Princeton Weekly Bulletin June 7, 1999

Secondary school teachers win awards

   

Todd Gudgel (l), Theodora Lacey, President Shapiro, Joseph Amorino and Ralph Pantozzi (photo by Denise Applewhite)


At Commencement Princeton awarded prizes for excellence in secondary school teaching to Joseph Amorino, Todd Gudgel, Theodora Lacey and Ralph Pantozzi.

Art teacher Amorino chairs his department at Hudson Catholic High School in Jersey City, where he has been since 1977. From 1977 to 1980 he chaired the general studies program, which included fine arts, library science, business and reading. A graduate of Jersey City State College with bachelor's and master's degrees in fine arts, he studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York from 1988 to 1994. He is currently completing his EdD at Columbia University Teachers College with a dissertation on "addressing developmental concerns through the reawakening of sensory and affective responsivity in adolescents through the teaching of art."

Classics teacher Gudgel has been at Princeton Day School in Princeton since 1989, first in the middle school, where he taught Latin and history for three years, and then in the high school, teaching Latin, Greek and classical civilization. A 1987 graduate of the University of Chicago, he took an MA in classical languages and literature and then taught English at the American School of Correspondence and at PDS summer school.

Middle school science teacher Lacey came to Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Teaneck in 1969. A graduate of Alabama State College, she taught science in Alabama and Louisiana before moving to New Jersey, where she taught at Jersey City College for two years before returning to Louisiana with the National Science Foundation. As a young teacher she worked with Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and has been active in civil rights and community service throughout her career. She earned her MA at Hunter College in 1965 and has taken graduate courses at Rutgers and Howard universities.

Math teacher Pantozzi has chaired his department at David Brearley Middle and High School in Kenilworth since 1997, teaching and coordinating the math curriculum for the school district. He has also served as math assessor for the Educational Testing Service since 1996 and as an instructor and consultant in math at Rutgers since 1994. A Rutgers graduate with a 1992 BA and a 1996 EdM, he is currently an EdD candidate in math education. Before going to Brearley, he taught at Hightstown High School.