarita Igriczy-Nagy Instructor: Latin and Progymnasmata
M. D., Ph.D. Ohio State University
Sister Margarita Igriczy-Nagy was born in Hungary; after the 1956 revolution in Hungary, she fled to London, where she practiced medicine for a decade until her family was reunited in the USA. She continued her practice here until retiring to found the Servitores Reginae Apostolorum, an ad experimentum institute of religious life dedicated to the promotion of Latin Literacy and to recitation and promotion of the traditional Latin Officium Divinum.
She studied Patristic Greek and Latin at Catholic University of America and successfully defended her doctoral thesis on the Explanatio in Psalmos of St. Robert Bellarmine before the classics department at the Ohio State University in 2007. Shortly thereafter she joined the RCA faculty as an instructor in Latin and the Progymnasmata. Prior to joining the RCA faculty, she taught at St. Mary's Academy and College, Ohio State University, and was adjunct professor in Latin at the Josephinum Pontifical Seminary.
Mrs. Linda "Magistra" Robinson Principal of RCA; Instructor: Latin, Humanities Program Coordinator
B.A. McNeese State University; M.A., Louisiana State University
A free-lance writer and teacher, Mrs. Robinson has classroom experience at the middle school, high school, and university level. She has published children's fiction and scholarly articles, directed scholarly conferences on the role of faith in culture, and is the mother of three children, all of whom were home-educated, the eldest of whom is now home-schooling her own brood of three.
Miss Kelly Anderson Instructor: Language Arts, Greek
B.A. - Iona College; S.T.B. - Gregorian University; M.A. - Institute of Religious Studies S.S.L. Candidate Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome
Miss Anderson's passion for reading found its culmination in Sacred Scripture. Her Biblical Studies have given her the opportunity to study Greek and Hebrew in Rome, which she hopes to complete with a doctorate in Biblical Studies. She enjoys teaching on the high school level and looks forward this year to begin a college career teaching Ethics at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. She loves music and played the organ for Sunday Masses in Rome, as well as the keyboard for live televised Masses.
Mrs. Shannon Federoff Instructor: Language Arts, Humanities Discussion Leader
BA in English, Franciscan University of Steubenville, MA in Curriculum and Instruction, Chapman University
Mrs. Federoff grew up as the child of an U.S. soldier, and spent her high school years in Augsburg, Germany. She was heavily involved in community theater there, and choose to pursue a degree from Franciscan University of Steubenville in English with a concentration in theater arts. She has a master's degree in education, and taught middle school and high school English for 3 years before becoming a full-time homeschool mom. She has been married for 14 years, and has 8 wonderful children. Mrs. Federoff was also a popular chastity educator, working out of a local hospital and giving presentations to Catholic and public schools. Mrs. Federoff is adept at "thinking out of the box" -- she and Mr. Federoff built their own house out of straw bales! But she specifically requests, "No big-bad-wolf jokes!"
Dr. Richard Ferrier Regina Coeli Academy Instructor, American History, Humanities Discussion Leader
B.A., St. John's College, Annapolis MD , M.A., Ph.D., Indiana University
Dr. Ferrier has taught at Thomas Aquinas College since 1978, and is on the Board of the California Association of Scholars. His writings have appeared in many newspapers and journals, including Heterodoxy, Academic Questions, the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union Tribune, and the Ventura County Star. He has lectured at Southern Virginia College, St. John's College Santa Fe, St. Mary's College, Moraga, and, of course, at his home institution, Thomas Aquinas College. He does frequent radio interviews on current politics and the American Founding, and has been a guest on MSNBC TV, on the issue of affirmative action and its relation to American Principles. In 1996 he was Vice-Chairman, California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign [Proposition 209] and currently is the President of the Declaration Foundation.
He has taught the American Founding, Lincoln, Locke, Tocqueville, and the classical historians and political thinkers in most of his 25 years of service at Thomas Aquinas College, and has volunteered many times to lecture in local schools on American politics and history, especially on the Civil War and its causes. His internet writings on Lincoln and his recent detractors have been extensive in the last two years. He has also served as the higher education correspondent for the California Political Review. Dr. Ferrier's academic interests include, besides the American Founding, classical philosophy, especially physics, and the growth of mathematics during the Scientific Revolution.
Dr. Dale Grote Instructor: AP Latin
Ph.D University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Dale Grote, well known to budding Latin scholars for his "lifesaving" book, A Comprehensive Guide to Wheelock's Latin and for many contributions to Classical Education and the Home School, joins the Regina Coeli Academy as instructor for the Advanced Placement in Vergil. He is Associate Professor of Classics a the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and current vice-president (soon to be president) of the North Carolina Classical Association. A well known speaker at Classical Christian education conferences, Dr. Grote conducts tours to Greece and Rome and will be offering such a trip for RCA students next year.
Mrs. Sandra Harrison Instructor: Math / Science Instructor; Math/Science Program Coordinator
B.S. University of Arkansas, Little Rock
Mrs. Harrison graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, with a Bachelor's degree in Physics and a minor in Math, and was the Honor Physics student of the year her graduating year. She was awarded the Shell Oil Fellowship at Oklahoma University in 1984, and attended the OU as a graduate student in Engineering Physics where her duties included teaching Freshman Physics Laboratories, and Physics problem solving sessions. She has taught Algebra II, Trigonometry, Geometry, Chemistry, Jr. High Physical Science and Jr. High Math classes at a small Catholic school in Cincinnati, OH.
She and her husband, Havis, have seven lovely children (ages 14- 1): Benjamin, Daniel, Samuel, Isaac, Eva Marie, Noah and Micah. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison are CCD teachers for their parish, teach Natural Family Planning for the diocese of Little Rock. For the past nine years, they have used a classical approach in their home school in South-East Arkansas, where they reside with several cats, two dogs and sundry other pets.
Sandra is co-president of High Note Solutions Co., which produces Catholic Music Curricula for home educators.
Dr. Mitchell Kalpakgian Instructor: Humanities Discussion Leader
Ph.D, University of Iowa.
The son of Armenian immigrants, Mitchell Kalpakgian was born in Milford Massachusetts, in 1941 and graduated from Milford High School in 1959. He earned his B.A. in English from Bowdoin College in 1963, his M.A. in English from the University of Kansas in 1965, and his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1974. He taught at Simpson College (Indianola, Iowa) for thirty one years, at Christendom College (Front Royal, Virginia) for two years, and at Magdalen College (Warner, New Hampshire) for two years. Currently he is an adjunct professor of English at Saint Anselm College and at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire. In the fall of 2008 he join the faculty of Wyoming Catholic College as Professor of Humanities He was married for twenty-five years to the late Joyce Narsasian and is the father of five children.
He has written three books: The Marvellous in Fielding's Novel (University Press of America, 1980), The Mysteries of life in Children's Literture (Neumann Press, 2000), and An Armenian Family Reunion(Neumann Press, 2004). Another book, Wisdom Ever Ancient, Ever New (a collection of essays), will be published by Neumann Press in 2008. He is a regular contributor to New Oxford Review, Catholic Men's Quarterly, Culture Wars magazine, and Homiletic and Pastoral Review.
He has been a guest lecturer at the Wyoming School of Catholic Thought during the summers of 2003 and 2005, lecturing on “The Home and Family in Literature” in 2003 and On “The Glory of God in Creation: Beauty in the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins” in 2005
His favorite activities include writing, long distance running, and coaching soccer.
Mrs. Anne Kootz Instructor: Chemistry
B.A. Chemistry (Bio option) University of Colorado, Boulder
Mrs. Kootz studied Pre-Nursing, Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the University of Colorado, graduating in 1979. She took an additional year of Chemical Engineering courses at the Arizona State University in Tempe. She worked in the chemical industry, the transportation industry, and the American Red Cross prior to starting her family.
Mrs. Kootz is an 11 year veteran of home schooling her four sons. Her two eldest sons have graduated from homeschool; Karl studied at a trade school in Florida and is now a commercial diver, and Austin, after a freshman year at Arkansas Tech, has accepted an appointment to the US Air Force Academy.
Together with her husband Buddy, Anne teaches Natural Family Planning through the Couple to Couple League. She is a coordinator for Perpetual Adoration at her parish church. In her spare time, Anne sings for her church and is a soprano soloist for the Lyon Community Orchestra. After 13 years of watching from the sidelines she is coaching a 4 - 6 year old soccer team.
The Kootzes lived in 15 homes in 5 states and Germany during Buddy's 20 years of military service. Now they are settled, with their younger sons, Brett and Peter, and Chihuahua Pancho, in a quiet, rural neighborhood in Arkansas.
Mrs. Rebecca Monnikendam Instructor: Algebra II
B.S. Millsaps College, Jackson, MS University of MS Medical Center, Jackson, MS
Mrs. Monnikendam graduated from Millsaps College with a Bachelor's degree in biology and a minor in chemistry. She then went on to gain a Bachelor's degree from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, MS in Physical Therapy. She tutored algebra and biology throughout college and was a biology TA when in graduate school.
She and her husband, Chris, homeschool their five children (ages 11-1): Jacob, Joshua, Daniel, David, and Mary Frances. They live in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
Dr. Steven O'Brien Instructor: Church History, American History and Government, Humanities Discussion Leader
Ph.D History, Boston College.
Dr. O'Brien is the author of Blackrobes in Blue: the Naval Chaplaincy of John P. Foley, which is listed as a resource for Catholics in the Armed Forces at CatholicMil.com
Dr. O'Brien has published extensively in such periodicals as Our Sunday Visitor, Columbia, the Boston Pilot, Military, Cobblestone, SeattleCatholic.com, academic journals and other popular periodicals. He also writes regularly for The Latin Mass Magazine, providing biographies of individual Catholics who have fought for what they believed right, often against terrible odds.
Dr. Beth Parks Instructor: Precalculus
B.A. Cornell College; Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Parks graduated Summa cum Laude with a B.A. in Chemistry and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry. After graduation she investigated the three-dimensional structures of pea lectin and scorpion toxins as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alabama in Birmingham until the birth of her first child. Homeschooling her three children over the course of 16 years has kept Dr. Parks up to date on her math skills. She has especially enjoyed helping coach her son's MathCounts team and preparing him for the AMC tests.
Together with her husband Tom, she teaches Natural Family Planning classes through the Couple to Couple League. They live in Rogers, Arkansas.
Dr. Francisco Romero Instructor: Logic; Philosophy; Latin; Calculus
B.S. University of Steunbenville, Ohio
Mr. Romero was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At age 18 he left the island to pursue philosophical studies at Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio). He later continued his doctoral studies in philosophy at Marquette University, in Milwaukee. There, he specialized in Medieval Aristotelian and Scholastic thought. For the last six years he has taught philosophy, Latin, and other disciplines at various institutions, such as Marquette University, Cardinal Stritch University, Christ the King College, St. Francis Seminary, and Miami-Dade College. He and his wife and three daughters currently live in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Mr. Romero will defend his dissertation this May and will receive his doctorate before the start of classes.
Dr. Andrew Seeley Instructor: Humanities Discussion Leader
B.A. Thomas Aquinas College;Ph.D Mediaeval Studies (Theology), University of Toronto
For twelve years, Dr. Seeley has been a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College in California, teaching courses in Biblical Studies, Logic, Natural Philosophy, Geometry, Cartesian Algebra, Differential Calculus, Modern Philosophy and Literature, Newtonian Physics, and Music Theory.He is co-author of Declaration Statesmanship: A Course in American Government.
Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson
Instructor: Language Arts, French
B.A, The University of Western Ontario; Bachelor of Education - Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario; Certificat en français langue seconde - Université Laval, Quebec City, Quebec
Mrs. Thompson graduated from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, with a degree in French Language and Literature. During her years at Western, she took a one-year study term at Université Laval in Quebec City and there obtained a Certificate in FSL. She also earned a TESL Certificate which she used to broaden her experience by teaching in South Korea for a year. Mrs. Thompson has taught general classroom, ESL, Core French, Music, and school Band. Until the birth of her first baby, she directed her parish and school Choir and had been a leader for parish summer camps.
Mrs. Thompson and her husband Michael currently reside in Lakefield Ontario, Canada, with their beautiful children Blaise, Theresa, Catherine and Ian – and are delighted to announce they are expecting yet another blessing to be born in February of 2010! Mrs. Thompson is tenth of 13 children. She and her husband are aunt and uncle to close to 100 nieces and nephews!